Posted by: AtlasMD

August 21, 2013

Yet Another White House Obamacare Delay: Out-Of-Pocket Caps Waived Until 2015

Remember how everyone’s been talking about that unseemly document, the one that was well over 1,000 pages and included all the details about Obamacare? The details that no single person could fully articulate? These were the details that had us all saving money somewhere, supposedly.

In case you haven’t heard, the cat is out of the bag. It now looks like that maze of text might not even matter, since federal officials secretly passed a ruling that would grant a one-year grace period to some insurers, allowing them to set higher limits, or no limit at all on some costs, in 2014. According to The New York Times, “The grace period has been outlined on the Labor Department’s Web site since February, but was obscured in a maze of legal and bureaucratic language that went largely unnoticed.”

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Posted by: AtlasMD

August 20, 2013

UPDATE: Dr. Josh’s Interview With The Objective Standard Now Available Online

Head over to TheObjectiveStandard.com to read Dr. Josh’s recent interview with Ari Armstrong. We sent out a PDF copy last week to our subscribers, but if you missed it, you’re in luck. You can check it out right there on the website, or download it as a PDF.

In the interview, Dr. Josh fleshes out his vision of direct care, one that’s taken the interest of influential parties, including patients, doctors, insurance companies, and even members of the state congresses. Yes, direct care sounds utopic, and therefore unrealizable, but if you remove the bias and look at the data and listen to its success stories, it’s clear that healthcare wins when doctors spend time with patients and not paperwork. Of course, direct care doctors see many fewer patients than those operating inside the red tape, and Dr. Josh addresses this issue with honesty and conviction.

Ari Armstrong is the assistant editor of The Objective Standard, and a writer/blogger based in Colorado. Besides purveying the philosophy of Ayn Rand, his book Values of Harry Potter: Lessons for Muggles explores themes contained within J.K. Rowling’s beloved Harry Potter novels. Obviously, Ari’s well-rounded. Thanks to him for conducting such an insightful conversation about direct care.

Posted by: AtlasMD

August 20, 2013

Huzzah! Clayton Christensen Institute Explains EHR’s Inevitable Failure

Huzzah! Clayton Christensen Institute Explains EHR’s Inevitable Failure

The Clayton Christensen Institute For Disruptive Technology is a think tank that understands how different products can actually start small and grow into prominence in the marketplace. You can read their reasoning for why EHR is not disrupting the marketplace here. Their article explain why most EHR offerings are just a more expensive way to do what paperwork is already doing. This fact, coupled with government incentives, makes for what they call a sustaining model, where each year you are offered new, more expensive products that are hardly an improvement from the year before. In the end, it’s a mean game of horse and carrot, and not a “disruption” that improves industry output and “consumer” satisfaction (doctors in this case are the consumers, and the output is more efficient hospital operation). So yes, we are talking theory here. But, the model’s predictions do match the data–which is that hospitals have spent lots of money on software and seen paltry results.

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Posted by: AtlasMD

August 16, 2013

LISTEN: Atlas MD Podcast, Ep. 5

LISTEN: Atlas MD Podcast, Ep. 5

Tune in to the next installment of our Atlas MD podcast. You can stream episode 5 for free on iTunes.

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Posted by: AtlasMD

August 16, 2013

Live Stream Dr. Josh’s Press Conference On Monday, August 19 @ 1 PM CST

Great news. Dr. Josh has been invited to Skype in to a live press conference held by the Michigan State Government. In case you missed it, state legislators in Michigan have taken a stance for less bureaucratized healthcare. The event will be addressing this topic and related issues. There will be speakers from both House and Senate committees, and professionals in the industry. The speakers will hold a live Q&A afterwards.

The entire event will be both videotaped and broadcast live on Michigan Government TV. You can access the live feed on Monday here. (Look for the August 19 session titled 1PM. If you’re on a desktop, it’s on the top of the left column.)

If you can, please share this post with other doctors you think would be interested. Hope you’ll be tuning in Monday!

Posted by: AtlasMD

August 16, 2013

Insurance Exchange Could Save $9 Billion : Insurance-Free Prescriptions Could Save $130 Billion

Insurance Exchange Could Save $9 Billion : Insurance-Free Prescriptions Could Save $130 Billion

According to a new collaborative study, “Smart design of health insurance exchanges that will enable Americans to purchase individual coverage under the Affordable Care Act could save consumers and the government more than $9 billion annually.”

The study was called “Can Consumers Make Affordable Care Affordable? The Value of Choice Architecture,” and it tested the ability of consumers to choose the best health insurance plan for their needs without assistance. FierceHealthIT claims, “Most participants struggled to make the most cost-effective choices for themselves and their families.” Which on one hand is just sad, that Americans have trouble buying anything (since it’s safe to say consumer spending drives our country). However, it does draw attention to an inarguable truth out–bureaucracy selling anything tends towards confusing, unfavorable market outcomes. Perhaps part of the reason is the lack of realistic motivators.

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Posted by: AtlasMD

August 15, 2013

One Doctor Searches For Answers To Our Failing Healthcare System

downloadDr. Michael Painter and his wife Mary each lost a parent. In his wife’s case, her mom died peacefully at home. But Painter’s dad experienced something far more traumatic. He received an early morning call from paramedics regarding his otherwise healthy and vigorous 72-year-old. His dad had fallen at home. Because the responders on the scene presumed a stroke, he was taken to a hospital with a neurosurgery speciality rather than one with a trauma center.

This decision proved fatal.

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Posted by: AtlasMD

August 15, 2013

Man Behind “Meaningful Use” Resigns From High-Ranking HHS Position

farzadAccording to Modern Healthcare, “Dr. Farzad Mostashari will step down this fall as head of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at HHS, where he’s had a big hand in guiding federal health IT policy for the past four years, including the challenging rollout of meaningful-use rules for electronic health-record systems.” This might sound out of blue, but there’s a reason we’re sharing this–Mostashari brought the phrase “meaningful use” into existence.

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Posted by: AtlasMD

August 14, 2013

A Motivation Advocate Points Out Healthcare’s Lack Of Carrots

FrancoisDeBrantes_640_0_0François de Brantes is the Executive Director of the Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute (HCI3), and a staunch advocate of incorporating new motivations within healthcare.

According to Brantes, motivation fuels any professional, with morals and ethics steering the ship so to speak. As people, our motivation is to achieve certain goals. And as doctors, we’re guided by at least two primary goals–stay in business and take care of patients. Thanks to falling Medicare payments and rising cost of overhead, though, the staying in business part has taken precedence, and led to primary care physicians bringing on more and more patients. In turn this compromises the more satisfying, and important, concern–making patients healthier. Ideally, if health care professionals were free to realize that second motivation, we’d have a situation where really good care is readily available, and affordable. But that’s not the situation. And it’s clear that something’s gone wrong.

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