August 16th, 2010 by DavidHarlow in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion
No Comments »
The Queen of Soul famously wailed about being a link in a “chain of fools.” The lead story in the August 13th Boston Globe tells us about another sort of link in the chain — the weakest link in the chain of custody of patient records.
In brief, a pathology billing service bought out by another service apparently dumped all records more than a year old in a town dump. A Globe photographer taking out his own trash noticed that the paper records (which he was looking at because he thought they ought to be recycled rather than dumped) had identifiable patient data and represented at least four hospitals from across Eastern Massachusetts. Clearly, these records ought to have been shredded or otherwise destroyed before disposal. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*
August 14th, 2010 by John Mandrola, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Opinion
No Comments »
If I was Surgeon General, I would follow the lead of our country’s first Mom, Michelle Obama. This is serious folks. We as an American society need to solve the obesity crisis, not just for our physical health, but for our country’s financial stability.
Reducing the spiraling costs of healthcare is wanted by all. So far, prevention of the diseases which contribute most to our healthcare costs, (heart disease, cancer and orthopedic issues, to name just a few) has been given only lip service, by our future supplier of healthcare — the American government.
It turns out that the mechanisms to reduce our most costly ailments are the same as those that mitigate obesity. It is like simple math. (If a=b, and b=c, than a=c.) If lifestyle choices reduce obesity, and less obesity means less consumption of healthcare for heart disease and cancer, than better lifestyle choices means less healthcare consumption. Bunches less. (See, simple math was not so useless.) It is for this reason that I believe the most productive way to reduce health care expenditures is to reduce obesity. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*
August 11th, 2010 by admin in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
No Comments »
By John Henning Schumann, M.D.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka “Health Care Reform”) signed by President Obama in March will revolutionize primary care in the United States. By 2014 tens of millions of uninsured people will “enter” the system by being granted insurance, either through expansion of the Medicaid program or through mandated purchasing of insurance via state pools or the private market.
This alone will have a profound impact, straining the capacity of our already frayed system. Therefore, embedded in the law are funds to encourage growth and improvement in primary care: Incentives to encourage graduates to enter primary care fields (family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics) and practice in underserved areas (through scholarships and loan forgiveness), and money to re-format the way that primary care is practiced and paid for. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
August 11th, 2010 by KevinMD in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion
No Comments »
In their most recent piece at Slate, emergency physicians Zachary F. Meisel and Jesse M. Pines tackle the issue of bouncebacks — that is, the re-admission of recently-discharged hospitalized patients. They bring up good some good points, and point out that until recently hospitals really didn’t have any incentive to reduce bouncebacks:
…hospitals have never had a compelling reason to try to prevent bouncebacks. Hospitals are typically paid a flat sum for each inpatient stay — shorter stays equal higher profits. When patients bounce back, hospitals can charge the insurance company twice for the same patient with the same problem. Many hospitals also view bouncebacks as out of their control: If a patient boomerangs back because she doesn’t follow doctor’s orders, it’s not the hospital’s fault.
With health reform, however, things are changing. In an effort to reduce bouncebacks, hospitals are paid less for re-admissions, and they must publish their bounceback rates. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
August 9th, 2010 by DrRich in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
No Comments »
Why Big Health Insurance Supported Obamacare, Part IV
In the past few posts (in particular, here and here), DrRich has shown why the health insurance industry embraced Obamacare, and indeed, took extraordinary steps to assure that Obamacare became the law of the land. This, of course, is especially interesting in light of the common perception that Obamacare constitutes a major defeat for the greedy health insurance industry.
But the fact that big health insurance gave critical support to Obamacare is far more than merely interesting. It has major implications both to supporters of Obamacare, especially the ones who hope for an eventual single-payer outcome, and to opponents of Obamacare, many of whom hope to repeal it after the 2010 mid-term elections.
For the health insurance industry to have supported Obamacare, especially in the manner that it did, leads us to three conclusions. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Covert Rationing Blog*
