September 28th, 2011 by Stanley Feld, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
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I have opposed Medicare’s use of claims data to evaluate the quality of medical care. Quality medical care is the goal that must be achieved. However, no one has described the measurement of quality medical care adequately.
Physicians recognize when other physicians are not performing quality medical care. Physicians recognize when another physician is just testing and performing procedures to increase revenue.
These over testing physicians are a small minority of physicians in practice.
Quality medical care is not about doing quarterly HbA1c’s on patients with Diabetes Mellitus. Quality medical care is about helping patients control their blood sugars so their HbA1c becomes normalized. It is about the clinical and financial results of treatment.
The clinical and financial results depend on both patients and physicians. Patients must be responsible for Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*
September 18th, 2011 by Shadowfax in Opinion
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Howard Dean wrote an op-ed defending the use of foreign international medical graduates:
Today, young physicians with degrees from international medical schools face skepticism from some in the American medical community. That strikes me as misinformed thinking, given the large number of international medical school graduates practicing in the United States, alongside American medical school graduates, and given that the American medical system depends on them to fill the growing doctor shortage.
The federal Health Resources and Services Administration predicts there will be a shortage of approximately 55,000 physicians in the United States by 2020. We simply can’t build the capacity to meet our growing needs for skilled physicians — especially given budgetary constraints on schools receiving government subsidies. Even if the new medical schools now in the planning stages all come to pass, they won’t turn out enough primary care physicians to meet urgent needs in urban and rural communities.
I actually don’t have a lot to say about the IMG thing, I have worked with and hired many IMG’s and their skill and quality vary as much as US graduates. But this whole argument seems to miss the central point regarding the projected physician shortage. The supply of new medical graduates is not the choke point, under the current state of affairs. The choke point is the number of residency training slots. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*
September 6th, 2011 by Stanley Feld, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
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I have described how the healthcare insurance industry loads its expenses into direct patient care expenses to increase their profits.
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*
August 6th, 2011 by BarbaraFicarraRN in Expert Interviews, Opinion
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This is the third part of a three part post addressing the legal concerns of social networking in the health care arena.
In part one, legal expert David Harlow, Esq., Health Care Attorney and Consultant at The Harlow Group, LLC in Boston, answered questions regarding “The Legal Implications for Doctors, Nurses and Hospitals Engaging in Social Media?”
In part two, Mr. Harlow answered questions related to the Pharma industry; “Legal Concerns: What Steps can Pharma Take to Engage in Social Media?”
The third part addresses a question from a follower on Facebook about the use of disclaimers.
Q: Barbara: A Healthin30 reader on Facebook writes: “I’m looking for a good disclaimer to put on a couple of medical practices’ Facebook pages. The AMA social media guidelines aren’t helpful. Do you have a good boilerplate you recommend? Thanks in advance for your help!” David, can you offer a couple suggestions?
A: David: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*
July 1st, 2011 by Peggy Polaneczky, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
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The Supreme Court has sided with Big Pharma in their challenge to the Vermont Law limiting the pharmaceutical Industry’s access to physician prescribing information.
The nation’s high court handed down a verdict Thursday in the Sorrell v. IMS Health case, striking down by a 6-3 vote a 2007 Vermont law that that bans the practice of data mining — the sale and use of prescriber-identifiable information for marketing or promoting a drug, including drug detailing — unless a physician specifically gives his or her permission to use the information.
Apparently, Big Pharma’s right to “free speech” trumps my right to privacy. How getting access to my prescribing information has anything to do with free speech is beyond me. In the twisted logic of the pro-business, anti-citizen Supreme Court -
Speech in aid of pharmaceutical marketing… is a form of expression protected by the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Blog That Ate Manhattan*
