The Next Great "Cost-Saving" Idea...

[bigdan]

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My department chairman forwarded this article to us:

http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2010/04/17/some_health_networks_drop_elite_hospitals/


...can't wait to see how many folks stay in academics now.

dc

 

[2win]

My department chairman forwarded this article to us:

http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2010/04/17/some_health_networks_drop_elite_hospitals/


...can't wait to see how many folks stay in academics now.

dc

Expected...
Why do you think that it will be better in PP?
The dark side of me is somehow happy when I'll see some liberal elitists members of the above mentioned hospitals getting maybe less...
But in the same time I am almost sure that they will be appointed in some useless board and crap like that by the current administration.

 

[IlDestriero]

That's all well and good until you find yourself needing a liver transplant or some huge surgery on your previously healthy kid. You can probably still go to Boston Children's, but the co-payment is really going to put you in the poorhouse. Too bad (for you) Podunk Community Hospital doesn't have any pediatric surgical subspecialists, a level 1 NICU or a proton beam treatment center. That $50/month that you saved doesn't seem like so good an investment now.

 

[SleepIsGood]

Hmm...makes a lot of sense. Let's not insure patients especially if they want to go to Harvard Hospitals, Mass General and Brigham and Women's. They've only been consistently ranked as some of the BEST hospitals in America??

This is the EXACT ridiculousness tht will transpire nationally if universal healthcare is expanded beyond Massachusetts. Clearly Massachusetts' system is not working. Why do people want it nationally.

One would think that with universal healthcare and 'preventive medicine' everyone in Mass would have BMIs<25, no HTN, no DM, and be non-smokers. Not even REMOTELY the case...

 

[IDBasco]

The beginnings of a 2 tiered system. Those with the means/desire will pay the extra. I think I would.

 

[Jet915]

The beginnings of a 2 tiered system. Those with the means/desire will pay the extra. I think I would.

Talked to some british docs out here and that's where they are right now and where we are headed. Private insurance for the few well to do and a large national medicare system for everyone else...

 

[chaucer]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/opinion/21wed1.html?ref=opinion

New York Times editorial praising the Massachusetts system and blaming costs on "outsized bargaining power of prestigious teaching hospitals and regionally dominant community hospitals", and the "relentlessly rising prices charged by health care providers."

I hope physician leaders respond to this crap.

 

[IDBasco]

Talked to some british docs out here and that's where they are right now and where we are headed. Private insurance for the few well to do and a large national medicare system for everyone else...

Thats what I expect to happen here in time. I think the people that voted for Obama should be the first to enter the new cheaper system.

In MA in particular, this is a result of the gov telling insurers they have to quote new policies at last years rates. The only way they can keep the doors open is to cut sources of high expenditure. If they are paying more to MG or B&W, etc. this is what they will do to lower costs. No surprise there. Welcome to excessive gov intrusion into health care.

Next the gov will demonize the insurance companies for rationing or limiting coverage or God knows what.

 

[jwk]

There's a flip side to this. Just because it's Harvard, or Brigham, or Stanford, or Mayo, doesn't automatically mean it's the best, or that a given procedure should be done there. It's analogous to saying "I want the chief of surgery to do my operation - he must be the best since he's chief of surgery". It just ain't necessarily so. Now for some HIGHLY specialized or unusual procedures, it might be the case, but there are plenty of non-academic hospitals doing stuff that was once the purview of teaching hospitals only. We have several private hospitals in Atlanta doing far more transplants, open hearts, and robotic procedures than Emory.

 

[Eta Carinae]

There's a flip side to this. Just because it's Harvard, or Brigham, or Stanford, or Mayo, doesn't automatically mean it's the best,.

I know!!!!

Never mind the fact that several of their faculty are pioneers or authorities in certain fields. Never mind the history of those institutions' track records or contributions to medicine.

 

[Coastie]

There's a flip side to this. Just because it's Harvard, or Brigham, or Stanford, or Mayo, doesn't automatically mean it's the best, or that a given procedure should be done there. It's analogous to saying "I want the chief of surgery to do my operation - he must be the best since he's chief of surgery". It just ain't necessarily so. Now for some HIGHLY specialized or unusual procedures, it might be the case, but there are plenty of non-academic hospitals doing stuff that was once the purview of teaching hospitals only. We have several private hospitals in Atlanta doing far more transplants, open hearts, and robotic procedures than Emory.

How many hearts do those private places do? I've heard Emory has massive volume.

 

[cchoukal]

This has been going on in MN for awhile now. The major "insurers" have placed hospitals into tiers, ostensibly based on "quality," but more likely based on cost. People pay more out of pocket to go to the lower tier places, and the academic center in town was not in the top tier. I can't comment on how it's going, since I don't live there anymore, but this isn't new and it probably isn't going away.

The frustrating thing is how these hospitals are being portrayed, like they're mercenary and monopolistic, as if, somehow now all of a sudden charging a premium for something highly valued is anti-American. Meanwhile, corporations are allowed to gobble up media outlets or airlines or whatever into massive monopolies and nobody cares.