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Pay More, Get Less – The Certain Future Of Healthcare

January 19th, 2010 by Davis Liu, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion

Tags: Affordability, CDHP, HDHP, Healthcare reform, HSA, Internal Medicine, Primary Care, Quality, Technology

Even with healthcare reform, Americans will increasingly be burdened with high deductibles, more financial responsibility, and less satisfaction with their health insurance for the foreseeable future. Why? Because the healthcare system is unable to transform its services in a manner that other industries have done to improve quality and service while decreasing costs. The two biggest culprits are the mentality of healthcare providers and the fee for service reimbursement system.

Doctors and patients haven’t altered the way they communicate over the past hundred years. Except for the invention of the telephone, an office visit is unchanged. A doctor and patient converse as the physician scribbles notes in a paper chart. Despite the innovations of cell phones, laptop computers, and other time saving devices, patients still get care through face to face contact even though banking, travel, and business collaboration can be done via the internet, webcams, and sharing of documentation. As Dr. Pauline Chen noted in a recent article, doctors are not willing to use technology to collaborate and to deliver medical care better, more quickly and efficiently. Mostly it is due to culture resistant to change. Partly it is due to lack of reimbursement. Both are unlikely to be addressed or fixed anytime soon. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Saving Money and Surviving the Healthcare Crisis*

Children’s Health Fact Sheets: Californian Kids Not Doing Well

January 18th, 2010 by Nancy Brown, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Health Tips

Tags: California, Fact Sheet, Health, National Initiative for Children's Healthcare Quality, NICHQ, Pediatrics

The National Initiative for Children’s HealthCare Quality (NICHQ) has a website where you can find fact sheets about the state of children’s health in each state. The State Fact Sheets provide the most recent national and state-based data regarding health in addition to childhood overweight and obesity prevalence from data collected in 2007 by the National Survey of Children’s Health.

For overall health in California the (2007) fact sheet suggests that compared to national averages, children in CA are:

• less likely to be in excellent or good health; Read more »

This post, Children’s Health Fact Sheets: Californian Kids Not Doing Well, was originally published on Healthine.com by Nancy Brown, Ph.D..

Medical News Of The Obvious: Music Impacts Behavior

January 18th, 2010 by RyanDuBosar in Better Health Network, Research

Tags: Behavior, Music, Music Therapy, News Of The Obvious, Psychiatry, Psychology

Students exposed to songs with a positive message were more likely to help others after listening. A British study randomized students into groups who listened to socially conscious songs or those with negative or nonsense meanings. Then, a researcher pretended to knock pencils off the table by accident. Those who’d listened to positive songs helped more quickly and picked up almost five times as many pencils. Other subjects were asked to help with another research project, and three times as many volunteered.

Help! by the Beatles and Michael Jackson’s Heal the World were cited in the study, which is in press at the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Let us know your favorite “help” songs that get you through the day.

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

Saving Billions On End-Of-Life Care: Another Mirage?

January 18th, 2010 by EvanFalchukJD in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion

Tags: Dartmouth, End Of Life Care, Oversimplification, Palliative Care, Practice Variation, Savings

“We can no longer afford an overall health care system in which the thought is more is always better, because it’s not.”  – Peter Orszag

Could anyone disagree? Not really.  Which ought to be the first clue that it’s a meaningless truism.  I mean, of course more isn’t always better.

But this hasn’t stopped this truism from becoming one of the most popular refrains in health care reform.  Most of the time this is directed at one area:  end-of-life care. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at See First Blog*

Who Will Be Held Accountable For Healthcare Reform?

January 18th, 2010 by Edwin Leap, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Opinion

Tags: Accountability, Buck Stop, Emergency Medicine, Healthcare reform

‘Let’s get us some of that REform!’

I must admit I’m a little weary of the entire debate on health-care reform.  But something still haunts me.  And that something is accountability.  Of course, over the almost twenty years that I have borne the title ‘MD,’ I’ve learned a few things about accountability.

I understand that, almost without fail, the buck stops with me.  The nursing home director knows the elderly lady wasn’t seriously hurt in that fall, but he sends her to the ER ‘just to check things out.’  That is, just to make sure that if a problem does crop up, someone else is accountable for finding it. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*