July 30th, 2011 by DavidHarlow in Health Policy, Opinion
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The UnitedHealth Center for Health Reform and Modernization released a white paper today on Modernizing Rural Health Care. To quote from the UHG presser,
- [The paper] projects an increase of around 5 million newly insured rural residents by 2019 – even as the number of physicians in rural America lags
- Quality of care is rated lower in rural areas in 7 out of every 10 health care markets; both physicians and consumers in rural areas more likely to rate quality of care lower than those in urban and suburban markets
- Innovations in care delivery – particularly telemedicine and telehealth – can absorb future strain on rural health care systems
The paper inventories the current state of health care for the 50 million Americans living in a rural setting — and it’s not pretty. The question, of course, is why does rural health compare unfavorably to urban health metrics, and what can be done to improve matters? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*
July 25th, 2011 by Edwin Leap, M.D. in Opinion
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For years now, we’ve all heard the drum-beat. Bill-boards in cities have proclaimed it. Various medical associations have touted it’s importance. Stroke symptoms have to be treated immediately! Give clot-busting drugs, also known as ‘thrombolytics!’
Until, of course, those in favor of giving the drugs (namely neurologists) realized that a) Not everyone with a stroke, aka ‘brain attack’ has insurance and b) people have a very inconsiderate habit of having said strokes at the most inconvenient of hours. For instance, after 5PM, on the weekend, on holidays. The nerve!
So across the country, physicians in emergency departments like mine are finding themselves expected by the court of public opinion to give a potentially dangerous drug (albeit a sometimes useful drug) without any neurologist being available to evaluate the patient. Our emergency department thought we had a tele-medicine link; even that has failed, as nearby physicians in our regional referral center don’t feel keen to take responsibility for our patients. Our own neurologists, of course, have Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*
April 7th, 2011 by Davis Liu, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
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There are many tips to saving money on medical costs like asking your doctor only for generic medications, choosing an insurance plan with a high deductible and lower monthly premiums, going to an urgent care or retail clinic rather than the emergency room, and getting prescriptions mailed rather than go to a pharmacy.
How about getting your old medical records and having them reviewed by a primary care doctor? It might save you from having an unnecessary test or procedure performed.
Research shows that there is tremendous variability in what doctors do. Shannon Brownlee’s excellent book, Overtreated – Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer, provides great background on this as well as work done by the Dr. Jack Wennberg and colleagues on the Dartmouth Atlas. Some have argued that because of the fee for service structure, the more doctors do the more they get paid. This drives health care costs upwards significantly. Dr. Atul Gawande noted this phenomenon when comparing two cities in Texas, El Paso and McAllen in the June 2009 New Yorker piece. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Saving Money and Surviving the Healthcare Crisis*
April 14th, 2010 by Davis Liu, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, Research
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In a few years, every American will be required to have health insurance. As a result, the 32 million people currently uninsured will seek out a personal physician. This role typically is filled by a primary care doctor, like an internist or a family physician.
While passage of the healthcare reform bill affirmed the belief that having health insurance is a right rather than a privilege, the legislation falls short on building a healthcare system capable of absorbing the newly insured.
Universal healthcare coverage is not the same as providing universal access to medical care. Having an insurance card doesn’t guarantee that individuals can actually get care. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Saving Money and Surviving the Healthcare Crisis*
April 9th, 2010 by DrWes in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Humor, News, Opinion
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Remember when you were a child and an offer to be a member of a special spy club appeared on your morning cereal box? You knew — yes, KNEW — that the offer was the real deal. All you had to do is send in 3 cereal box tops and you’d be sent all the prerequisite items. Of course, when the plastic trinkets arrived weeks later, there always seemed to be the air of buzzkill when the reality of what you received for your efforts was revealed.
This could never happen with board certification for doctors, could it?
Yesterday we learned that this year every specialist has to recertify to maintain their status as a board-certified specialist. In the past, this was a voluntary process that doctors participated in to show a jury of their peers that they had the right stuff to practice medicine at the highest level possible. It was a respected term. Doctors generally knew that a board-certified specialist meant something.
Even though doctors pay thousands of dollars to the American Board of Internal Medicine for the opportunity to study for and take the certification exam, once passed doctors were proud to hang that certificate on their wall. In effect, it is the crowning achievement of one’s career.
But what if that certificate on the wall had the value of certificate purchased from a cereal box top spy club? Doctors might be pretty upset, right? Well guess what. Although the majority of those certificates hanging on the wall are the real deal, many are not. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
