The program, though, was never popular with insurance companies and politicians who listened to them, and the Act barely made it into the final bill. It ran into trouble from the beginning. The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, was tasked with Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Prepared Patient Forum: What It Takes Blog*
Last week, Medicare’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation announced a Comprehensive Primary Care (CPC) Initiative, which asks private payers and state Medicaid programs to join with Medicare to “help doctors work with patients to ensure they:
1. Manage Care for Patients with High Health Care Needs;
2. Ensure Access to Care;
3. Deliver Preventive Care;
4. Engage Patients and Caregivers; and,
5. Coordinate Care Across the Medical Neighborhood,”
according to an email from CMS’s press office. The initiative will provide qualified practices with risk-adjusted, per patient per month care managements payments, in addition to traditional fee-for-service payments, along with the opportunity to share in savings achieved at the community level.
I believe that the Initiative is a potential game-changer in helping to support and sustain primary care in the United States. But Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*
I recently saw a teenage boy with headaches. His father, wringing his hands, said that the headaches had been present for two years; but that the child had never been evaluated for them. No imaging, no neurologist. No insurance, of course.
A family friend, another child, had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. The family of my patient was terrified. Where to turn? They were, reasonably, concerned about cost.
Contrast that with the woman I saw on state assistance. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*
Ask yourself this question: Would you pay 20-30% less in insurance premiums if it meant you were locked into one hospital system for your health care? I would. That’s what one hospital system in Massachusetts is offering to provide. It is, essentially, a concierge hospital plan. You or your employer will pay a set premium, which the hospital is offering at a 20-30% discount, and you get all your health care needs in their system, only going to a competing hospital system if they are unable to provide your necessary services.
What a great idea. In fact, it’s an idea I have thought about previously for Happy’s hospital. Why shouldn’t Happy’s hospital offer direct premiums to large and small business employers in our city in exchange for reduced pricing? I’d sign up. My health insurance premiums cost over $12,000 a year. In the eight years of my practice, I’ve probably sent over $100,000 to health insurance companies and realized less than $10,000 in expenses.
It’s a concept who’s time has come. In fact, direct concierge hospital plans also offer patients and their employers the opportunity for tiered pricing for special amenities (flat screen television service, pet therapy dog service, dialysis spa, designer ostomy covers, wine vending machines, free soda machines, gourmet cookies, closer parking, door-to-door service, and 24 hour special access to their physicians and nursing staff).
No more worries about Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*
It was supposed to be one of a series of “measures to improve safety, reliability, patient experience, staff satisfaction and efficiency of medicine management.” Instead, the wearing of red “tabards” by nurses that read “Do Not Disturb” while they distributed medications has proven to be the straw that broke the camel’s back in England. While the “Do Not Disturb” message on the tabards was replaced with a message that reads “Drug Round in Progress,” isn’t the message the same?
Directive Number 99365.23a: “In the Name of Safety, Do Not Bother Me While I Hand Out Medications.”
It seems almost too incredible to believe and yet, this is how it’s playing out now in England’s National Health Service. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…
I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…
Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?
I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…
The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You
When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…
Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book
I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…
The Obama administration has dealt a mighty blow to one part of the health reform law by effectively killing off the CLASS Act, which was to be a baby step in the development of a national program to pay for long-term care. The CLASS Act, short for Community Living Assistance Services and Support Act, was supposed to be a voluntary and federally backed insurance program for people to use to cover potential long-term care needs. The idea was for Americans to pay premiums into the fund during their working years. If they later became disabled and needed assistance, they would be entitled to a daily cash benefit of, say, $50 to buy services of a personal care attendant or make home improvements that would allow them to stay in their homes—the preference of most seniors. Advocates of the CLASS Act even envisioned that some of the benefit could be used for nursing home care.
