There is a general consensus in America that our health care system is broken. What we can’t seem to agree on is how to fix it.
There’s been much discussion about “consumer driven health care” and I agree with Mr. Bradley that this in not the solution that some of its advocates are proposing. I don’t have anything against HSA’s. In fact I have one personally. For myself and the 3 million other American’s that have them, it is a great tool to help build up that retirement nest egg. At the same time, it is cutting costs for some of this country’s corporations. However, I don’t see how it will fix our national health care system, even if it becomes more widely adopted.
Bradley suggests that a more Holistic approach is the only way to realize any significant improvement, and with that I agree. He outlines a 6 step plan addressing:
- Quality of care
- Coverage for all Americans
- Individual responsibility
- Reduce recurring costs
- Set national goals
- Electronic Record Keeping and prescriptions.
What Bradley fails to do is address how we are going to achieve these goals. In regard to quality of care he suggests that we have a goal of zero medical errors. Well, hopefully that is already the goal of every doctor. I would hate to think of my doctor looking in the mirror in the morning as he’s shaving and saying to himself “OK doc – let’s only allow ourselves 3 errors today.” That’s ridiculous. Of course the GOAL is zero errors, but is it really possible to achieve that?
Coverage for all American’s is a great idea, but who pays for it? He suggests easing into a Medicare type system for all Americans, but isn’t the system already on its way to bankruptcy?
So let’s move on to individual responsibility. People are responsible for themselves and the choices they make, yet we all make poor choices some times and some people just continue to make poor choices repeatedly, even if they know that it’s bad for them.
Reducing recurrent costs is another great idea, but whose pocket does the money come out of? Are the drug companies going to cut their costs, thereby reducing the profits of their shareholders? Set national goals? Great! Who pays for monitoring the progress? Are we going to create a new federal agency for that? And at what cost?
Finally – as for electronic record keeping and prescriptions, many doctors and hospitals have already implemented such plans or will be implementing them in the near future.
On the surface, it looks like a good, wide scoped plan. I just think we’re going to have to dig a little deeper to really make any headway.
Carol King, Health Correspondent
Carol's Column "Health Care Matters," published bi-monthly at Health.gather.com, is intended to empower patients and help them navigate today's complex healthcare system. Carol has worked as a patient advocate in Southern California.
You can keep up with Carol's postings and activity by joining her network. Click here to join.
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Comments: 9
In the years I worked as a patient advocate, our services were typically paid for by employers who offered advocacy services to their employees as a benefit. In those cases the patient paid nothing out of their own pocket. However, if individuals came to us with a need, we didn't turn them away.
It's possible that some doctors are over billing on purpose in hopes that patients will just pay their balance due without question. Let's hope those cases are rare.
However, many doctors offices use outside billing companies, so more often than not, it's probably due to the chain of communication. (I'm sure you played the "telephone operator" game as a child.) A doctor communicates to a secretary or assistant who then sends the information to the billing company where it is entered into a billing system. The CPT and Diagnostic codes are numeric, so it's also easy for a couple of digits to get transposed somewhere along the line. As more and more doctors are transmitting this data electronically, hopefully we'll see the rate of errors decrease.
(Now that you mention it - I've had several problems with my phone bills too. Is it possible the medical billers are moonlighting at the phone company?)