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avivajazz  jazzaviva

Good Health Insurance + Bad Medical Care | "Hop up on the table, Honey." - 0 views

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    "Hop up on the table, Honey." mThat's how an x-ray technician addressed my 89-year-old mother-in-law in 2001, when we took her for knee x-rays. Mom, who had advanced osteoporosis and arthritis as well as confusion and heart problems, had long since given up hopping. When it became obvious that she needed assistance, the technician grabbed her arm -- as if pulling on another sore appendage would magically raise the rest of her onto the table. It didn't. This incident has become our personal mantra for expressing what is wrong with America's health care system. Having helped our four parents during their final years and having both had cancer ourselves as well as other medical problems, we have had experiences with five nursing homes, two personal care facilities and a half dozen hospitals. We've lost count of the doctors, drugstores and health insurance plans. All of us have had health insurance, though some policies were better than others. Nonetheless, we have experienced incident after incident demonstrating the waste, ignorance and apathy which is rampant in the system. Unable to list them all, I have been heretofore reluctant to write about a handful of them lest the reader be persuaded that the problem is with only that hospital, only that nursing home or only that doctor. There is, however, an increasing crisis of confusion, mismanagement and ill-preparedness which is at the core of our healthcare system. We are all familiar at least with the trend line if not the specifics for healthcare costs. According to WhiteHouse.gov, "The United States spends over $2.2 trillion on health care each year-almost $8,000 per person." That's sixteen percent of the economy. Healthcare costs are projected to increase to almost twenty percent ($4 trillion a year) by 2017. Meanwhile forty-six million Americans are without health insurance (14,000 more each day), premiums and co-pays are rising and more reasons are used to refuse coverage both to those willing to pay and thos
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    "Hop up on the table, Honey." mThat's how an x-ray technician addressed my 89-year-old mother-in-law in 2001, when we took her for knee x-rays. Mom, who had advanced osteoporosis and arthritis as well as confusion and heart problems, had long since given up hopping. When it became obvious that she needed assistance, the technician grabbed her arm -- as if pulling on another sore appendage would magically raise the rest of her onto the table. It didn't. This incident has become our personal mantra for expressing what is wrong with America's health care system. Having helped our four parents during their final years and having both had cancer ourselves as well as other medical problems, we have had experiences with five nursing homes, two personal care facilities and a half dozen hospitals. We've lost count of the doctors, drugstores and health insurance plans. All of us have had health insurance, though some policies were better than others. Nonetheless, we have experienced incident after incident demonstrating the waste, ignorance and apathy which is rampant in the system. Unable to list them all, I have been heretofore reluctant to write about a handful of them lest the reader be persuaded that the problem is with only that hospital, only that nursing home or only that doctor. There is, however, an increasing crisis of confusion, mismanagement and ill-preparedness which is at the core of our healthcare system. We are all familiar at least with the trend line if not the specifics for healthcare costs. According to WhiteHouse.gov, "The United States spends over $2.2 trillion on health care each year-almost $8,000 per person." That's sixteen percent of the economy. Healthcare costs are projected to increase to almost twenty percent ($4 trillion a year) by 2017. Meanwhile forty-six million Americans are without health insurance (14,000 more each day), premiums and co-pays are rising and more reasons are used to refuse coverage both to those willing to pay and thos
avivajazz  jazzaviva

Emerging Patient-Driven Health Care Models: An Examination of Health Social Networks, C... - 0 views

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    Abstract: A new class of patient-driven health care services is emerging to supplement and extend traditional health care delivery models and empower patient self-care. Patient-driven health care can be characterized as having an increased level of information flow, transparency, customization, collaboration and patient choice and responsibility-taking, as well as quantitative, predictive and preventive aspects. The potential exists to both improve traditional health care systems and expand the concept of health care though new services. This paper examines three categories of novel health services: health social networks, consumer personalized medicine and quantified self-tracking.
avivajazz  jazzaviva

Medical Education Reform: Patient-Centered Learner, Lowered Costs--True Healthcare Reform - 0 views

