March 23rd, 2010 by KerriSparling in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
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The healthcare reform bill “doesn’t fix everything that’s wrong with our health care system, but it moves us decisively forward,” said the President. Insurance companies will be under government regulations, coverage can’t be denied based on pre-existing conditions, and the bill is signed.
Wait…coverage can’t be denied based on pre-existing conditions?
According to this New York Times editorial, “The biggest difference for Americans who have employer-based insurance is the security of knowing that, starting in 2014, if they lose their job and have to buy their own policy, they cannot be denied coverage or charged high rates because of pre-existing conditions. Before then, the chronically ill could gain temporary coverage from enhanced high-risk pools and chronically ill children are guaranteed coverage.”
I’ve always wanted to take that leap and run my own business. I enjoy working in new media and healthcare, I like working hard, but what kept me from making a bold move was pure and unadulterated fear. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*
March 22nd, 2010 by DrWes in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, True Stories
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Being at the American College of Cardiology Scientific Sessions in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, I had a unique opportunity to meet with an interventional cardiologist from “across the pond” in England: Sarah Clarke, MD.
Sarah is a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist at Papworth Hospital, Cambridge UK. Her undergraduate years were spent at the University of Cambridge, UK and postgraduate training was undertaken in the region. She attained an MD from the Univeristy of Cambridge. She was awarded a Fellowship in Interventional Cardiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and returned to take up her Consultant post in the UK in 2002. In 2006 Dr Clarke was appointed the Clinical Director of Cardiac Services at Papworth. Papworth Hospital is a 240ish-bed hospital that performs about 2,000 interventional cardiology procedures per year.
We thought it would be interesting to compare and contrast two heart patients — one with insurance and one without insurance — from our two health care systems, to illustrate how these patients obtain health coverage, might be managed, and how things look from the patient’s perspective. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
March 22nd, 2010 by Debra Gordon in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
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My alarm clock is set to “radio” and my radio is set to the local NPR station. Now, I’m not one of those people who leaps out of bed when the alarm goes off. Instead, I lie in bed slowly waking up to about 15 or 20 minutes of the morning news.
This morning however, the news just made me want to pull the covers over my head and never get out of bed. That’s because the focus was healthcare reform, and the amount of misinformation — and, yes, I have to say it: stupidity — out there about what the current proposals will or won’t do is making me literally sick to my stomach. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at A Medical Writer's Musings on Medicine and Health Care*
March 22nd, 2010 by Shadowfax in Better Health Network, Health Policy
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We use a little company called Assurant to administer the employee health insurance plan for our business. We have about 50 employees, not all of whom are on our insurance (some get theirs through a spouse), so we are in a particularly undesirable segment of the small-business market. Ironically, we have had a fair amount of difficulty in getting coverage which was affordable and sustainable. A lot of insurers wouldn’t even bid on us. Funny, right? The doctors can’t get health care insurance! Hysterical! So we wound up with an unusual sort of self-funded plan administered by Assurant, which was working OK.
Recently, however, a couple of our doctors wound up taking family members to the ER for various reasons — nothing serious, but common and reasonable presentations for an ER. And Assurant denied payment for the claims. They didn’t deny it outright, actually, just imposed a $500 “penalty for non-emergent use of the Emergency Room” on top of the usual co-pays and deductibles. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*
March 17th, 2010 by KevinMD in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
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I’ve often given doctors too little credit when it comes to business decisions.
But, in an op-ed published at Reuters, physician Ford Vox argues otherwise.
He notes that doctors, indeed, have tremendous business sense:
How can anybody say that doctors don’t have business sense, when not only do most American physicians forge their way in small private practices, but new doctors lay their cards on the table every year? The competitiveness of residencies, where doctors train to become a pediatrician or a cardiologist, correlates strongly with the field’s earnings potential. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
