Shipping the Problem Elsewhere

I was reading a recent study that said if given the choice, most people would rather get increased healthcare coverage than a pay raise. We in the industry cognize it's a messiness and that many people hold getting treatment for fearfulness of depleting their savings. The current state of healthcare in America can literally be deadly.

Which is why I wasn't surprised to read an article that declared many patients are now going overseas for their healthcare. Get a loading of this:

"Carl Garrett of Leicester, N.C., volition wing to a state-of-the-art New Old Delhi infirmary in September for surgeries to take gallstones and to repair an overworn rotator cuff. His employer, Blue Ridge Paper Products Inc. of Canton, N.C., volition pay for it all, including airfare for Garrett and his fiancee. The company also will give Garrett a share of the expected savings, up to $10,000, when he returns. "

That's right! We're not only shipping occupations overseas, we're now shipping patients there, too! Of course, if this tendency continues, we will essentially be sending occupations for medical people overseas by default.

I don't cognize about you, but this embarrasses me deeply. I didn't get into healthcare management to only assist dainty the people who were lucky adequate to have got coverage or could afford it. Ailment wellness doesn't discriminate, it potentially impacts us all, and the longer we allow the state of affairs get out of hand, the more than eccentric and defeating solutions will be establish by companies and people who are fed up with the status quo.

I got a good response to a former article about people going overseas for medical processes because it costs less. If you don't mind, I'd wish to react to some of the comments.

The first commenter said:

"...like you, (I) entered healthcare management (twenty old age in infirmary administration, consulting and eight managing medical practices)to assist based on my non clinical skills. I worked largely in innercity infirmaries and then transitioned to medical pattern management. There I became more than jaundiced with the attitudes of forte physicians. Behind the scenes the focusing of a surprising number of docs was on paying patients, although periodically altrusim did radiance through. I had to look carefully for the quiet 1s who took care of patients and did not bluster at the closed door business meetings. When things got tough they would talk up, but only when really pushed. Rhetorically, I inquire why organized medicine, and our exalted management societies and associations don't concentrate more than on the caring side, the professional side, the hippocratic side."

Here again, person states it better than I can. Another reader do a good point based on experience:

"Why would H/care be exempt from the planetary marketplace? Health care services are a merchandise that is consumed by consumers (patients). Accordingly, patients will shop for services. Consumerism in wellness care have been a long time coming. For instance, my household went to Republic Of Colombia to get dental work done for a fraction of what it would cost here, and we managed to add in a vacation. Now the 1 thing to consider, is what if there are complications, is the company going to wing the employee back to decide the complication? (Probably not)."

Actually, I don't fault the patients for taking advantage of better deals in other countries. Your trip to Republic Of Colombia sounds like a fantastic combination of business and pleasure, although I inquire if your holiday wasn't affected by the dental work! Still, you inquire a great inquiry at the end, and while I'd say it depends on the company and the understanding worked out in advance, another reader do this first-class point:

"You got it right when you said 'COMPLICATIONS'. Try suing the physician overseas and see how far you get. The malpractice piece is a large portion of our wellness care dollar."

Then there was this remark by Lifeline Medical Associates President/CEO Jack Feltz that eloquently summed up the defeats he undergoes heading the largest supplier of women's healthcare in New Jersey:

"One of the biggest waste materials of resources is practicing defensive medical specialty because of the medical liability crisis and deficiency of meaningful civil wrong reform in New Jersey and elsewhere. Physicians, I believe be given to tell more than than and more diagnostic tests because they are frightened not to. If there is a bad result you can wager there will be an attorney and expert to state they should have got ordered every diagnostic test imaginable. This is tragic, making wellness care unaffordable. Iodine would rather see these wasted dollars travel towards remedies for breast cancer, immunizing poor children, improving care and keeping healthcare in the hands of expert docs and nurses in the U.S.A."

I believe you do an first-class point, Jack (may I name you "Jack?"). If lone more than CEO's had your sense of compassion. I often forget the legal portion of the equation because I am so frequently enmeshed in battles with insurance carriers. Or to again quote yet another reader who states it better than I can:

"Insurance carriers are problematic, and don't pay or hold paying claims, and then don't pay them according to the appropriate fee schedule. This agency patients get billed eventually for services that should have got been covered. Unhappy patients kick to employers about coverage. Employers make up one's mind to travel elsewhere. This doesn't reflect on American physicians, it reflects on American insurance carriers. "

Exactly. Personally, I believe the solution to our healthcare crisis will have got to compound civil wrong reform with insurance reform. Outsourcing unwellness is a symptom of a morbid system. In the end, our political representatives volition have got to summons the will to play physician and remedy this problem. As I noted in my former post, their inactivity on this issue is deadly.