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Healthcare price transparency – a good common goal

In my last blog post, I unwittingly evoked vehemence on the part of those pro/con a single payer model for healthcare. And so in this post I’d like to offer some more food for thought (while attempting to dodge the high velocity tomatoes):

First of all, Dr. Reece summarizes things nicely, suggesting that this debate is not entirely resolvable:

Incompatible Mindsets

• If your mindset is that government’s moral duty is to redistribute resources to protect the health of all, and that health is directly related to the extent of health system coverage, you think and receive information in a certain way. You generally attribute superior health statistics of other nations to universal coverage, even if these other nations have more homogeneous, smaller populations, and different cultures.

• If your mindset is that private markets provide the best care for most of the people most of the time, provide better access to high technologies, give more health care choices to citizens, distribute resources more efficiently and that the health of the people is more related to cultural behaviors and a nation’s heterogeneous population, you receive information in completely different way.

The Unending Argument

The power and efficiency of government vis-à-vis the power and efficiency of markets is a never-ending argument – an argument unlikely to change mindsets. To progressives, it’s a moral argument: to conservatives, it’s an exercise in reality. You can marshal persuasive arguments on both sides, without convincing either side who is right.

An economics blogger explains why extending Medicare benefits to all would not succeed:

The dirty little secret behind Medicare is that it works only because it does not cover every American. Part of the reason for this is that Medicare’s payment structure is designed to pay doctors and hospitals in such a way as to limit total spending, rather than to ensure they can break even. Clearly, they have to do better than break even to stay in business, and the people running Medicare know that. Medicare depends on the fact that there are lots of non-Medicare patients out there who (through their private insurance) can pay enough to keep the doctors and hospitals in business. This is called “cost shifting.”

Whether pro/con single payer system, I think that we nearly all can agree on one thing: price transparency is morally right. It’s hard to fix a system if you don’t really know where the money is coming from or going to.  I think it would be nice to have people on both sides of the debate work together for that common goal first. Would you agree?

This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.

Your healthcare system through a different lens…

Imagine if you went to the grocery store to purchase a week’s worth of groceries – once in the store you had to select items without price tags or any labels suggesting which items were more expensive than others. In addition, all the items were behind counters, so that you had to ask for them from store personnel (and cannot inspect them at close range) who wrapped them in opaque paper and initialed them before handing them over. You were paying a monthly fee to be a store “club member” to get discounts, but were not told what those discounts might be.

So now once you’ve gathered all your groceries you stand in the check out line. The person in front of you is complaining about the outrageous price of her groceries, while the clerk responds that she didn’t force her to shop at the store or select those groceries, that it would have been cheaper if she were a club member, and that higher prices were assessed based on the individual store personnel initials that were on her paper wrapped items. The clerk also tells her that she cannot return any items (as once they’re wrapped, they’re considered non-refundable – and that she will be reported to a debt collection agency if she does not pay). The shopper is outraged, but since she doesn’t want her credit ruined, and there are no other stores within 100 miles, she pays the price and leaves.

Your turn comes to check out. You’re a club member so your bill is substantially less, but you can’t be sure what the individual items cost or which fees were added based upon the various initials written on the white paper. In fact, you have a feeling that the store staff added some additional packages to your cart when you weren’t looking, but you can’t be sure because of the wrapping. You pay your bill, go home, and find as you unwrap your groceries that at least half of the things you bought were not what you thought they were (or what you wanted), and that there were indeed extra items in there that you never asked to buy.

What kind of crazy scenario is this? It’s a simplified analogy of our healthcare system. The shoppers are patients, club membership is insurance, stores are hospitals, grocery wrappers are healthcare providers, and clerks are the hospital administrators. I also emphasized the lack of price transparency that is inherent in the system.

If grocery stores were actually like this, there would be a violent, nationwide revolt within days. Are consumers ready for a revolution in healthcare? I hope they are, because their collective bargaining power is probably the only thing that will force price transparency and system-wide improvements. But to make this happen, consumers should consider a few key points:

  1. A single payer model is nothing more than taking the grocery store system we already have and asking the store to accept a new club card whereby staff will decrease the size of the grocery items (by 50%) to those members. One of the best quotes I’ve read about the certain doom of a single payer system was recently posted in GruntDoc’s blog.
  2. Price transparency is the most important initial step to consumer empowerment and should be at the top of the lobbying list.
  3. Doctors are not the bad guys, the system is the bad guy. Physicians and patients must ally with one another to demand improvements. The AMA has taken a strong stand in favor of the consumer driven healthcare movement.
  4. Consumers must become active participants in their care. They need to educate themselves about their diseases and conditions and focus on early intervention and preventive medicine. As resources become more and more scarce, and the US population becomes older and sicker, healthy living practices provide the only real hope of relief from the complications of advanced disease. As Dr. Feld notes in his blog, 80% of healthcare dollars are spent on complications of chronic diseases!

I think that Revolution Health can play a critical role in consumer empowerment. Here at the “Web 2.0” social network intersection between healthcare professionals and patients, RHG can help consumers take control of their health (via education and peer support), and join forces with others like them to revolt against this unacceptable and bizarre “grocery store” system that we have in place!

This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.

How about a foot massage with that root canal?

