September 28th, 2011 by Stanley Feld, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
No Comments »
I have opposed Medicare’s use of claims data to evaluate the quality of medical care. Quality medical care is the goal that must be achieved. However, no one has described the measurement of quality medical care adequately.
Physicians recognize when other physicians are not performing quality medical care. Physicians recognize when another physician is just testing and performing procedures to increase revenue.
These over testing physicians are a small minority of physicians in practice.
Quality medical care is not about doing quarterly HbA1c’s on patients with Diabetes Mellitus. Quality medical care is about helping patients control their blood sugars so their HbA1c becomes normalized. It is about the clinical and financial results of treatment.
The clinical and financial results depend on both patients and physicians. Patients must be responsible for Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*
September 24th, 2011 by DavidHarlow in Opinion
No Comments »
I spoke on health care social media and regulatory compliance at the Health Care Compliance Association’s New England Regional Annual Conference last week. As you may expect, the room was full of the folks who, generally speaking, are the folks who block social media sites on health care organization networks. I sent a link to an online bio to one of the session organizers in advance, and even that site was blocked by his facility’s network. Clearly, we have a long way to go in educating health care compliance professionals about the risks and benefits of using health care social media, and an appropriate approach to balancing these risks and benefits so as to establish an appropriate social media presence for each health care organization.
My talk was followed by a presentation by two federal prosecutors, one of whom reminded the audience that they may need to produce copies of all online postings in response to government document requests or subpoenas. We may quibble about the scope of material that might be covered by such a production request, but the key takeaway from this comment should be Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*
September 23rd, 2011 by BobDoherty in Health Policy, Opinion
No Comments »
Many physicians, and especially primary care physicians, aren’t happy campers. Why should they be? They feel disrespected, overworked, over-managed, and underpaid. They tell me they wouldn’t advise their children to go into medicine. Some feel that physicians are singularly beset upon. “Our government acts toward the medical profession in an abusive fashion. No other industry or profession is humiliated in this way,” writes RyanJo, a frequent commentator to this blog.
I can appreciate why many physicians are upset. They’ve had a decade where the Medicare SGR formula repeatedly has threatened to cut their fees, only to have Congress enact last minute reprieves that replace the cut with a small token increase that has not kept pace with their costs. Last year, Congress actually allowed the cut to go into effect and then retroactively restored it, creating havoc in physicians’ offices during the four weeks when they weren’t being paid. Like Charlie Brown and Lucy’s football, they are told each year by their members of Congress that that “this will be the year when the SGR will finally get repealed, really, for sure, we promise, this time will be different”–only to see it pulled away at the last minute.
In the meantime, they are constantly hounded to be more accountable for the care they deliver, to fill out just another form, to document their encounters, to get Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*
September 22nd, 2011 by Elaine Schattner, M.D. in Opinion
2 Comments »
Last week I wrote a simple post on eating yogurt with fresh fruit for lunch. It wasn’t until later that I realized why it’s a medical lesson.
It happens that yesterday morning I was up and out early. I saw a former colleague walking along the street. He’d gained weight, and walked slowly. I thought about how hard he works, and what a good doctor I know him to be. And yet any citizen or patient might size him up as heavy, maybe even unhealthy.
The problem is not that he’s uneducated or can’t afford nutritious foods. He knows fully about the health benefits of losing weight and exercise. The problem is the stress and long hours of a busy, conscientious physician’s lifestyle.
When I worked as a practicing doctor and researcher at the hospital, I rarely ate a nutritious breakfast or lunch. My morning meal, too often, consisted of Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medical Lessons*
September 10th, 2011 by GruntDoc in Health Policy, Research
3 Comments »
Why don’t docs get more of what they want in DC? There’s a quite instructive graph in a blog post from NRO last week (talking about Union campaign donations), but I found this one to be very instructive, and have added labels so the point cannot be missed:
In politics, generally what you give is what you get. I’ve taken to giving more to the PACs that represent me.
As an aside, it’s political malpractice to give only to one party (Teachers). Eventually that one party will be on the outs, and then where are you?
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
