UnitedHealth CEO Murdered

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Although not related but insurance is a scam from auto to home to health.

ACA just made it much more of a screwed up system.

I my family on UHC paying $17000/yr in premiums with a 10K deductible. I am out of pocket essentially for the 1st 27K. I don't think we ever hit our deductible so UHC essentially pocketed 17K from us each year without paying a cent other than our PCP yearly visits. Maybe amounted to $1500/yr if lucky.

Had to get a cards eval for my kid and echo = $2500 out of pocket. Ok, I get it my deductible and its on me.
Then had to go and get my kids some labs drawn and Labs gave me a $300 bill (remember deductible). I asked if they have cash pay, which was like $27 bucks. Well, I paid by cash and saved over $250
Then went to fill his meds with my insurance card. Price was like $100/month (remember deductible) AND only could get one month at a time. Asked for cash pay and it was like $27 AND I could get 3 months at a time.

Quit UHC, went to health share and everything is so much easier. Getting reimbursed requires more time but I pay 75% less out of pocket. Getting MRIs, imagine, Doc visits, etc is just making an appt and paying cash. Did you know an MRI of my ankle cost me like $350 cash? Handing my insurance card would have easily been 1-2K out of pocket.

Its a scam, big scam.
 
EctopicFetus said:
What’s happened is you pay premiums like normal but the coverage has gotten so much worse and is only useful for catastrophic care.
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I agree with this. We're paying golden plan premiums, but receiving catastrophic coverage. Families going bankrupt because of $10,000 deductibles with $20,000 needing to be spent before maximum out-of-pocket kicks in.

Although unfortunate that the UnitedHealth CEO was murdered likely from denial of coverage, I'm actually surprised it hasn't happened before this and will be surprised if we don't see it happen again. I'm sure quite a few people have gotten ideas now after seeing the news coverage and while dealing with the deaths of a loved one after being denied chemotherapy, surgery, etc.

If I were a healthcare executive, my nerves would be on edge for the next few years. Especially since they don't have a conscience by using unproven AI technologies to deny coverage and feeling good about themselves.
 
emergentmd said:
Although not related but insurance is a scam from auto to home to health.

ACA just made it much more of a screwed up system.

I my family on UHC paying $17000/yr in premiums with a 10K deductible. I am out of pocket essentially for the 1st 27K. I don't think we ever hit our deductible so UHC essentially pocketed 17K from us each year without paying a cent other than our PCP yearly visits. Maybe amounted to $1500/yr if lucky.

Had to get a cards eval for my kid and echo = $2500 out of pocket. Ok, I get it my deductible and its on me.
Then had to go and get my kids some labs drawn and Labs gave me a $300 bill (remember deductible). I asked if they have cash pay, which was like $27 bucks. Well, I paid by cash and saved over $250
Then went to fill his meds with my insurance card. Price was like $100/month (remember deductible) AND only could get one month at a time. Asked for cash pay and it was like $27 AND I could get 3 months at a time.

Quit UHC, went to health share and everything is so much easier. Getting reimbursed requires more time but I pay 75% less out of pocket. Getting MRIs, imagine, Doc visits, etc is just making an appt and paying cash. Did you know an MRI of my ankle cost me like $350 cash? Handing my insurance card would have easily been 1-2K out of pocket.

Its a scam, big scam.
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What health share item did you go with?
 
RustedFox said:
You're upset about paying 20 bucks for protonix?

With regard to your last sentence:

Sure. But none of that changes the noble nature of my work. How am I at fault for the mouthbreathing parasites doing what they do?
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Perhaps my tone isn’t right. I truly don’t care about the $20. The point is what a dumb ass medicine to need a pre auth. It’s cheap. Imagine if I didn’t have the $20 or it impacted my life?

That’s my point. A 100k unproven cancer treatment I get. Biologics I get. Maybe one is way cheaper. But wasting time on a $20 medication is foolish.

Re the mouth breathers. My point is we docs enable this behavior. They bill based on our license and NPI.
 
EctopicFetus said:
Perhaps my tone isn’t right. I truly don’t care about the $20. The point is what a dumb ass medicine to need a pre auth. It’s cheap. Imagine if I didn’t have the $20 or it impacted my life?

That’s my point. A 100k unproven cancer treatment I get. Biologics I get. Maybe one is way cheaper. But wasting time on a $20 medication is foolish.

Re the mouth breathers. My point is we docs enable this behavior. They bill based on our license and NPI.
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Okay. I thought I misunderstood. I did.

We would "enable" proper and fair business practices too.
I take no blame for the mouthbreathers.
 