Apparently, dentists are now offering feel-good perks to compliment their regular services. One dentist turned her Chicago-based practice into a “dental spa,” complete with free 10 minute massages, cooling eye masks, and peppermint foot scrubs. Cushy lounge chairs, scented candles, herbal tea, soothing music and flat screen TVs adorn the office. Dr. Mitchell says that this is her way of making a trip to the dentist “a really positive experience.”

The American Dental Association estimates that up to 25% of Americans avoid dentists because of fear of pain.

To be honest, I have mixed feelings about spa dentistry. Although I love massages, I’m sure if I were having one at the dentist, the impending doom of drilling and novocaine would diminish my enjoyment. It’s kind of like taking your boyfriend to dinner to break up with him – how much will you really enjoy the meal?

Beyond that, I wonder if the anxiety surrounding dental visits (provided in a spa-like setting) would cause some kind of anxiety transfer to spas in general? I can imagine that if people subconsciously associate foot massages or scented candles with tooth drilling, the next time they get a spa certificate as a gift they may pass it on at a white elephant party.

What do you think? Would you like to see more dental spas crop up across the nation?

This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.

Sniffing sweat might put you in a better mood?

A small pheromone study made a big splash in the media this week, announcing that male sweat contains a chemical that causes arousal in females.

The media’s sensationalization of the study made me feel dubious about the science behind it. I thought to myself, here we go again – some shoddy research and a lot of hand waving… I was determined enough to get the story straight, that I paid my $15 to the Journal of Neuroscience to get my hands on the original data. And I’m glad I did because my suspicions were NOT confirmed.

Claire Wyart et al. at UC Berkeley designed this study well. They took great pains to control the variables, account for confounders, and provide the appropriate environment for the study. “All testing was performed in a temperature and humidity controlled, stainless-steel-coated, 5 x 8 foot room equipped with HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) and carbon filtration.” Wyart’s team also made meticulous note of previous research on the subject. They also repeated the study just to make sure that their findings were reproduceable. A total of 48 women participated.

In this double blind, placebo-control study they found that exposure to one of the chemicals in male sweat, androstadienone (AND), produced increased cortisol levels, elevated mood, and increased sexual arousal (when combined with provocative videos) up to an hour after the AND was inhaled.

Now, instead of focusing on the enhanced sexual arousal observation (that triggered the media blitz), Wyart suggested an interesting twist: what if AND could be used as a therapy for those suffering from cortisol deficiency (Addison’s disease)? Current standard therapy requires cortisol replacement which may cause peptic ulcers, osteoporosis, weight gain, mood disorders, and other pathologies. But AND is a potential “natural” solution.

Of course, I’m somewhat skeptical of this alternative since Addison’s is generally caused by an autoimmune attack on the adrenal gland cells – and I’m not sure that stimulating what’s left of them (with AND) would result in enhanced cortisol production. Still, Wyart raises an interesting point: what if we could learn how to positively influence the endocrine system with scent stimulation? Could this be a new method of treatment for women with anxiety, depression, or low libido but with far fewer side effects than our current methods?

Well, it’s too early to tell, but I think Wyart’s on to something. As she notes in her research article, AND is only one of hundreds of chemicals found in human sweat, and it is unclear if it is the most potent chemical in the arousal arena. It will be interesting to see if AND is eventually added to perfumes, cosmetic products, and the like as a means of tricking the body into feeling happier, sexier, and more balanced. Science meets aromatherapy? What do you think?

This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.

Patient choice: trust the doctor?

I’ve invited my Revolution colleagues to form a “blog fodder chain” – when we see something interesting on the Internet, or have a difficult question, we forward it to one another as a kind of challenge to write about it in our blogs.

I have to say, though – they keep sending me the hard stuff. Examples of physicians gone bad, morally questionable healthcare practices, and hot topics full of mine fields. I keep hoping for the “which puppy do you think is cutest?” question. But no such luck for Dr. Val…

Our Chief Privacy Officer challenged me again with some powerful food for thought. A recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine reports that some physicians withhold information (about treatment options) from patients if the physician objects to the options on moral or religious grounds.  Med bloggers Kevin MD and Medpundit also have recent posts about this article.

Well, of course this inspires initial indignation. Aren’t physicians supposed to offer all the options, with factual explanations of their pro’s and con’s, and then let the patient decide what they’d like to do?

Well, yes, they are. But the funny thing is that time after time when I’ve tried to do that for patients, they’ve expressed annoyance at me. They say, “you tell me what I should do, you’re the doctor!” And so after hearing this over and over again, I ended up truncating my explanation of options to the most “reasonable” ones and then allowing the patient to ask for more if they’re interested. Am I allowing my personal values to determine the hierarchy of options I present? Yes, probably so.

I’ve noticed that attention spans, even when it comes to important medical decisions, appear to be fairly short. Eyes glaze over when we try to explain all the subtleties of the options, and in the end (if the patient likes you and trusts you as a human being) he or she just wants to know what you’d choose if you were in his/her shoes – and why.

Am I being paternalistic? I hope not. I want patients to choose what’s best for them, but strangely enough their choice is often to let me decide. The power that patients impart to us is an honor and a privilege – and the reason why doctors are held to a higher moral standard than many other professionals. They are right to hold us to that standard. We must not squander their trust.

This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.

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