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    Patient Centered Learning: The solution is to permit alternatives to rigid institutions, utilize free internet programs, and have medical students assist practicing physicians by assisting practicing physicians in taking patient histories. These students would offer valuable, free services to doctors. At the same time, they would have a vivid learning experience by spending several hours each day interacting with actual patients. The Cost Of Medical Education Would Be Negligible. The expense of healthcare is directly proportional to the cost of the doctor's education. With the institutional bottleneck gone, there would be a greater number of doctors, and the cost of healthcare would plummet.
avivajazz  jazzaviva

Free Medical Clinics STRUGGLE to Fill the Void for Uninsured and Underinsured Americans... - 0 views

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    *In West Chester, Community Volunteers in Medicine treated 332 patients in February, up 26% from February 2008. The cost of care was up 21%. At the same time, the clinic was about $100,000 behind in fundraising for its $1.8 million annual budget. *Ohio's 40 free clinics treated 56,000 uninsured patients in 2008, up from 43,000 in 2007. Marjorie Frazier, executive director of the Ohio Association of Free Clinics, expects the number to increase in 2009. In January, one clinic in Cleveland closed because it lacked funding. Ohio, one of the few states that helps pay for free clinics' operations, is cutting funding. Its two-year allocation for 2008 and 2009 was $2.1 million; for 2010 and 2011, proposed funding is $1.5 million. *California's 800 community health centers saw increases of up to 20% in uninsured patients in the past six months. The state, facing a $42 billion budget shortfall, is eliminating payments for some services for poor adults, including dental care. As a result, the centers will lay off 1,000 dentists and other staff, leaving as many as 400,000 people without dental care, says Chris Patterson, spokesman for the California Primary Care Association.
avivajazz  jazzaviva

Medical Education Reform || Patient-Centered Learning vs. Institution-Centered Learning - 0 views

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    A non-institutional, patient-centered educational plan would produce an abundant supply of compassionate, innovative, prevention-oriented doctors at an extremely low cost. Additionally, the pace of medical research would be sharply accelerated.
avivajazz  jazzaviva

AARP |:| Fixing US Healthcare - 0 views

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    The AARP just met with the leadership of the Mayo Clinic, one of the most outstanding medical institutions in the country. They provide excellent care at a cost that is less than most other parts of the healthcare system - and with improved outcomes. We asked them about their secret to success.\n\nMayo has an electronic medical record and all their patients have their information online. The physicians are on salary, so there's no incentive to order unnecessary tests or procedures, and Mayo has an ethic of patient-centered care, with a long history of attracting the best people and rewarding them.\n\nIf Mayo can do it, why can't everyone else? The AARP believes that the potential is there for most communities to have excellent care - we must emulate the care delivery of institutions like the Mayo Clinic, and put in place payment and information systems that will coordinate care management better. It's a big job and will take some investment, but we have many opportunities to do a better job than we're doing today.
avivajazz  jazzaviva

As Nest Eggs Shrink, Some Doctors Try to Return From Retirement | Health Blog | WSJ - 0 views

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    I want to commend, and cry over, what WP wrote: "What I am seeing in needy areas are things/conditions I thought only existed in previous distant centuries. The patient populations have been well described by Charles Dickens and depicted graphically by Giordano in his opera set during the French revolution…a stream of ragged peasants limping across the stage, right here in the United States, in 2009." I can vouch for it here in Vermont…right next to Dartmouth's great Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Hanover, NH…where - at BEST - most Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Vermont clients CANNOT find a primary care physician (PCP) taking new patients… and where - at WORST - several women I know are choosing to die from their breast cancer because they cannot afford medical care and will not burden their kids or society. One woman has an MA in Counseling, and the other a PhD in Human Nutrition. These are not uneducated people… But they are most definitely poverty-stricken…and were poor before the 2008 global economic collapse.
avivajazz  jazzaviva

Center for Information Therapy - 0 views

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    Information Therapy (Ix®) is the timely prescription and availability of evidence-based health information to meet individuals' specific needs and support sound decision making. Ix prescriptions are specifically targeted to an individual's needs at a particular moment in care and are delivered as part of the process of care.
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