RustedFox said:
What health share item did you go with?
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Liberty healthshare but I am sure they are all the same to most extent. Havent' had to use for an admission yet but I bet I would get better care rather than having to get preauth and referrals. Getting to pick where I go is so much better than looking at a referral list and having to wait months to see anyone.
 
emergentmd said:
Although not related but insurance is a scam from auto to home to health.

ACA just made it much more of a screwed up system.

I my family on UHC paying $17000/yr in premiums with a 10K deductible. I am out of pocket essentially for the 1st 27K. I don't think we ever hit our deductible so UHC essentially pocketed 17K from us each year without paying a cent other than our PCP yearly visits. Maybe amounted to $1500/yr if lucky.

Had to get a cards eval for my kid and echo = $2500 out of pocket. Ok, I get it my deductible and its on me.
Then had to go and get my kids some labs drawn and Labs gave me a $300 bill (remember deductible). I asked if they have cash pay, which was like $27 bucks. Well, I paid by cash and saved over $250
Then went to fill his meds with my insurance card. Price was like $100/month (remember deductible) AND only could get one month at a time. Asked for cash pay and it was like $27 AND I could get 3 months at a time.

Quit UHC, went to health share and everything is so much easier. Getting reimbursed requires more time but I pay 75% less out of pocket. Getting MRIs, imagine, Doc visits, etc is just making an appt and paying cash. Did you know an MRI of my ankle cost me like $350 cash? Handing my insurance card would have easily been 1-2K out of pocket.

Its a scam, big scam.
Click to expand...
What is health share
 
EctopicFetus said:
Perhaps my tone isn’t right. I truly don’t care about the $20. The point is what a dumb ass medicine to need a pre auth. It’s cheap. Imagine if I didn’t have the $20 or it impacted my life?

That’s my point. A 100k unproven cancer treatment I get. Biologics I get. Maybe one is way cheaper. But wasting time on a $20 medication is foolish.

Re the mouth breathers. My point is we docs enable this behavior. They bill based on our license and NPI.
Click to expand...

It seems disingenuous to me to compare the level of responsibility of a line doc having their npi used (by what is potentially the only employer in a 50 mile radius) and running the 5th largest company on the s&p 500 for four years while implementing policies that lead to the highest denial rate in the country, and making 20x the money someone in the same job made 10 years ago.

I don’t think there is much room for discussion if you can tell me with a straight face that’s apples to apples friend.

The way I feel culpable is as a stock holder. I’ve generally taken the option of investing broadly in us market index funds, as well as a smaller chunk in foreign index funds. I think this has jerked my head out of the sands enough to consider picking a more “ethically oriented” index fund. I would choose individual stocks in the s&p but I’m concerned about stacking fees
 
emergentmd said:
Although not related but insurance is a scam from auto to home to health.
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I don’t think this is true. Insurance is supposed to be for more catastrophic things but health insurance has morphed into something different than other insurance sectors. There’s two different prices for insured and non-insured. That’s not quite the case for auto insurance or home insurance. Unhealthy people basically have the chance to pay the same as healthy people. Bad drivers (wrecks, tickets, etc.) pay more than good drivers. Those with more expensive vehicles pay more than those with beaters. Homeowners with claims pay more (and many times get dropped) than those without claims. Those with homes in areas more prone to significant weather events pay more than those in less prone areas. Society hasn’t gotten to the point where we outright tell those who consciously make bad health decisions and put themselves at a higher risk of having to receive medical attention that they’re going to have to pay more than the person who exercises and eats right. Maybe we should.
 
JacobMcCandles said:
I don’t think this is true. Insurance is supposed to be for more catastrophic things but health insurance has morphed into something different than other insurance sectors. There’s two different prices for insured and non-insured. That’s not quite the case for auto insurance or home insurance. Unhealthy people basically have the chance to pay the same as healthy people. Bad drivers (wrecks, tickets, etc.) pay more than good drivers. Those with more expensive vehicles pay more than those with beaters. Homeowners with claims pay more (and many times get dropped) than those without claims. Those with homes in areas more prone to significant weather events pay more than those in less prone areas. Society hasn’t gotten to the point where we outright tell those who consciously make bad health decisions and put themselves at a higher risk of having to receive medical attention that they’re going to have to pay more than the person who exercises and eats right. Maybe we should.
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There are already “discounts” for non-smokers in many plans.

The issue with what you speak is that people can choose to not own an auto. They can choose to not own a house.

People cannot choose to not have type 1 diabetes. They cannot choose to not have a perforated appendix.

Think back to the recent time when every single “pre-existing” condition was a reason for non-coverage. Do you know what I saw when there was the change to Obamacare? Instead of having 60 people lined up every Saturday morning for the medschool free clinic (which only had the capacity for 20 people) the number went down to 10-15 max for the entire clinic duration.

