I'm horrified and forlorn as I listen to this story on Fresh Air about how health care providers over-order too many things, tell patients to schedule an appointment rather than follow up calls because they make money off of visits and other despairing things occurring around the nation...
Listen to the interview with Dr. Atul Gawande, doctor and Boston's Brigham and Women's (down the street from where I live) and staff writer for The New Yorker (very far away from where I live):
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105483669
I heard another story the other day of a Massachusetts task force declaring that we need to completely overhaul the health care model by shifting the focus from healing the sick to maintaining the health of the healthy. The incentive gets shifted to wellness and maintaining it, rather than patching up the sick...This is how it is explained on WBUR.org's coverage page:
The idea is to spend less on health care by rewarding doctors for helping patients stay healthy instead of rewarding them delivering unlimited care when patients get sick. If that sounds straightforward, it’s not.
Full story from WBUR is here:
http://www.wbur.org/2009/05/27/health-cost-control
Have you ever had the pleasure of getting a full hospital bill, and being able to read through it to see what services are being charged? I got to see my delivery only bill for Avery, that was a $35K c-section, because I had an OB team, a nurse team, and a NICU team (just in case, they didn't do anything except observe, and it was still something like $7K). In addition to that, I was in the hospital for four nights. Every time I even walked into the hospital for additional testing, it was at least $6K billed to my insurance, and I was there three times. Each ultrasound- 1 or 2 a WEEK for ten weeks, in office, cost insurance $700. Not to mention the weekly non-stress tests, amnio test, and other blood work. She's literally my million dollar baby.
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