May 26, 2014
According to Uwe E. Reinhardt, an economics professor at Princeton, about half a century ago, organized medicine and the hospital industry in this country struck a deal with Congress.
In retrospect, it was as audacious as it was incredible: Congress was asked to surrender to these industries the keys to the United States Treasury.
May 21, 2014
We keep telling them, but some critics still doubt that Direct Care can save patients a tremendous amount of money each month.
Venlafaxine tablets (generic for Effexor) is a prime example.
Assuming you know about the coupon option, you can buy the generic for $17. However, if not, you’ll pay ~$150 cash.
Keep in mind that we can sell a monthly script of Venlafaxine tablets for $5.70.
May 19, 2014
Author, consultant and futurist Ian Morrison served up the opening keynote at the National Healthcare Innovation Summit on May 14 in Boston with a large dose of wit. But he delivered a somber message concerning the urgent need for innovation in healthcare.
“We have to innovate,” he told the audience. “We don’t have a choice. We have hit the wall.”
May 19, 2014
You call for an appointment and are told it will be about 20 days.
You arrive on time only to sit in the apt named waiting room for 40 minutes.
You see your primary care doctor (PCP).
You start to explain why you came in.
May 19, 2014
We know that physicians are unhappy with the way things are going in healthcare.
Some even believe that up to a third of the US physician work force is planning to leave the profession in the next 3 years
Direct primary care practices are the single best way to restore patient and provider satisfaction. Those brave enough to cut the red tape (i.e. health insurers, both public and private) find a remarkable reduction in billing paperwork, unrecovered fees, and electronic documentation requirements.
May 18, 2014
Transitioning from insurance-based care into Direct Care isn’t a walk in the park. Cutting the red tape is not necessarily about EASE.
It’s about AFFECT. Affecting patients lives, affecting our own lives as doctors and business owners. It’s about having a stake in the work we do, and being rewarded for doing it well.
Here’s an earnest email from Mary Wulfers. She’s helping her husband run his newly opened Direct Care practice.
We’re really busy. Mike has about 130 new patients and they all seem to want a physical right away, so he’s really really busy. Around 170-180 patients transferred from his old practice, and we’ve obtained and built all those charts as well. I continue to work full time at the office and then some out of necessity, which is just fine. Younger families are really starting to sign up; it’s almost like the word has just gotten out. Last Monday was quite a day, had 17 new patients sign up and our nurse was out sick that day, too.This has been a very rewarding experience in so many ways but a lot of work, too. Out [sic] new website should be online soon, can’t wait to see it. Mike is really happy about some of the new patients he’s getting, some with poor insurance who are so excited to have a good doctor for the first time. How can you beat that?
Seriously, how CAN you beat that?
May 18, 2014
Here’s a central difficulty of the Affordable Care Act: If everyone has access to health insurance, then everyone has access to all the medical care they need. But curing sickness and preventing death is costly, so why not save money and lives by making primary care doctors more affordable?
After all, it’s our business to KEEP you healthy. And keeping you healthy cuts costs in the long-run.
However, we don’t and won’t have enough primary care providers in the United States unless things change.
May 15, 2014
Whenever new physician salary data is released, reporters and policy experts often compare doctor salaries in the United States to those of other countries: most notably, France. But Kevin Pho isn’t pleased.
That’s because because, practically on cue, Vox’s Sarah Kliff — regarded by thought leaders an excellent healthcare writer, is “uncharacteristically” lazy in framing physician salaries through a biased lens.
She writes, “Primary care doctors in the United States, do tend to earn a lot more than their counterparts abroad. One 2011 study, which looked at doctor salaries from 2008, found that the average primary care doctor in France earns about $95,000, compared to the $186,000 that physicians net in the United States.”
May 14, 2014
They howled ICD-10 was delayed. And they howled loud and fierce.
Apparently, the life of U.S. healthcare hangs in the throes of 68,000 diagnosis codes.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world has switched to ICD-10. But here’s a secret. The World Health Organization’s version of ICD-10 has about 16,000 codes, equivalent to ICD-9-CM.
Let’s reiterate: The rest of the world is not using ICD-10-Clinical Modification set, which has 68,000 codes.
The Canadian version of ICD-10 has about 16,000 codes, but the physicians do not use those codes for billing and reimbursement. They use a more limited code set of about 600 three-digit codes.
May 13, 2014
Okay, maybe those doctoral economists will come in handy. Jokes aside, bringing life-saving drugs to market will never be cheap – and it will require government participation.
However, there’s a difference between red tape syphoning better-spent dollars to line the pockets of insurance companies who DON’T actually care for our population, and making sure a drug company developing an Alzheimer’s treatment can recoup their billion dollar investment.