July 6th, 2011 by BobDoherty in Health Policy
No Comments »
For physicians, and especially those in primary care, it seems like there is a form for every purpose imaginable—often for purposes that are hard to imagine.
An ACP member in Rhode Island recently gave this example:
“I was just asked by my Medicare Advantage plan to sign a form for [a well-known pharmacy benefit manager]. This form is to be faxed to them in order for them to send me a prior authorization form for a med. So in other words, I had to complete a form in order to get another form. This is nuts!”
Or how about this, from another ACP member in a private internal medicine practice:
“The documentation that is getting to me, is that documentation that the ‘durable medical equipment people want including repetitive- recurrent documentation, whenever we see a patient to document “continued need”. The list of things we have to document, sign, approve or prior authorize, I believe is what makes most physicians think they chose the wrong field. A PBM letter to me about my prescribing practices today nearly did me in! Luckily I just shredded it. If I am kicked out of this business, I am so close to retirement it would be a blessing!”
Or this: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*
May 17th, 2011 by Stanley Feld, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
1 Comment »
“The media is the message.” It does not matter if the policy has failed previously. All that is important is the effectiveness of the policy’s presentation and its ability to manipulate the polls.
The government’s purpose is to work for the people who elected it. It does not seem to be working that way at present. Bureaucrats create rules or regulations as they interpret the laws made by congress and the president. Regulations are controlled by the administration’s ideology. Many times the regulations in one area nullify the intended effect in another area.
Regulations and bureaucracy inhibit the use of common sense in policy making for the benefit of the people.
The people did not have an outlet to express their opinions or frustrations until blogging came into its own seven years ago.
Americans do not like President Obama’s healthcare reform act. They also do not like Dr. Don Berwick’s apparent disrespect for their intelligence and his infatuation with the British healthcare system.
“I am romantic about the NHS (British National Health Service); I love it. All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*
April 25th, 2011 by DrWes in Health Policy, Opinion
No Comments »
The above graph from the Cato Institute demonstrates the growing complexity of the U.S. tax code over the years. After doing my taxes recently and trying to track the ins and outs of the law for my wife’s private practice, I can attest to the graph’s accuracy.
But then I was reading an interesting editorial in Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology by N.A. Mark Estes III, MD and Jonathan Weinstock, MD that reviewed an article by Roos, et al in the same journal that found only 27 of 698 guideline recommendations from the European Society of Cardiology (median 1.2% per guideline [IQR 0.95% to 3.7%]) were correctly referenced as Class I or III Level of Evidence A recommendations, calling into question the accuracy of guideline recommendations. In their editorial, Estes and Weinstock defended the guideline process but also mentioned the following shocking statistic: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
April 10th, 2011 by Stanley Feld, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
No Comments »
President Obama’s has created an incentive program to encourage physicians to adopt functional Electronic Medical Records. The program’s $27 billion dollars (funded by President Obama’s Economic Stimulus package) will turn out to be a colossal failure and a waste of money.
Twenty seven billion dollars would provide $44,000 for 640,000 physicians. After the bureaucratic infrastructure is built the federal government will be lucky if one third of the money remains for bonuses to physicians.
Only 21,000 of 650,000 (3%) of physicians have applied to date.
Complex bureaucracies and complicated regulations never save money. These bureaucracies create bigger government, inconsistent policies, more complicated regulations and inefficiencies.
The best and cheapest way to create a universally accepted and functional EMR is for the federal government to put the software in the cloud and charge physicians by the click for the use of the Ideal Medical Record.
Upgrades in software to the Ideal Medical Record will be swift , inexpensive and instantly adopted. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*
February 20th, 2010 by KevinMD in Better Health Network, Opinion
1 Comment »
Most medical schools do a reasonably good job clinically preparing medical students to be future physicians.
But they can do better, especially in our fragmented health system where millions of Americans have to contend with costs as much as they have to with their medical conditions.
In her recent New York Times column, Pauline Chen cites a study showing that students exposed to more non-clinical topics, like medical economics, health policy, and the “business” of medicine, were more satisfied with their education. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
