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Bend The Healthcare Cost Curve By Preventing Diabetes

By 2020, an estimated 15 percent of adults will have diabetes and 37 percent will have prediabetes, a total of 39 million people, compared with rates of 12 percent and 28 percent today, respectively.

Today, more than 90 percent of people with prediabetes, and about a quarter of people with diabetes, are unaware of it, according to a report from UnitedHealth Group, the provider of insurance and other health care services.

The health savings alone of preventing diabetes would bend the cost curve of health care spending in the country. Health spending associated with diabetes and prediabetes is about $194 billion this year, or 7 percent of U.S. health spending, the report said. That cost is projected to rise to $500 billion by 2020, or a total of almost $3.4 trillion on diabetes-related care.

Engaging the at-risk population could save up to $250 billion, or 7.5 percent of estimated spending on diabetes and prediabetes, in the next decade. Of that money, $144 billion, or about 58 percent, would come from savings in Medicare, Medicaid and health care exchange subsidies. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

The Government’s Involvement In New Primary Care Models

Government healthcare reform efforts are picking up the pace to roll out new reimbursement and practice models for primary care.

Medicare is giving out $10 billion for pilot projects encouraging new models of primary care, including the patient-centered medical home. New Jersey just passed legislation to explore the patient-centered medical home. Now, Massachusetts, the early adopter of mandatory health insurance, is now ambitiously planning how to take on the fee-for-service reimbursement system and moving toward accountable care organizations. Under discussion are the scope of power for state regulators, what rules will apply to accountable care organizations, and how to get rid of the existing fee-for-service system.

Blogger and pediatrician Jay Parkinson, MD, MPH, comments about the “bureaucrats in Washington” that, “they’ve decided for doctors that we’ll get paid for strictly office visits and procedures when, in fact, being a good doctor is much, much more about good communication and solid relationships than the maximum volume of patients you can see in a given day.”

Now, it’s those same bureaucrats who are changing the system, trying to find a model that will accomplish just those goals. (CMS Web site, NJ Today, Boston Globe, KevinMD)

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

Fixing Up Primary Care: Is Anyone “Home?”

love Don't live here anymore... by Robb North via Flickr

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*

What A ’68 Chevy Impala Can Tell Us About Primary Care

When I was a much younger man I had a 1968 Chevy Impala. I loved its V-8 engine and spaciousness, but I paid a steep price for it. It consumed gas like a drunk on a binge. It was prone to breakdowns, usually in the left lane of a busy highway. Even as it consumed my limited financial resources, I couldn’t count on it to reliably get me to where I wanted to be. Yet I held onto it. One day, though, its transmission gave out, and I finally had to resign myself to buying a new, more reliable, more modern, and efficient vehicle. Yet to this day, I miss my clunker.

I am reminded of this when I think about the state of primary care today. Many of us are attached to a traditional primary care model that may no longer be economically viable — for physicians, for patients, and for purchasers.

We hold onto a model where primary care doctors are paid based on the volume of visits, not the quality and value of care rendered. We hold onto a model where patient records are maintained in paper charts in voluminous file folders, instead of digitalizing and connecting patient records. We hold onto a model that generates enormous overhead costs for struggling physician-owners but generates insufficient revenue. We hold onto a model that most young doctors won’t buy, as they pursue more financially viable specialties and practices. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*

Why Patients Are Unsure Of The Primary Care “Medical Home”

Say the words, “Patient-centered medical home,” and you’re bound to get a variety of opinions.

On this blog alone, there are a variety of guest pieces critical of the effort, saying it does not increase patient satisfaction, nor does it save money. And that’s not good news for its advocates, who are pinning primary care’s last hopes on the model.

Medical homes hit the mainstream media recently, with Pauline Chen focusing one of her recent, weekly New York Times columns to the issue. She discussed the results of a demonstration project, showing some positive results. Read more »

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

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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