Health insurance in the USA is the way it is because of the system that is in place. Fundamentally, as a society, there is no belief that everyone has a right to basic medical care that won’t destroy them financially.
 
CopaceticOne said:
There are already “discounts” for non-smokers in many plans.

The issue with what you speak is that people can choose to not own an auto. They can choose to not own a house.

People cannot choose to not have type 1 diabetes. They cannot choose to not have a perforated appendix.

Think back to the recent time when every single “pre-existing” condition was a reason for non-coverage. Do you know what I saw when there was the change to Obamacare? Instead of having 60 people lined up every Saturday morning for the medschool free clinic (which only had the capacity for 20 people) the number went down to 10-15 max for the entire clinic duration.
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You’re certainly right but there are always caveats. You can get away without owning a car and you won’t have to get insurance. If you don’t own a home then there’s a decent chance you should be looking at renter’s insurance.

There will always be people who have medical conditions through no fault of their own. I don’t know about you but a lot of people I see are in poor health because of their own choices. People can choose to exercise. They can choose to eat better foods. They can choose to take control of their own health. Most don’t, though. You’ll never have a perfect health insurance industry.

The ridiculous pricing and opaque pricing needs to be improved upon. The billing and collections need to be simplified. I still think prevention is going to be important and I think it’s well past time America is ok with people being purposefully unhealthy blobs of protoplasm.
 
throway134 said:
It seems disingenuous to me to compare the level of responsibility of a line doc having their npi used (by what is potentially the only employer in a 50 mile radius) and running the 5th largest company on the s&p 500 for four years while implementing policies that lead to the highest denial rate in the country, and making 20x the money someone in the same job made 10 years ago.

I don’t think there is much room for discussion if you can tell me with a straight face that’s apples to apples friend.

The way I feel culpable is as a stock holder. I’ve generally taken the option of investing broadly in us market index funds, as well as a smaller chunk in foreign index funds. I think this has jerked my head out of the sands enough to consider picking a more “ethically oriented” index fund. I would choose individual stocks in the s&p but I’m concerned about stacking fees
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Fees? It's 2024. Who charges fees?
 
JacobMcCandles said:
I don’t think this is true. Insurance is supposed to be for more catastrophic things but health insurance has morphed into something different than other insurance sectors.
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I am not referring to what should/should not be covered. But if I pay 17K in premiums, then even with a 10K deductible, I should NOT be paying 3-4x as much as someone uninsured and cash pay.

Its the classic, those who can pays more. Those who can't or smart, plays little.
 
TooMuchResearch said:
Fees? It's 2024. Who charges fees?
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It makes me happy that out of everything I said this is what needs to be addressed. I acknowledge that words matter and could have chosen better ones. Hazard of dumping my stream of consciousness through a phone without editing.

When I say fees I mean it in a more all encompassing sense for cost, whether it’s an expense for a maintenance of a fund minimized by something like fidelity/vanguard mutual fund, or my own time.

Even if im the fund manager there are also costs with turnover of an actively managed fund. To me, these are all “fees.”
 
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emergentmd said:
I am not referring to what should/should not be covered. But if I pay 17K in premiums, then even with a 10K deductible, I should NOT be paying 3-4x as much as someone uninsured and cash pay.

Its the classic, those who can pays more. Those who can't or smart, plays little.
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I agree with you on that as I mentioned in my post. I disagree with your comment that other insurance sectors are scams just because the health insurance industry is so backwards.
 
This is truly meant to be a naive question, but what denial of care example has directly led to the death of a patient post Obamacare? I keep hearing millions of deaths but I am just really curious for examples. All I hear is my terminal stage 4 brain cancer 90 year old grandma didn’t get the chemo she needed but I am just really curious because it seems everyone has jumped on this to justify the murder. I picture the insurance denied the med and the hospital just kicks the person out and goes you are gonna die now all thanks to so and so. Just remember guys we are seen as the rich too. When a patient dies because of our malpractice (200k cases a year) and someone shoots us in the back of our head people will feel the same way.

Fox I love your view on society but you trust these people to take up a revolution? The same people you have posted about can’t tell their head from their ass? You think they will tell us apart when it comes time to eat the rich.
 
