September 9th, 2011 by PreparedPatient in Health Policy, Opinion
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It’s official now. The government has proposed that descriptions of health insurance policies will resemble those nutritional labels on canned and packaged foods—the ones you look at to find out how much sodium there is in Birds Eye peas versus the A&P brand. Instead of getting the scoop on salt or sugar, shoppers will learn what they have to pay out-of-pocket for various medical services. They’ll also get some general information, like what services are not covered, and how much they’ll have to pay for maternity and diabetes care and breast cancer treatment, all organized in a standard format designed for easy comparison shopping. Insurers will have to translate common insurance jargon into plain English.
The health reform law requires these “Coverage Fact Label” disclosures, and tasked the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) with creating them. The NAIC released some samples a few weeks ago. Theoretically, consumers armed with this information will choose wisely, and as free-market advocates say, their choices will regulate prices that insurers will charge. If consumers choose the low-cost plans, Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Prepared Patient Forum: What It Takes Blog*
September 7th, 2011 by RamonaBatesMD in News, Opinion
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It’s amazing what you will find sorting through more than 20 years of stuff. This picture of 3 implants includes: top — an old McGhan double lumen (silicone gel implant surrounded by a saline implant); bottom left – Dow Corning textured silicone implant; and bottom right – Dow Corning smooth silicone implant. Dow Corning has not made breast implants since approximately 1992.
Last week the FDA met to discuss and make recommendations on postmarketing issues related to silicone gel-filled breast implants. As a condition of placing silicone implants back on the market in 2006, both Mentor and Allergan (McGhan) were supposed to enroll patients in 10-year-long follow up studies on side effects related to implants. The aim was for 80,000 women.
I agree these studies are needed, but it is difficult to get women to return year after year. This is evident in the data presented at the meeting: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*
September 6th, 2011 by DrRich in Health Policy, Opinion
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A recurring theme of the CRB is that the rising cost of healthcare is the main internal threat to the continued viability of the US. Indeed, the very title of this blog reflects the chief mechanism which is being employed, fruitlessly and disastrously, in the attempt to reduce those costs.
Recently, DrRich pointed out that there are four ways – and only four ways – to reduce the cost of healthcare. He did this as a service to his readers, so that when politicians describe in their weaselly language how they will get the cost of healthcare under control, you will be able to figure out which of the four methods they are actually talking about.
While DrRich’s synthesis has been generally well-received, a few readers did offer one particular objection. DrRich, they assert, left out a fifth way to reduce the cost of healthcare, and the very best way at that. Namely, just get rid of the waste and inefficiency.
DrRich has talked about this before, but obviously it is time to revisit the issue.
It is, in fact, a central assumption of any healthcare reform plan ever proposed that we can get our spending under control simply by eliminating – or at least substantially reducing – the vast amount of waste and inefficiency in the healthcare system. Conservatives propose to do this by Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Covert Rationing Blog*
September 6th, 2011 by Stanley Feld, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
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I have described how the healthcare insurance industry loads its expenses into direct patient care expenses to increase their profits.
The Medical-Loss Ratio calculation is not reported by the traditional media. The healthcare insurance industry spends less healthcare dollars on direct patient care after it is permitted by federal and local agencies to load its expenses into the direct patient care column.
Simply put, the healthcare insurance industry cooks the books to increase its net profit.
Another way to increase profits is to shortchange physicians on medical claims. In fact, 20% of medical claims payments are inaccurate according to the American Medical Association’s (AMA) fourth annual National Health Insurer Report Card. Claims-processing errors by health insurance companies waste billions of dollars and frustrate patients and physicians.
This is one of the reasons the RAND report about physicians controlling waste is so absurd to me. The healthcare insurance industry creates waste in order to increase net profit. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*
August 22nd, 2011 by PreparedPatient in Health Policy, True Stories
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Blue Cross just advised a twenty-six-year old woman I know that it will cut off payments for the physical therapy that was making it possible for her to sit at a keyboard for eleven hours a day. Her thirty sessions were up.
The young woman has an overuse injury to both of her arms that causes so much pain she can’t even mix up a salad dressing. “I am not getting any better,” she said. “To do that I would have to stop working or scale back the number of hours required by my job.” Those physical therapy sessions offer strengthening exercises that reduce swelling and inflammation and make it possible for her to keep working.
Shifting Medical Costs to Patients
One cannot entirely fault insurance companies for trying to clamp down on medical costs, but rather than actually lowering the underlying costs of medical services, their solution is to Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Prepared Patient Forum: What It Takes Blog*
