Health Care, Meet Gall ’ s Law
By KIM BELLARD
I can’t believe I’ve gone this long without knowing about Gall’s Law (thanks to @niquola for tweeting it!). For those of you similarly unaware, John Gall was a pediatrician who, seemingly in his spare time, wrote Systemantics: How Systems Work and Especially How They Fail in 1975. His “law,” contained therein, is:
Have you ever heard of anything that applied so perfectly to our healthcare system?
As anyone who has been reading my prior articles may know, I’m a big believer in simple. I’ve advocated that healthcare’s billing and paperwork should be much simpler, th...
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 31, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Health Policy Gall's Law Health Care Reform Kim Bellard Source Type: blogs
A secret for my $40,000 health care bills
On Twitter @jpegjoshua recently posted about a staggering health care bill for going to the hospital for a life-threatening condition and then receiving an outrageous statement, which reminded me of a similar story that I had. I also received a bill for nearly $40,000 but luckily managed to have it cleared through an unmentioned secret. […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 29, 2021 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/ziyad-nazem" rel="tag" > Ziyad Nazem < /a > < /span > Tags: Policy Emergency Medicine Public Health & Source Type: blogs
Telehealth in the Time of COVID-19
Jeffrey Miron andErin PartinA new year means a flurry of new legislation at the state and local levels. This year, as the Covid ‐19 pandemic continues to rage, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker signeda new health care bill that, among other provisions, expands access to telehealth services.The use of telehealth visits has increased dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic. OneCDC report finds a 154 percent increase in telehealth visits in the last week of March 2020 (the latest available data) compared to the same week in 2019. More recent data, when available, will almost certainly show similar inc...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 4, 2021 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey Miron, Erin Partin Source Type: blogs
Another (Un)Health Care Bill Forced onto Us
by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.
Americans still tend to think of human rights violations as abridgments of free speech and religion, and extreme crimes against humanity, such as slavery, torture, and arbitrary detention. These are correct, but incomplete. Economic and social rights (which include the right to health, and can be thought of as the core of social justice) are a vital part of a human-rights-based ethical code. – George Annas, American Journal of Bioethics (September 2017)
This coming week (probably Wednesday), the GOP Senate leadership plans to bring to a vote yet another health care reform bill, Graham-Cassidy....
Source: blog.bioethics.net - September 22, 2017 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Craig Klugman Tags: Featured Posts Health Care Health Regulation & Law Justice Politics ACA Graham-Cassidy Obamacare Source Type: blogs
New technology might help us become more empathetic to others ’ suffering
Tele-empathy is not being empathetic over the phone. It is not crying in the sad parts of your favorite TV show. It is not beaming empathetic thoughts magically across time and space. No, tele-empathy is a technology. I should rather say, it’s a group of technologies recently being created to increase the empathy of health care providers. “This is rich,” you might say coming from an industry that brought us electronic medical records, automated “help desks,” and robocallers.
Sandeep Juhar, a writer for the New York Times, tried out one of these devices, one that simulates the uncontrollable shaking su...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - September 6, 2017 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/shirie-leng" rel="tag" > Shirie Leng, MD < /a > Tags: Tech Hospital-Based Medicine Primary Care Source Type: blogs
Solving The Problem Of Bipartisan Health Care Reform
After the Senate Republicans repeatedly failed to obtain a majority for any health care bill, a bipartisan effort at health care reform has emerged in the House. The effort is led by the so-called Problem Solvers, a group of 43 Representatives, divided roughly equally between Democrats and Republicans.
The legislative goals of this bipartisan group are short-term and sensible: to stabilize the state insurance exchanges, reduce the burdens on small employers, and mitigate the impact of higher premiums on individuals. While avoiding the over-heated politics of revamping Medicaid, the group wants to accomplish its goals witho...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - August 22, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Robert Pozen Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Medicare ACA reform bipartisanship health savings accounts IPAB Source Type: blogs
Outside Of Washington, There Is A New Vital Center In Health Care Reform
Republicans in Congress are mired in political quicksand. Following passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, they locked themselves into a promise to repeal and replace it at the behest of ultra-conservative donors and party activists who control the GOP’s nomination process. Since 2010, however, Americans and rank-and-file Republicans increasingly came to expect help meeting the rising costs of medical care and insurance and to accept the ACA’s tangible programs to address these concrete challenges.
The Democrats created their own political trap. They passed the ACA on the promise of making health care afford...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - July 31, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Lawrence R. Jacobs and Suzanne Mettler Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage ACA repeal and replace Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Source Type: blogs
How Much Is That CAT Scan in the Window?
ANISH KOKA, MD
Who knew healthcare could be so complex? The GOP proposal for health care reform rests on health savings accounts and high deductible health plans. The basic premise is that price opacity, and deep pocketed third party payers drive up the cost of health care. Giving patients dollars in health savings accounts they control should make them price sensitive, and thus help reduce the cost of healthcare. A recent analysis by Drs. Chandra and others provides an interesting perspective on the matter.
