Posted by: AtlasMD

November 27, 2013

More Mind The Gap Magic

Fear not, Stephen Wilkins’ new blog post could be construed as Luddite, but we’re totally on his side. He was prompted to write after Lloyd Dean, president and CEO of the San Francisco-based healthcare system, Dignity Health, announced something called the Dignity Health and Box Patient Education App Challenge. Dean is quoted in the announcement as saying:

“We recognize the immense potential that (health information) technology has to enhance our patients’ care and overall experience.”

Wilkins then asks, “Immense potential compared to what?”

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Posted by: AtlasMD

November 27, 2013

Touche. The Federal Health Exchange Website Mocked By Actual Insurance Company.

As low as this blow is, it seems almost destined. Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield has launched three ads that tell people to skip Healthcare.gov and visit their website instead. And what’s there reasoning? Because Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield’s site actually works.

Chris Matyszczyk of CNET reported on this advertising development (and included his own personal insurance woes). He writes, “Somehow, though, there’s always this nagging feeling with insurance companies — and, indeed, with the whole health industry — that the drive for a buck (with the frequent assistance of technology) is often at the expense of its customers’ mental, as well as financial, health.”

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Posted by: AtlasMD

November 26, 2013

Medicare Penalizes Nearly 1,500 Hospitals For Poor Quality Scores

As you know, the health law’s insurance markets are struggling. Oh well, that hasn’t stopped the Obama administration from moving ahead with its second year of “meting out bonuses and penalties to hospitals based on the quality of their care,” says NPR.

And this year, it looks like more hospitals lost than won.

So how does this bureaucratic mousetrap work? The government determines if hospitals get more or less Medicare dollars for the work they complete based on patients’ surveys. And what were this year’s results? According to NPR, “Medicare has raised payment rates to 1,231 hospitals based on two-dozen quality measurements, including surveys of patient satisfaction and — for the first time — death rates. Another 1,451 hospitals are being paid less for each Medicare patient they treat for the year that began Oct. 1.”

NPR says half the hospitals will see negligible changes while others are going to see a noticeable difference.

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Posted by: AtlasMD

November 23, 2013

More Dutch Inspiration – Needless ER Visits Waste Money

You know our style. We’re opinionated folks here. We speak liberally about the red tape that bloats healthcare costs—absurd ER charges for one. You’ve heard our spiel: We insist that affordable primary care like what we offer at Atlas MD can keep people out of the ER, and save everyone (patients’ wallets, insurance companies’ payouts, frazzled doctors’ sanity, even our nation’s budget) considerably.

Speaking of costly ER charges, NPR just wrote another piece about the topic. It’s also Dutch-related, and definitely worth checking out.

NPR writes, “In the United States, the growing number of uninsured Americans means more people do not have a family doctor or primary care provider. When they suffer a worrisome accident or problem, they may end up in the nearest hospital emergency room.”

And this is where we as a nation are just pouring money down the drain.

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Posted by: AtlasMD

November 22, 2013

Food For Thought – Dutch Healthcare

It feels like the sky is perpetually falling on the American healthcare system. And yes, the first part of solving a problem is admitting you have one. But, we came across an NPR article discussing some things the Dutch do differently than we do. Really, it isn’t a question of whether one of us is doing it better than the other. Instead it’s that these differences could suggest our different value systems.

Take this quote, for example: “The Dutch like their health care system and feel comfortable with it, polls show, even when things don’t go exactly as they want.” This aligns with the Dutch’s values of pragmatism and stoicism.

In the Netherlands, many women try to have their babies at home. NPR claims that is because “[Dutch women] view giving birth as something that should be natural, not medical.” And services across the country align with this idea. In Amsterdam there’s a center for pregnant women that combines a spa, shopping center and school — not something we’ve heard of here in the States.

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Posted by: AtlasMD

November 21, 2013

An Open Letter To Common Sense

Thank you, Todd Keefer (@FreeMktMonkey on Twitter)!

As is in flavor online, Todd Keefer recently composed his own Open Letter. His was addressed to Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Michael F. Consedine. Keefer mentioned Atlas MD as an example of a realistic alternative to the current insurance scheme. He (and many others) believes that insurance companies profit not from providing care but by clever manipulation that stems, grossly, from participants’ own ignorance.

