December 19th, 2011 by Trudy Lieberman in Opinion, Research
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Who doesn’t think preventive health care is important? Probably nobody if you ask this question abstractly. But when it comes to getting it–well that’s a different matter. Medicare stats show that too few people are getting preventive services even when they are free. It’s darn difficult, it seems, to get people to take good care of themselves.
By mid-November, of the four million or so new beneficiaries who signed up for Medicare this year, only 3.6 percent had had their “Welcome to Medicare” exam. Only 1.7 million of the more than 40 million seniors, most of whom were already on Medicare, had had their “Annual Wellness Visit.” A poor showing indeed given all the hoopla and hype surrounding the preventive benefits that health reform was supposed to bring to seniors.
To review: All new Medicare beneficiaries are entitled to a free physical exam within the first twelve months that their medical, or Part B, coverage becomes effective. It’s a one-time benefit, and Medicare says that seniors are told about the benefit when they sign up. A Medicare spokesperson added that Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Prepared Patient Forum: What It Takes Blog*
November 6th, 2011 by DrWes in Health Policy, Opinion
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Like Christmas season advertising, the holiday crunch for procedural medicine is coming earlier every year.
Perhaps that’s why the posting on this blog as suffered: we’re busier than ever.
Why is this?
I suspect it’s because of a variety of forces that are coming together to create the great procedural “perfect storm” this time of year.
Perhaps the most important contributor to the holiday rush is the patients themselves. Patients are Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
November 4th, 2011 by Happy Hospitalist in Research
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Want to know if your hospitalist compensation package is on par with other hospitalist groups around you? I have previously written about the results of the hospitalist salary compensation survey for 2010, 2011 (SHM and MGMA). The parabolic rise appears to have no end in site. Hospitalist demand continues to grow as witnessed by the rapid expansion of hospitalist subsidy/support payment for 2011, despite poor economic conditions.
Here’s another look at an exceptional 2011 Hospitalist Salary Survey done by the folks at Today’s Hospitalist. If you are a hospitalist, you owe it to yourself to stay well informed about what you are worth in the market place. As shown in the SHM/MGMA survey, hospitalist compensation Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*
October 20th, 2011 by Trudy Lieberman in Health Policy, True Stories
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A couple weeks ago I walked the streets of Lincoln, Nebraska, talking to men and women about whether they thought Washington was listening to their economic concerns. Jeff Melichar manages his family’s Phillips 66 gas station on the city’s main street, and one of his big financial problems happens to be health insurance. The more we talked, the more I realized what a jam he could be in down the road because of a loophole in the health reform law, which has received almost no press coverage or public discussion: If you have health insurance from your employer, you may have to keep it whether or not it’s adequate or affordable. Buying less expensive or better coverage from one of the state “exchanges” or shopping services will be off limits. So despite all that talk about consumer choice, for many like the Melichars, there may be no choice.
Melichar’s wife is eligible for health insurance from the optical company where she works. But the family waited until this fall to enroll when the firm offered coverage they finally could afford. Their premium is Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Prepared Patient Forum: What It Takes Blog*
September 9th, 2011 by Trudy Lieberman in Health Policy, Opinion
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It’s official now. The government has proposed that descriptions of health insurance policies will resemble those nutritional labels on canned and packaged foods—the ones you look at to find out how much sodium there is in Birds Eye peas versus the A&P brand. Instead of getting the scoop on salt or sugar, shoppers will learn what they have to pay out-of-pocket for various medical services. They’ll also get some general information, like what services are not covered, and how much they’ll have to pay for maternity and diabetes care and breast cancer treatment, all organized in a standard format designed for easy comparison shopping. Insurers will have to translate common insurance jargon into plain English.
The health reform law requires these “Coverage Fact Label” disclosures, and tasked the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) with creating them. The NAIC released some samples a few weeks ago. Theoretically, consumers armed with this information will choose wisely, and as free-market advocates say, their choices will regulate prices that insurers will charge. If consumers choose the low-cost plans, Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Prepared Patient Forum: What It Takes Blog*
