In the past we've praised Wal-Mart's $4 prescription plan and in-store clinics. Wal-Mart continues to drop the price of health care in a recently announced move to enter electronic medical records business. The news is a couple of weeks old, but it is interesting and worth discussing.
Wal-Mart is teaming up with Dell and eClinicalWorks to offer a bundled electronic medical records system that would cost about $44,000 to set up and operate per physician. For most doctors, that's about half the price of setting up other available systems.
Wal-Mart is consistently demonstrating that the market has plenty of solutions to medical care problems. Good business is the answer to the high price of care.
Further analysis of the medical records package is far beyond my expertise, but a good analysis of the product and the Wal-Mart/Dell/eClinicalWorks partnership by Don Fornes of Medical Software Advice is available here.
Rusty Scalpel
Showing posts with label stimulus package. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stimulus package. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Those Who Pay the Bills Run the Business
Several news stories and political developments drive home an important point in health care delivery: Money is power. The person who pays the bills runs the business.
Take for example the dwindling autonomy of businesses and industries that accepted government aid over the last couple of months. 1) The Obama Administration forced CEO Rick Wagoner out of GM after rejecting GM's restructuring plans. The Obama Administration paid to keep GM alive and now runs GM. 2) Recently, the House tried to hammer AIG, another bailout recipient, and passed a 90% tax on AIG's executive bonuses. The federal government owns AIG. It's freedom as a business only extends as far as good favor from the government. 3) Now Barney Frank is pushing a bill that would establish government control of the salaries of all businesses that received bailout funds. If the government pays the bills, they run the business.
Health care providers need to decide who they want calling the shots at their own clinics: do they want government-directed care, insurance company-directed care, or patient-directed care? That will be determined by who they allow to pay the bills.
I believe that most physicians truly believe that patients should be their own health care executives. They should have the final say on all medical decisions. Physicians and other health care workers are contracted to the patient to provide services under the patient's direction. Patients can hire and fire physicians at will. That is the ideal in medicine- the patient is in charge.
Experience and reason show that the responsibility of physicians to patients extends only to the degree that patients pay their own bills. The patient remains the health care executive only as long as they pay the medical bills. As soon as they delegate that responsibility of paying, they are no longer in charge of their care.
Patients' and doctors' experience with health insurance companies supports this idea. When clinics begin working with insurance companies, the whole nature of the practice changes. The insurance company is now making the calls. They determine treatment regimens- declaring some treatments acceptable and ruling others out despite patient wishes. They mandate diagnostics, both requiring redundant screenings and denying more expensive essential diagnostics. They even require additional staff hiring at the clinic, requiring the hiring of billing personnel exclusively for correspondence with the insurance company. Insurance-paid medical care is not patient-driven medical care. Many patients are okay with this- they've contracted insurance companies to manage their care. Insurance pays the bills and insurance runs the business.
What about when the government pays the bills for health care? It seems that the federal government has demonstrated a light touch in the cases of Medicare and Medicaid. Here the government is paying the bills, but they have allowed remarkable autonomy to patients and thus practitioners. Thus the common claim: Medicaid is the best health insurance! However, the reality that government-paid health care is government-controlled health care is present in each health care regulation or bill that rolls through the legislature.
Take for example the conscience-clause regulations that President Obama is about to overturn. Which health care providers do conscience-clause laws and regulations actually effect? Only those who receive federal funding through programs including Medicare and Medicaid. For another example, consider the health care legislation that was buried in the February stimulus package. The legislation establishes a National Coordinator of Health Information Technology with potential powers to establish and enforce a national standard of care. What health care providers will be responsible to this Coordinator? As far as I can see in the bill, only "government-sponsored" health care programs (pp 470) and recipients of Medicare, Medicaid, and state children's health insurance programs (pp 481) are currently marked for integration into the HIT program. When the government pays the bills, government runs the business.
If patients want to control their health care, they must pay the bills. If health care providers want patient-driven health care, they must establish practices where patients pay the bills. As government control increases in the health care industry, the best way to maintain autonomy over a practice may be to refuse third-party funding, especially government funding. Cash-only practices may become the only venue where patients remain health care executives and the doctor-patient relationship is preserved.
The federal government is trying to work up a steam push through government-run health care. They don't call it that, in fact many will sell the package as patient-run or patient-centered health care. But those who pay the bills run the business. You can bet that the same House, Senate, and White House that had so much to say about AIG and GM will have plenty to say about health care. Patient control over health care will be as remote as my control of the House of Representatives. After a few unanswered letters to the legislature, they will be left powerless and blogging.
Rusty Scalpel
Take for example the dwindling autonomy of businesses and industries that accepted government aid over the last couple of months. 1) The Obama Administration forced CEO Rick Wagoner out of GM after rejecting GM's restructuring plans. The Obama Administration paid to keep GM alive and now runs GM. 2) Recently, the House tried to hammer AIG, another bailout recipient, and passed a 90% tax on AIG's executive bonuses. The federal government owns AIG. It's freedom as a business only extends as far as good favor from the government. 3) Now Barney Frank is pushing a bill that would establish government control of the salaries of all businesses that received bailout funds. If the government pays the bills, they run the business.