SeekerOfTheTree said:
This is truly meant to be a naive question, but what denial of care example has directly led to the death of a patient post Obamacare? I keep hearing millions of deaths but I am just really curious for examples. All I hear is my terminal stage 4 brain cancer 90 year old grandma didn’t get the chemo she needed but I am just really curious because it seems everyone has jumped on this to justify the murder. I picture the insurance denied the med and the hospital just kicks the person out and goes you are gonna die now all thanks to so and so. Just remember guys we are seen as the rich too. When a patient dies because of our malpractice (200k cases a year) and someone shoots us in the back of our head people will feel the same way.
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This is just my opinion but I suspect these spectacular cases of denials, etc. are the vast minority. But, I think there are LOTS of issues and I think the healthcare insurance industry is pretty disgusting.

My personal experience with the healthcare industry is pretty vanilla. I haven’t had any big issues but haven’t really had anything unexpected happen. They’ve paid what they said they would for any childbirths, yearly visits, well-child checks, etc. Nobody in our family is on any chronic prescription medications. From that standpoint, I can’t speak from the viewpoint of someone with chronic diseases, etc.

Any insurance company that does automatic denials or has some kind of metric that rewards denials should be sued into oblivion. I also think there is a lack of common sense in what’s approved and not approved. I think there are a lot of gray areas in certain denials in the oncology world with regards to experimental therapeutics as well as therapeutics used off label.

Overall, the entire healthcare industry needs fixed but I don’t think universal healthcare is the answer. Taking lobbyists out of the picture would be a good start.
 
SeekerOfTheTree said:
This is truly meant to be a naive question, but what denial of care example has directly led to the death of a patient post Obamacare? I keep hearing millions of deaths but I am just really curious for examples. All I hear is my terminal stage 4 brain cancer 90 year old grandma didn’t get the chemo she needed but I am just really curious because it seems everyone has jumped on this to justify the murder. I picture the insurance denied the med and the hospital just kicks the person out and goes you are gonna die now all thanks to so and so. Just remember guys we are seen as the rich too. When a patient dies because of our malpractice (200k cases a year) and someone shoots us in the back of our head people will feel the same way.

Fox I love your view on society but you trust these people to take up a revolution? The same people you have posted about can’t tell their head from their ass? You think they will tell us apart when it comes time to eat the rich.
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Full disclosure: I am not a physican- I'm an OT. But I'm quite certain deaths occur downstream from y'all once the patient gets to post acute care. UHC and their Navihealth system in particular make decisions that are contrary to MD/OT/PT/ recs every day. Insurance cuts the patient off after (generally) 2 weeks max of rehab. Then patients are faced with paying 500 dollars a day to stay in a subacute rehab to use their outpatient benefit, or go home when they are not safe to do so, and their families (if willing and able) are ill equipped to care for them. These are people for whom all indications are that more extensive skilled therapy daily would allow them to improve and discharge much closer to if not at baseline, resulting in higher degree of independence and less caregiver burden. Maybe they agree to pay for home health, but their coverage for home health services limits the therapy visits to 5 OT and 5 PT.

Many of these people are the ones who then bounce back to your EDs with falls or conditions like UTIs due to sitting in soiled depends or dehydration because they stop eating and drinking because they can't care for themselves. I recently had a woman in acute care who rationed all intake to a small window in the afternoon because her son could stop by once a day in the evening to lift her to the w/c and then lift her to a toilet. Naturally, that didn't work out well for her.

Standard medicare on the other hand, would have allowed that same woman to remain in a rehab setting for up to 100 days (presuming progress) and I am certain based on previous function and nature of initial presenting condition that she WOULD have gotten to an independent level with household mobility and ADLs with another week or two of rehab. But insurance said "so sorry, go home and fail. We're not proactive so we'll pay even more for a repeat hospitalization in 2 weeks rather than give you the care you've paid us for."

Beyond the big things like declining to pay for chemo or surgeries, these are the scenarios that happen every single day to Medicare Advantage patients that absolutely leads to precipitous declines in health and independence when they absolutely shouldn't. I spent a decade in home health and subacute rehab spending almost every day fighting with insurance to get my patients what they need. Writing appeals, letters of medical necessity for needed equipment, arguing with the UHC reps for our territories. I couldn't stomach it anymore. I was good at what I did. But I left and went back to hospitals, where for all their faults, I am allowed to use my own clinical decision making and not that of a computer.
 
CHIOTR said:
Full disclosure: I am not a physican- I'm an OT. But I'm quite certain deaths occur downstream from y'all once the patient gets to post acute care. UHC and their Navihealth system in particular make decisions that are contrary to MD/OT/PT/ recs every day. Insurance cuts the patient off after (generally) 2 weeks max of rehab. Then patients are faced with paying 500 dollars a day to stay in a subacute rehab to use their outpatient benefit, or go home when they are not safe to do so, and their families (if willing and able) are ill equipped to care for them. These are people for whom all indications are that more extensive skilled therapy daily would allow them to improve and discharge much closer to if not at baseline, resulting in higher degree of independence and less caregiver burden. Maybe they agree to pay for home health, but their coverage for home health services limits the therapy visits to 5 OT and 5 PT.

