Gastro97262

Policy

Usually In the marketplace, there are strong positive rewards for higher quality. Higher quality helps the sellers sell more and be able to charge a higher price for their products. Manufacturers and service providers therefore constantly strive to raise the quality of their products and services. The markets punish “poor ...

Cardio21740

General Patient Interest

“Rationalization of the costs” is the buzz-word in the hospitals nowadays to deal with the new economic reality of healthcare. Hospital executives and administrators are leaving no stones unturned to reduce costs. On the face of it, there is nothing wrong with this since wastage of resources helps no one. ...

Gastro97262

Policy

Sometime back I read about a simple experiment conducted by an economics professor with his students. This professor divided students in his class into two groups and asked one group (say group A) to go and eat together in a restaurant and pay individually for what they ate (go Dutch). ...

CTVS10483

Policy

The cost of healthcare is beyond the means of most Americans and most of us cannot even think of paying the healthcare bills without having healthcare insurance. It was not always so. There indeed was a time when buying healthcare insurance was not mandatory to access healthcare and there was ...

Gastro97262

Policy

Single payer system is widely seen as the answer to containing the runaway cost escalations in our healthcare, which lot of folks think are due to high administrative costs in healthcare insurance sector. The administrative costs in Medicare are in the low single digits whereas the administrative costs of the ...

CTVS10483

General Patient Interest

There have been several revelations recently of high profile celebrities and other powerful men who have sexually abused and even raped women. Along with it, there has been outrage about why people who were in the know of this repugnant behavior did not speak up publically about it and/or report ...

Gastro97262

Policy

Our healthcare has had a ‘pay for service’ payment model for several decades now- which basically means that what physicians get paid for providing any professional service (consultation or surgery etc) is pre-determined by a third party (insurance companies or CMS). This payment is fixed irrespective of the technical expertise ...

AlIMed64297

General Patient Interest

Is health care in America getting safer? This is a question that we all think about as doctors and patients. The answer seems to be not really. A new report found that hospitals have been gaming the system to make their re-admission numbers look good by putting patients who return ...

Gastro97262

Policy

In the marketplace, the sellers/service providers invest in improving quality expecting a higher price or higher volume of business or both. The physician fee is set by semi-governmental agency (CMS) and are set irrespective of the technical expertise or skill level of the providers (physicians) or the quality of service ...

Ernst02981

Policy

A recent LinkedIn post from a company specializing in a “service” that helps physicians benefit from the “New value-based Physician Reimbursement” system got me irritated and at the same time thinking about this in greater detail. This company’s product enabled physicians to look better to the payers and hence be ...