Health care providers need to decide who they want calling the shots at their own clinics: do they want government-directed care, insurance company-directed care, or patient-directed care? That will be determined by who they allow to pay the bills.
I believe that most physicians truly believe that patients should be their own health care executives. They should have the final say on all medical decisions. Physicians and other health care workers are contracted to the patient to provide services under the patient's direction. Patients can hire and fire physicians at will. That is the ideal in medicine- the patient is in charge.
Experience and reason show that the responsibility of physicians to patients extends only to the degree that patients pay their own bills. The patient remains the health care executive only as long as they pay the medical bills. As soon as they delegate that responsibility of paying, they are no longer in charge of their care.
Patients' and doctors' experience with health insurance companies supports this idea. When clinics begin working with insurance companies, the whole nature of the practice changes. The insurance company is now making the calls. They determine treatment regimens- declaring some treatments acceptable and ruling others out despite patient wishes. They mandate diagnostics, both requiring redundant screenings and denying more expensive essential diagnostics. They even require additional staff hiring at the clinic, requiring the hiring of billing personnel exclusively for correspondence with the insurance company. Insurance-paid medical care is not patient-driven medical care. Many patients are okay with this- they've contracted insurance companies to manage their care. Insurance pays the bills and insurance runs the business.
What about when the government pays the bills for health care? It seems that the federal government has demonstrated a light touch in the cases of Medicare and Medicaid. Here the government is paying the bills, but they have allowed remarkable autonomy to patients and thus practitioners. Thus the common claim: Medicaid is the best health insurance! However, the reality that government-paid health care is government-controlled health care is present in each health care regulation or bill that rolls through the legislature.
Take for example the conscience-clause regulations that President Obama is about to overturn. Which health care providers do conscience-clause laws and regulations actually effect? Only those who receive federal funding through programs including Medicare and Medicaid. For another example, consider the health care legislation that was buried in the February stimulus package. The legislation establishes a National Coordinator of Health Information Technology with potential powers to establish and enforce a national standard of care. What health care providers will be responsible to this Coordinator? As far as I can see in the bill, only "government-sponsored" health care programs (pp 470) and recipients of Medicare, Medicaid, and state children's health insurance programs (pp 481) are currently marked for integration into the HIT program. When the government pays the bills, government runs the business.
If patients want to control their health care, they must pay the bills. If health care providers want patient-driven health care, they must establish practices where patients pay the bills. As government control increases in the health care industry, the best way to maintain autonomy over a practice may be to refuse third-party funding, especially government funding. Cash-only practices may become the only venue where patients remain health care executives and the doctor-patient relationship is preserved.
The federal government is trying to work up a steam push through government-run health care. They don't call it that, in fact many will sell the package as patient-run or patient-centered health care. But those who pay the bills run the business. You can bet that the same House, Senate, and White House that had so much to say about AIG and GM will have plenty to say about health care. Patient control over health care will be as remote as my control of the House of Representatives. After a few unanswered letters to the legislature, they will be left powerless and blogging.
Rusty Scalpel
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Step One of Government Health Care Takeover Hidden In Stimulus Package
Here's the followup on today's earlier post on Bloomberg's piece about hidden health care legislation in the stimulus package. I'm afraid we're a bit behind on this one. My searches today showed that the other bloggers have been talking about it for weeks- we took notice only after Rush and Drudge brought it to national attention yesterday. My only excuse is that the stimulus bill was so depressing that we never looked at it. Maybe that was their strategy all along.
There is a lot of discussion about the hidden health care policy in the bill and I'm not sure how accurate it all has been. I've gone to the bill itself to try to make sure that my description of the health care inclusions in the bill are accurate. I'll also point out that the following discussion is not the only reason to oppose the bill. In principle the whole thing stinks. These are just some of the especially low points. Under the guise of a anything-is-justified-because-the-sky-is-falling stimulus package we usher in the beginning of the Obama socialized medicine era.
The bill establishes a National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. His purpose is to oversee the development of a federal electronic health care system (pp 441). Included among his duties the director ‘‘(2) improves health care quality, reduces medical errors, reduces health disparities, and advances the delivery of patient-centered medical care; ... (4) provides appropriate information to help guide medical decisions at the time and place of care;... (9) promotes prevention of chronic diseases; (10) promotes a more effective marketplace, greater competition, greater systems analysis, increased consumer choice, and improved outcomes in health care services; and (11) improves efforts to reduce health disparities." (pp 442).
Isn't that fantastic? We now will have a government officer, probably to be reverently referred to as Mr. (or Ms.) Coordinator, that will make health care better. He will lovingly "guide medical decisions at the time and place of care." He will promote prevention of chronic disease. He will promote a more effective market place- isn't that great, the federal government will step in to help the market be more of a market! He will help improve health disparity. If we're lucky, he may even turn back death.