Many of these people are the ones who then bounce back to your EDs with falls or conditions like UTIs due to sitting in soiled depends or dehydration because they stop eating and drinking because they can't care for themselves. I recently had a woman in acute care who rationed all intake to a small window in the afternoon because her son could stop by once a day in the evening to lift her to the w/c and then lift her to a toilet. Naturally, that didn't work out well for her.

Standard medicare on the other hand, would have allowed that same woman to remain in a rehab setting for up to 100 days (presuming progress) and I am certain based on previous function and nature of initial presenting condition that she WOULD have gotten to an independent level with household mobility and ADLs with another week or two of rehab. But insurance said "so sorry, go home and fail. We're not proactive so we'll pay even more for a repeat hospitalization in 2 weeks rather than give you the care you've paid us for."

Beyond the big things like declining to pay for chemo or surgeries, these are the scenarios that happen every single day to Medicare Advantage patients that absolutely leads to precipitous declines in health and independence when they absolutely shouldn't. I spent a decade in home health and subacute rehab spending almost every day fighting with insurance to get my patients what they need. Writing appeals, letters of medical necessity for needed equipment, arguing with the UHC reps for our territories. I couldn't stomach it anymore. I was good at what I did. But I left and went back to hospitals, where for all their faults, I am allowed to use my own clinical decision making and not that of a computer.
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I do a bit of work in the SNF setting and this is all true. Good post. Da
 
CHIOTR said:
Full disclosure: I am not a physican- I'm an OT. But I'm quite certain deaths occur downstream from y'all once the patient gets to post acute care. UHC and their Navihealth system in particular make decisions that are contrary to MD/OT/PT/ recs every day. Insurance cuts the patient off after (generally) 2 weeks max of rehab. Then patients are faced with paying 500 dollars a day to stay in a subacute rehab to use their outpatient benefit, or go home when they are not safe to do so, and their families (if willing and able) are ill equipped to care for them. These are people for whom all indications are that more extensive skilled therapy daily would allow them to improve and discharge much closer to if not at baseline, resulting in higher degree of independence and less caregiver burden. Maybe they agree to pay for home health, but their coverage for home health services limits the therapy visits to 5 OT and 5 PT.

Many of these people are the ones who then bounce back to your EDs with falls or conditions like UTIs due to sitting in soiled depends or dehydration because they stop eating and drinking because they can't care for themselves. I recently had a woman in acute care who rationed all intake to a small window in the afternoon because her son could stop by once a day in the evening to lift her to the w/c and then lift her to a toilet. Naturally, that didn't work out well for her.

Standard medicare on the other hand, would have allowed that same woman to remain in a rehab setting for up to 100 days (presuming progress) and I am certain based on previous function and nature of initial presenting condition that she WOULD have gotten to an independent level with household mobility and ADLs with another week or two of rehab. But insurance said "so sorry, go home and fail. We're not proactive so we'll pay even more for a repeat hospitalization in 2 weeks rather than give you the care you've paid us for."

Beyond the big things like declining to pay for chemo or surgeries, these are the scenarios that happen every single day to Medicare Advantage patients that absolutely leads to precipitous declines in health and independence when they absolutely shouldn't. I spent a decade in home health and subacute rehab spending almost every day fighting with insurance to get my patients what they need. Writing appeals, letters of medical necessity for needed equipment, arguing with the UHC reps for our territories. I couldn't stomach it anymore. I was good at what I did. But I left and went back to hospitals, where for all their faults, I am allowed to use my own clinical decision making and not that of a computer.
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Great explanation. I guess in my experience I have never seen a case of a cancer that is worse because the insurance company denied it. Meaning if they came in the ER and said my grandma didn’t get chemo and now she’s stage 4 because the insurance company denied it. The issue use to be I can’t afford healthcare pre Obamacare which led to finding the cancer late.

The spread online is making it seem like there are death panels denying and actively killing patients. I see from your standpoint of therapy and I have worked as a physician advisor in the past and argued for hospitals. Most of the time been pretty successful to overturn without pushback and talk to a real physician to have a discussion. Most of these denials ultimately are done at that level.
 
You
SeekerOfTheTree said:
Great explanation. I guess in my experience I have never seen a case of a cancer that is worse because the insurance company denied it. Meaning if they came in the ER and said my grandma didn’t get chemo and now she’s stage 4 because the insurance company denied it. The issue use to be I can’t afford healthcare pre Obamacare which led to finding the cancer late.