The researchers took a large self insured firm that required all of its employees to switch from an insuran...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 27, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: anish_koka Tags: Uncategorized Anish Koka Source Type: blogs
Sorry for my absence . . .
The crisis we face is simultaneously so terrifying and so bizarre that I haven ' t been able to respond properly. Writing about the quotidian issues that interest me seems inadequate, while others who have a much larger audience are saying what I might say about our larger problems. But I ' ve decided I ' ll keep on blogging, for my own sake if not for yours.So, the Senate Majority Leader is insisting that his members vote tomorrow on a bill that will radically re-make 15% of the U.S. economy,without telling them anything about what ' s in it. Does that seem strange? Here ' s former Republican Senator David Durenberger, wh...
Source: Stayin' Alive - July 24, 2017 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Watching Trumpcare Die
By KIP SULLIVAN
It’s hard to know what “Trumpcare” is, but whether it’s “repeal” or “repeal and replace with something terrific,” it was and is going to fail. It was either going to fail to be enacted by Congress, or if it was enacted, it was going to set off such a bipartisan backlash it would be repealed, either by a chastened Republican Congress or a new Democratic Congress and president.
The reason Trumpcare was doomed was that health care is not like global warming or police shootings or use of military force in foreign countries: It is an issue a large majority of Ameri...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 20, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized ACA Kip Sullivan Trumpacare Source Type: blogs
Watching Obamacare Die
By KIP SULLIVAN
It’s hard to know what “Trumpcare” is, but whether it’s “repeal” or “repeal and replace with something terrific,” it was and is going to fail. It was either going to fail to be enacted by Congress, or if it was enacted, it was going to set off such a bipartisan backlash it would be repealed, either by a chastened Republican Congress or a new Democratic Congress and president.
The reason Trumpcare was doomed was that health care is not like global warming or police shootings or use of military force in foreign countries: It is an issue a large majority of Ameri...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 20, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized ACA Kip Sullivan Trumpacare Source Type: blogs
No'Freedom Option' in the Revised Senate Health Care Bill
The other day, I wrote a piecelauding an amendment Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was proposing to add tothe Senate GOP ’s health care bill. Cruz called it the the Consumer Freedom Amendment. If insurers offered two ObamaCare-compliant plans to all comers, the Cruz amendment would have freed them to sell –and freed consumers to purchase–health-insurance plans that did not comply with those regulations. The legislative language I saw appeared to free consumers, not from all the regulations I would like, but from enough that it would have made the Senate bill a step in the right direction. It als o included more restrictions on...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 13, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Michael F. Cannon Source Type: blogs
In Senate Health Care Bill, A Few Hidden Surprises
A low-income person, eligible for Medicaid but not enrolled, is hit by a car or a bullet. Gravely injured, she arrives at the hospital unconscious. Thanks to expert, intensive care that lasts for days or weeks, she gradually recovers. Eventually, her health improves to the point where she can complete the paperwork needed to apply for Medicaid.
Such a hospital can be paid today, thanks to Medicaid’s “retroactive eligibility.” Even if the combination of medical problems and bureaucratic delays prevents an application from being filed and completed for several months, Medicaid will cover the care if the patient was eli...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - July 13, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Stan Dorn and Sara Rosenbaum Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Medicaid and CHIP Payment Policy Senate health bill The Better Care Reconciliation Act Source Type: blogs
Which Is More Efficient: Employer-Sponsored Insurance or Medicaid?
By SAURABH JHA, MD
An old disagreement between Uwe Reinhardt and Sally Pipes in Forbes is a teachable moment. There’s a dearth of confrontational debates in health policy and education is worse off for it.
Crux of the issue is the more efficient system: employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) or Medicaid. Sally Pipes, president of the market-leaning Pacific Research Institute, believes it is ESI. Employers spend 60% less than the government, per person: $3,430 versus $9,130, per person (according to the American Health Policy Institute). Seems like a no brainer.
Pipes credits “consumerist and market-friendly approaches t...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 13, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: at RogueRad Tags: Economics OP-ED employer-sponsored insurance Medicaid Sally Pipes Uwe Reinhardt Source Type: blogs
The BCRA Is An Improvement Over Obamacare. Here ’ s why..
ANISH KOKA MD
Dr. Jha writes on these pages in typically stirring fashion about his views on the recent health care kerfuffle and rightly so fingers what the real focus of our efforts should be: Cost. He ends by slaying both sides because of their refusal to confront the hospital chargemonster – the fee schedule hospitals make that remarkably only really applies to the uninsured.
Unfortunately, the solution proposed ensures hospital fee schedules for the uninsured are no greater than Medicare reimbursements, which is far from perfect. Consider that the Medicare reimbursement for a stent placed to an ischemic limb is ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 10, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: anish_koka Tags: Economics Repeal Replace Uncategorized Anish Koka BCRA Obamacare Source Type: blogs
