There is a mutual distrust among stakeholders.
This mutual distrust must be overcome and price transparency achieved before any progress can occur in Repairing The Healthcare System.
In order to achieve Pareto efficiency in the healthcare system all the stakeholders must agree to price transparency. The advantage of Pareto efficiency is that Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*
The Medical-Loss Ratio calculation is not reported by the traditional media. The healthcare insurance industry spends less healthcare dollars on direct patient care after it is permitted by federal and local agencies to load its expenses into the direct patient care column.
Simply put, the healthcare insurance industry cooks the books to increase its net profit.
Another way to increase profits is to shortchange physicians on medical claims. In fact, 20% of medical claims payments are inaccurate according to the American Medical Association’s (AMA) fourth annual National Health Insurer Report Card. Claims-processing errors by health insurance companies waste billions of dollars and frustrate patients and physicians.
This is one of the reasons the RAND report about physicians controlling waste is so absurd to me. The healthcare insurance industry creates waste in order to increase net profit. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*
President Obama, where is your promise about transparency and accountability in Obamacare?
A major problem in the healthcare system is the lack of transparency and accountability. It has been unchecked for a very long time.
Both primary and secondary stakeholders act in their self-interest. These stakeholders have had ample opportunity to be non-transparent and non-accountable. All the stakeholders have abused the healthcare system.
I hit a nerve with my last blog “Patients And Physicians Must Control Costs”. Multiple readers responded with the usual comments:
“Patients are not smart enough to handle their own healthcare dollars.”
“Your basic idea makes sense, but in reality I doubt that a patient knows enough to make intelligent medical/financial decisions, because there are too many unknowns and variables.”
“Physicians over use the fee for service system in order to make more money.”
“If a physician tells a patient that there is only a 1/10,000 chance that an MRI will yield something useful, if the patient doesn’t have to pay for it, the patient wants the MRI.
Patients (consumers) must be taught and motivated to manage their own healthcare dollars. Patients’ choice Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*
Who doesn’t need insurance reform? Why, the insurers like Aetna, Cigna, and BCS Insurance, that’s who! From Emergency Physicians Monthly:
By threatening to raise health care premiums by 200 percent or threatening to drop coverage altogether, the companies got the Department of Health and Human Services to cave. Now the companies have our government’s blessing to continue offering “insurance” to their employees that is capped at a few thousand dollars per year instead of the $750,000 required in the health care law.
Perhaps GruntDoc said it best:
“I am not an Obamacare fan, and would like it repealed, with smaller, more focused Bipartisan fixes, but if the government is going to pass something then roll over this easily to special interests… it’s already worse than useless.”
-WesMusings of a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist.
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
Physicians aren’t exempt from the struggles with personal health insurance coverage, affordability, denied coverage, etc.
When I finished my medical training and opened my practice 20 years ago, I had to buy individual coverage. All options included a rider that excluded coverage on my uterus and ovaries due to fibroid surgery during my training, so when I had my TAH & BSO a few years later, the entire cost came out of my pocket. Fortunately I knew how to ask for cost reductions, but still.
My husband and I are both small business individuals. I have always carried our health insurance under my name (office). Over the years we have gone to a health savings account with a high deductible to keep the cost reasonable. Fortunately, we have been mostly healthy. Last month we received a letter from Assurant Health. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*
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