‘The National Coordinator shall, in consultation with other appropriate Federal agencies... update the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan... to include specific objectives, milestones, and metrics with respect to... the utilization of an electronic health record for each person in the United States by 2014." (pp 445)
The National Coordinator will appoint the HIT committee (Health Information Technologies Committee) composed of "providers, ancillary healthcare workers, consumers, purchasers, health plans, technology vendors, researchers, relevant Federal agencies, and individuals with technical expertise on health care quality, privacy and security, and on the electronic exchange and use of health information." (pp. 457)
This committee will advise the Coordinator on how to best achieve his stated mission of stepping in to help the market be a safer and more federally-approved market, help doctors make good decisions, etc. Perhaps this group will make the Coordinator's decisions bipartisan if he can't get bipartisan support from democratically elected officials.
The biggest question I have is whether health care practitioners will be forced to use the electronic medical system. Will they will be forced to follow The Coordinator and the People's Committee's recommendations on appropriate medical decisions, having a "more fair" market, spreading the wealth, etc?
I couldn't find a clear answer to that question. The bill talks about paying practitioners to use the electronic system, but those provisions were found under the headings of Indian Health Services and Medicare. However, the following slightly menacing statement is found at least twice in the bill: "The Secretary shall seek to improve the use of electronic health records and health care quality over time by requiring more stringent measures of meaningful use..." (pp 518, pp 541)
I sincerely believe that a national medical database is not a bad idea. It is an idea that deserves discussion. But it's not getting that discussion. It's being ramrodded down senators' throats by President Obama. He tells them we're in a national crisis. Don't think about it- just vote yes.
But this database, and especially the powers attached to the Coordinator, are a big deal. They take up over 100 pages of the 680 page stimulus package. This is Phase One of Obama's Change for socialized medicine. Why is it buried in the stimulus bill? Is the Democratic Force for Change afraid America wouldn't support it in open discussion?
Rusty Scalpel
There is a lot of discussion about the hidden health care policy in the bill and I'm not sure how accurate it all has been. I've gone to the bill itself to try to make sure that my description of the health care inclusions in the bill are accurate. I'll also point out that the following discussion is not the only reason to oppose the bill. In principle the whole thing stinks. These are just some of the especially low points. Under the guise of a anything-is-justified-because-the-sky-is-falling stimulus package we usher in the beginning of the Obama socialized medicine era.
The bill establishes a National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. His purpose is to oversee the development of a federal electronic health care system (pp 441). Included among his duties the director ‘‘(2) improves health care quality, reduces medical errors, reduces health disparities, and advances the delivery of patient-centered medical care; ... (4) provides appropriate information to help guide medical decisions at the time and place of care;... (9) promotes prevention of chronic diseases; (10) promotes a more effective marketplace, greater competition, greater systems analysis, increased consumer choice, and improved outcomes in health care services; and (11) improves efforts to reduce health disparities." (pp 442).
Isn't that fantastic? We now will have a government officer, probably to be reverently referred to as Mr. (or Ms.) Coordinator, that will make health care better. He will lovingly "guide medical decisions at the time and place of care." He will promote prevention of chronic disease. He will promote a more effective market place- isn't that great, the federal government will step in to help the market be more of a market! He will help improve health disparity. If we're lucky, he may even turn back death.
‘The National Coordinator shall, in consultation with other appropriate Federal agencies... update the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan... to include specific objectives, milestones, and metrics with respect to... the utilization of an electronic health record for each person in the United States by 2014." (pp 445)
The National Coordinator will appoint the HIT committee (Health Information Technologies Committee) composed of "providers, ancillary healthcare workers, consumers, purchasers, health plans, technology vendors, researchers, relevant Federal agencies, and individuals with technical expertise on health care quality, privacy and security, and on the electronic exchange and use of health information." (pp. 457)
This committee will advise the Coordinator on how to best achieve his stated mission of stepping in to help the market be a safer and more federally-approved market, help doctors make good decisions, etc. Perhaps this group will make the Coordinator's decisions bipartisan if he can't get bipartisan support from democratically elected officials.
The biggest question I have is whether health care practitioners will be forced to use the electronic medical system. Will they will be forced to follow The Coordinator and the People's Committee's recommendations on appropriate medical decisions, having a "more fair" market, spreading the wealth, etc?
I couldn't find a clear answer to that question. The bill talks about paying practitioners to use the electronic system, but those provisions were found under the headings of Indian Health Services and Medicare. However, the following slightly menacing statement is found at least twice in the bill: "The Secretary shall seek to improve the use of electronic health records and health care quality over time by requiring more stringent measures of meaningful use..." (pp 518, pp 541)
I sincerely believe that a national medical database is not a bad idea. It is an idea that deserves discussion. But it's not getting that discussion. It's being ramrodded down senators' throats by President Obama. He tells them we're in a national crisis. Don't think about it- just vote yes.
But this database, and especially the powers attached to the Coordinator, are a big deal. They take up over 100 pages of the 680 page stimulus package. This is Phase One of Obama's Change for socialized medicine. Why is it buried in the stimulus bill? Is the Democratic Force for Change afraid America wouldn't support it in open discussion?
Rusty Scalpel
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