The spread online is making it seem like there are death panels denying and actively killing patients. I see from your standpoint of therapy and I have worked as a physician advisor in the past and argued for hospitals. Most of the time been pretty successful to overturn without pushback and talk to a real physician to have a discussion. Most of these denials ultimately are done at that level.
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i can think of a half dozen preventable hospitalizations after denial of prescribed med (<$100) in favor of “supposedly cheaper alternative,” without stretching my memory. Most of these were copd patients, and causing a hospitalization for them can absolutely lead to a downward spiral with either recurrent nosocomial infections or deconditioning which were preventable. The majority of these are patients where the med is ultimately approved when reaching peer-to-peer, but some patients give up and don’t call the office and some patients can have a multiple week lapse in med before that process completes.

As alluded to above I’ve met numerous people who ended up on hospice after home health was denied…then came off hospice after receiving similar home health resources…then died on hospice after insurance refused to comp home health or snf after repeat hospitalization.

It’s absurd.

I can also recall a specific pt I saw a few years ago that had a multi month delay in mri whole spine that was ultimately approved, but not conducted outpt because it became emergent. They had appropriate therapy, but still had a preventable loss of neurological function with persistent lower extremity weakness for no reason.

So ya, I’m quite confident these decisions matter and they are killing people. Most of them are not economically impactful people, and many of them would die within five-ten years, so they don’t get a lot of political weight.
 
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SeekerOfTheTree said:
This is truly meant to be a naive question, but what denial of care example has directly led to the death of a patient post Obamacare? I keep hearing millions of deaths but I am just really curious for examples. All I hear is my terminal stage 4 brain cancer 90 year old grandma didn’t get the chemo she needed but I am just really curious because it seems everyone has jumped on this to justify the murder. I picture the insurance denied the med and the hospital just kicks the person out and goes you are gonna die now all thanks to so and so. Just remember guys we are seen as the rich too. When a patient dies because of our malpractice (200k cases a year) and someone shoots us in the back of our head people will feel the same way.
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Agree it's not like there is denial of care for acute aortic dissection and someone died 1 hour later. It's a stretch to suggest that denial of care causes people to die.

It's not a stretch at all, and in fact it's the truth, that denial of care causes undue and needless suffering on millions.
 
SeekerOfTheTree said:
This is truly meant to be a naive question, but what denial of care example has directly led to the death of a patient post Obamacare? I keep hearing millions of deaths but I am just really curious for examples. All I hear is my terminal stage 4 brain cancer 90 year old grandma didn’t get the chemo she needed but I am just really curious because it seems everyone has jumped on this to justify the murder. I picture the insurance denied the med and the hospital just kicks the person out and goes you are gonna die now all thanks to so and so. Just remember guys we are seen as the rich too. When a patient dies because of our malpractice (200k cases a year) and someone shoots us in the back of our head people will feel the same way.
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Since when has a hospital administered chemo as an inpatient? It's an outpatient procedure, and if insurance denies it, there's a good chance the patient's chemo regimen is altered. A lot of the hormonal inhibitors are denied.

EDIT: Corrected the appropriate post to which I was responding.
 
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This was a well publicized example of denial of care. Is this going to lead to death? No.. are these sick people happy that they are messing with the lives and health of folks indeed. I dont think we as a society should be spending crazy amount of money on the old and dying. This is a college kid with a future and he will add productivity to society but these clowns decided that they know better than the experts.

www.propublica.org

UnitedHealthcare Tried to Deny Coverage to a Chronically Ill Patient. He Fought Back, Exposing the Insurer’s Inner Workings.

After a college student finally found a treatment that worked, the insurance giant decided it wouldn’t pay for the costly drugs. His fight to get coverage exposed the insurer’s hidden procedures for rejecting claims.
www.propublica.org www.propublica.org

I dont think it’s always death but suffering, delay of care, worsening outcomes and suffering due to delay. This is very real.
 
thegenius said:
Agree it's not like there is denial of care for acute aortic dissection and someone died 1 hour later. It's a stretch to suggest that denial of care causes people to die.

It's not a stretch at all, and in fact it's the truth, that denial of care causes undue and needless suffering on millions.
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I'll take that challenge

www.huffpost.com

CIGNA Employee Flips Off Mother Of Dead Girl Denied Transplant

CIGNA Employee Flips Off Mother Of Dead Girl Denied Transplant
www.huffpost.com www.huffpost.com
 
southerndoc said:
Since when has a hospital administered chemo as an inpatient? It's an outpatient procedure, and if insurance denies it, there's a good chance the patient's chemo regimen is altered. A lot of the hormonal inhibitors are denied.
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Who said anything about inpatient chemo? Wasn't me. Besides, inpatient induction chemotherapy is certainly a thing.
 
