The EHR Interoperability Disincentive
“If you bring her to our urgent care, we’ll be able to see what was done in her record,” the pediatric R.N. told me with a winning smile when I’d asked what to do if my 3-year-old’s urinary tract infection wasn’t better by the following day, a weekend.
It was a subtle and winning bit of patient steerage that I’d run into many times before, both personally and when dealing with health issues for my children. There is an urgent care office just blocks from our home, but when ill, my
The Numbers Game
Demographers tell us that the fastest growing segment in the U.S. is that group of citizens that are 65+. Add to this statistic the fact that there are approximately 78 million so called “baby boomers” that are just now arriving at retirement age and the stage is set for a major acceleration in the overall demand for health care services in the next 20 years or so. That is good news and bad news, as usual. The good news is that medical imaging organizations can pretty much count on continued growth in overall demand for their services.
ACHE Trendwatch: Hot Spotting
As a patient who desperately wants health care costs to come down, I can’t deny the appeal of the hot-spotting approach: targeting the most expensive patients, usually those with chronic disease, and intensively managing their conditions to lower their health care utilization. I share a risk pool with these people, and I’m tired of them driving up my costs to the point that I pay more money for two months of health insurance than is spent on my health care in a year. They need help – I say let’s give it to ‘em.
So
How Not to Wind Up Like MIDI and West Valley
This morning I popped in on a session focused on Medicare fraud and abuse. Stuart Langbein, JD, offered “tales from the front line” – and as a lawyer dealing with Medicare fraud issues, he had plenty of material to discuss. “There’s been a lot of attention paid in the past decade to health care fraud and abuse, and I think we’re only going to see that continue,” he said. “Congress is going to pump more money into fraud and abuse efforts with health care reform.”
Langbein explained that we can examine the language in both the