What we as a nation are up against is an ingrained idea that insurance is the only way to get good care. Our practice’s philosophy is a reaction to this mindset. A mindset that enables those in power to stay in power. This power comes both through the industry’s own influence (we’re talking billion dollar companies in some cases e.g. WellPoint and other large-scale conglomerates), but also through a “benevolent” administration that believes more insurance will somehow fix a flawed system.

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Posted by: AtlasMD

November 19, 2013

David Do On Why EMR Companies Don’t Care About Usability

In his op-ed blog post, David Do, MD exposes the cold hard truth of EMR failure—their inherent un-usability.
He says, “I overheard nurses praising the pilot of a new technology with the promise of improving communication, safety, and saving on healthcare spending. The innovation: two-way texting. That’s one of the many indicators that hospitals are stuck the technological stone-age.”

Great point. It’s almost embarrassing that these common technologies are BIG NEWS in the healthcare world. You’d think an industry that’s in and of itself a cutting-edge phenomenon (saving lives by doing things that require tremendous education and skillful implementation) would use equally sophisticated tools outside of the operating room. But that’s not the common case. Dr. Do calls out the assumption that new technology will magically make EMR in healthcare automatically better. “In reality,” Do writes, “there’s good and bad technology, and there are good and bad EMRs.”

Sounds about right.

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Posted by: AtlasMD

November 19, 2013

Despite EHRs, Healthcare Still “Buried In Paperwork,” Says Survey

We’re curious what the paperwork verdict’s going to be with the recent ACA enactment. Assuming that people can sign up and that fee-for-service docs accept the new plans, will doctors be overwhelmed by additional paperwork? According to this survey from Anoto, who develops digital pen and paper technology, respondents said that “paper is still too embedded in the culture, that technology adoption is too expensive and that switching to an electronic system requires too much training and disrupts care delivery.”

Interestingly enough, these same survey respondents believed that the paperwork burden would increase once the Affordable Care Act was enacted.

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Posted by: AtlasMD

November 19, 2013

How Will Atlas.md EMR Help You Run A Direct Care Practice?

How Will Atlas.md EMR Help You Run A Direct Care Practice?

In a recent post on Cure MD, the common EHR blog-lytizing was in full effect. As usual, the site claims, “An Electronic Health Record (EHR) system helps a practice in more than one ways [sic].” Then we see the common empty signifiers — improved workflows, improved cash flow, improved patient flow, and, our favorite red tape phenomenon, Meaningful Use! All of this to quote, “Sav[e] time and meet[…] regulatory requirements.” They then list out some more benefits that EHRs offer the fee-for-service doctor. But notice, they never mention what kind of doctor. Just, doctor.

That’s one of many points of comparison we’ll draw with the competitors versus our direct care EMR, Atlas.md. Right off the bat, our product is made for a specific doctor, a direct primary care physician operating a cash-only facility.

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Posted by: AtlasMD

November 18, 2013

New To The Atlas MD-Style Of Direct Care? This One’s For You.

We noticed an article floating around on Twitter this week. Fox 8 Cleveland wrote about Dr. Doug Nunamaker on their website back in June. It summarizes our Wichita-based operation. For those in the know, you’ve heard us proudly sharing our vision of healthcare reform–one based on actual work, actual negotiation, and actual market principles. For those who are new to direct care, this is just one of many affirmative media moments we’ve had this year.

CHECK OUT THE FOX 8 CLEVELAND ARTICLE HERE

In Dr. Doug’s words:

“My professional life is better than expected, my family life and personal time is better than expected. This is everything I wanted out of family medicine.”

And as any supporter of direct care will tell you, the hardest part is communicating the explicit advantages and success of our model. Many people can’t believe that we’re able to offer more affordable care and spend more time with our patients WITHOUT insurance. However, it’s a matter of cutting the red tape, and eliminating needless bureaucracy. It’s about pushing for a healthcare system that uses insurance to cover UNEXPECTED phenomenon. Not the things that are anticipated or easily treated by a family doctor.