VA Hopeful Dr said:
I'll take that challenge

www.huffpost.com

CIGNA Employee Flips Off Mother Of Dead Girl Denied Transplant

CIGNA Employee Flips Off Mother Of Dead Girl Denied Transplant
www.huffpost.com www.huffpost.com
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Everything should be done for everyone all the time and I wish we could. I honestly don’t have a clue about this case and from reading about it seems like other than PR pressure causing them to reverse their decision not sure what the liver transplant issue was. What the reason was that she might not have benefited. We do transplants in this country so this in particular would probably have more to the case. The guy flicking off is an ass but I don’t think that was probably part of corporate policy. Cigna insurance for me was probably one of the best I had out of all.
southerndoc said:
Since when has a hospital administered chemo as an inpatient? It's an outpatient procedure, and if insurance denies it, there's a good chance the patient's chemo regimen is altered. A lot of the hormonal inhibitors are denied.

EDIT: Corrected the appropriate post to which I was responding.
Click to expand...
I’m not saying it is. It was a claim made on reddit to justify the killing.
 
I’m looking at things through my ER lens I guess.

1) I don’t like vigilante justice just like Batman/Superman never kill
2) if people could have it their way, they would get every test, treatment, medication, procedure under the sun even if it had a 0.0001% chance of working.

In an imperfect system with finite resources and a population that doesn’t respect that, what would be the ideal system? A genuine question not meant to be inflammatory.
 
thegenius said:
Agree it's not like there is denial of care for acute aortic dissection and someone died 1 hour later. It's a stretch to suggest that denial of care causes people to die.

It's not a stretch at all, and in fact it's the truth, that denial of care causes undue and needless suffering on millions.
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I get that. I guess I was asking how does this equate to people celebrating the death of this CEO like Hitler or Stalin just got assassinated. Dude was a figurehead controlled by a board and I still don’t see the millions killed by him. Suffering I completely agree with that sentiment.
 
SeekerOfTheTree said:
Everything should be done for everyone all the time and I wish we could. I honestly don’t have a clue about this case and from reading about it seems like other than PR pressure causing them to reverse their decision not sure what the liver transplant issue was. What the reason was that she might not have benefited. We do transplants in this country so this in particular would probably have more to the case. The guy flicking off is an ass but I don’t think that was probably part of corporate policy. Cigna insurance for me was probably one of the best I had out of all.

I’m not saying it is. It was a claim made on reddit to justify the killing.
Click to expand...

"We don't have money to treat everyone, but we do have an extra $22,000,000,000 to give to United Healthcare in profits from the health care system."
 
Siggy said:
"We don't have money to treat everyone, but we do have an extra $22,000,000,000 to give to United Healthcare in profits from the health care system."
Click to expand...
I agree, flawed system. How do you fix it?

Coming from a third world country(me) I got a friend that has nasal adenoid cystic carcinoma and was told to go home and die. Private pay won’t even cover it there. He can’t afford to come here. Systems with limitations.
 
SeekerOfTheTree said:
In an imperfect system with finite resources and a population that doesn’t respect that, what would be the ideal system? A genuine question not meant to be inflammatory.
Click to expand...
Physicians could probably come up with a pretty decent system that revolved around limiting end of life care as well as some guidelines surrounding those who continue to contribute to their own poor health. It would likely be rejected by the general public but would likely make a lot of sense.

We artificially keep people alive with no quality of life just so they can develop more diseases that require even more treatment.
 
JacobMcCandles said:
Physicians could probably come up with a pretty decent system that revolved around limiting end of life care as well as some guidelines surrounding those who continue to contribute to their own poor health. It would likely be rejected by the general public but would likely make a lot of sense.

We artificially keep people alive with no quality of life just so they can develop more diseases that require even more treatment.
Click to expand...
Maybe one day it will have to get to this or the Optimus robots will care for us all.
 
EctopicFetus said:
This was a well publicized example of denial of care. Is this going to lead to death? No.. are these sick people happy that they are messing with the lives and health of folks indeed. I dont think we as a society should be spending crazy amount of money on the old and dying. This is a college kid with a future and he will add productivity to society but these clowns decided that they know better than the experts.

www.propublica.org

UnitedHealthcare Tried to Deny Coverage to a Chronically Ill Patient. He Fought Back, Exposing the Insurer’s Inner Workings.

After a college student finally found a treatment that worked, the insurance giant decided it wouldn’t pay for the costly drugs. His fight to get coverage exposed the insurer’s hidden procedures for rejecting claims.
www.propublica.org www.propublica.org

I dont think it’s always death but suffering, delay of care, worsening outcomes and suffering due to delay. This is very real.
Click to expand...
I agree with that. This is such a mess of a case.
 
When we discussed limiting care the PR was “death panels”.. People went away. The idea that we would limit care due to money is not something that is currently acceptable in the US. We do a ton of care for futile reasons. All those vent farms.

No shortage of people alive with GCS of 3. Money keeps being spent.

Look at us spending insane resources to keep a 22 weeker alive. Long term quality of life is trash. Cost is insane. Imagine spending a year or more in an ICU. We havent accepted letting it go. We dont appreciate the cost and the total waste of money much of this is.

Regarding the $22B in profit. 1) they are playing the system. It’s just like every other business and doctor. Do you document to maximize your revenue? If you dont its probably cause your income isnt based on it. If you are RVU based I bet you do. United is crooked only because they do illegal stuff to generate that profit, in my opinion. Much of their profit comes from optum and all the other stuff they do that isnt insurance.
 
EctopicFetus said:
When we discussed limiting care the PR was “death panels”.. People went away. The idea that we would limit care due to money is not something that is currently acceptable in the US. We do a ton of care for futile reasons. All those vent farms.

No shortage of people alive with GCS of 3. Money keeps being spent.

Look at us spending insane resources to keep a 22 weeker alive. Long term quality of life is trash. Cost is insane. Imagine spending a year or more in an ICU. We havent accepted letting it go. We dont appreciate the cost and the total waste of money much of this is.

Regarding the $22B in profit. 1) they are playing the system. It’s just like every other business and doctor. Do you document to maximize your revenue? If you dont its probably cause your income isnt based on it. If you are RVU based I bet you do. United is crooked only because they do illegal stuff to generate that profit, in my opinion. Much of their profit comes from optum and all the other stuff they do that isnt insurance.
Click to expand...
Duke had a whole unit of folks like that. The IM peeps called it "the rock garden".
 
Apollyon said:
Duke had a whole unit of folks like that. The IM peeps called it "the rock garden".
Click to expand...
Churning the money.. imagine the cost.. we have no nurses but these patients require quite intensive care. RNs, RTs, a doctor to round on them, ventilators etc. These are people who will not get better. Then these patients will come to the ED every so often for their sepsis, decubs, pneumonia etc. Waste of money. Every hospital has a decent group of people who come in and out the revolving door. It’s wild.. but there are some of these sick cases where the family wants to keep them alive so that they can collect social security or something similar.. just a total waste of money and resources. Crazy that we have no caps on healthcare spending. No other insurance works remotely like this.
 
EctopicFetus said:
This was a well publicized example of denial of care. Is this going to lead to death? No.. are these sick people happy that they are messing with the lives and health of folks indeed. I dont think we as a society should be spending crazy amount of money on the old and dying. This is a college kid with a future and he will add productivity to society but these clowns decided that they know better than the experts.

www.propublica.org

UnitedHealthcare Tried to Deny Coverage to a Chronically Ill Patient. He Fought Back, Exposing the Insurer’s Inner Workings.

After a college student finally found a treatment that worked, the insurance giant decided it wouldn’t pay for the costly drugs. His fight to get coverage exposed the insurer’s hidden procedures for rejecting claims.
www.propublica.org www.propublica.org

I dont think it’s always death but suffering, delay of care, worsening outcomes and suffering due to delay. This is very real.
Click to expand...

Not to mention the pain in the butt process of having to call the hospitals & insurance companies just to get my bill corrected. I have been sent medical bills for services that should be covered but I have to call the 800 numbers just to remind the health system or hospital that I actually don't owe this amount. This seems to happen far too frequently and the process can be infuriating. I am a doctor who happens to have some weekday mornings off to navigate the system. I have to tell you, it is extremely frustrating and feels intentionally confusing. I can't imagine what this process must feel like to a non-medical retired person on a fixed income or a person who has a M-F, 9-5 job.

I obviously don't condone any killing but rightfully or not, it seems the public has made this CEO the face of all of America's frustrations with the current dysfunctional health care system.
 
EctopicFetus said:
Regarding the $22B in profit. 1) they are playing the system. It’s just like every other business and doctor. Do you document to maximize your revenue? If you dont its probably cause your income isnt based on it. If you are RVU based I bet you do. United is crooked only because they do illegal stuff to generate that profit, in my opinion. Much of their profit comes from optum and all the other stuff they do that isnt insurance.
Click to expand...
False equivalence. What care does United and their profits bring to the table? Are they at the bedside? Are they providing material support like EVS, pharmacy, etc?
Nope... they move money around and skim from the top. ...but we can't have a single payer system because socialism...
 
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