Consumer Directed Healthcare

By: MARLA

I have no figures to quote or studies to point to, just my innate sense that the un- & under-insured in our country may be using a disproportionate amount of health care dollars by accessing care for lower priority health issues at facilities designed to offer a higher level of care (i.e. accessing emergency rooms for colds).  I’m sure we’ve all heard the “common wisdom” that this is so.  Assuming that it is, it seems to me that it would reduce the cost of healthcare across the board if appropriate care could be provided in the appropriate setting by appropriate practitioners.

Another factor that I haven’t noticed being addressed is the shortage of key medical personnel, such as nurses, general practitioners, family doctors, obstetricians, dentists and others.  While these shortages affect everyone, they can be more significantly detrimental in underserved areas.

Additionally, it seems to me that having under- and un-insured individuals go for long periods of time without health care ultimately results in the care they eventually receive costing more and requiring longer periods of care.  To eliminate this, it would seemingly make sense to work to get them insured sooner rather than later.  In order to accomplish this, underwriting and financial access issues would need to be addressed. 

One last thought:  the development of medications and technologies to combat disease is universally beneficial.  Sharing the responsibility, costs and benefits universally would also seem to make sense and would, hopefully, accelerate the discovery of new treatments and cures.

To that end, I offer the following suggestions and ask for your thoughts in refining and expanding them:

 1.  Offer tax incentives to hospitals, clinics & urgent care centers who work in underserved areas a minimum of 30 hours/week.  The 30 hours to encompass a minimum of 1 hour before 7 AM and 1 hour after 7 PM at least 2 days/week and 3 hours on Saturday and Sunday.

 2.  For facilities opening in underserved areas willing to safely and appropriately renovate and/or remove and rebuild “blight” structures, Federal money should be made available to the local police department for the purpose of providing security.  The amount of money to be applied to be based on factors such as local population and crime rate in facility’s immediate vicinity.

 3.  Salaries paid to health care professionals (doctors, nurses, technicians) and limited to 2 administrators/site in underserved areas to be tax exempt for the first $100K (gross and unadjusted).

 4.  Create a federal insurance program (like the federal flood insurance program) for catastrophic illness (i.e. cancer, ESRD, Alzheimer’s, HIV) and require all health insurance carriers to contribute 1% of every policyholder’s premium to the program’s fund.  In years in which the carriers net profit exceeds 20% above the average net profit for the previous 5 years, they would be required to pay 10% of the net profit above 20% to the fund.  Upon confirmed diagnosis, the federal program would repay to the insurance carrier 75% of all care costs (including medications) paid on behalf of the insured.  Claims with any of the defined diagnosis codes denied would be subject to review by the same board that currently reviews Medicare claim denials.  GAO to do random financial and performance audits, with every carrier with audits performed a minimum of once every 5 years.  Deliberate fraud punishable by repayment to fund of 100% of monies paid for all patients from catastrophic fund for entire period of fraud plus a 10% penalty and posting of a bond equal to 33% of the amount of the fraud.  Said bond to be maintained for 5 years and to be released only upon completion of passing GAO audit.  Subsequent fraud would result in forfeiture of bond and loss of license in all states to sell health care coverage to Federal Employees and Medicare members for a period of 5 years.

 5.  Make health insurance premiums paid by individuals who do not qualify for coverage through an employer-sponsored plan 100% tax deductible up to an adjusted annual income of $200K with the deduction reduced by 10% for each $25K over $200,001.

 6.  Make payroll deducted employee health insurance contributions (including both fully and self funded plans) pre-tax for those whose adjusted income is less than $200K.

 7.  Reduce the threshold for claiming out of pocket medical costs as a tax deduction from 7% of adjusted income to 5% for adjusted incomes less than $200K.

 8.  Offer interest free scholarships in medical fields to highly qualified candidates where there is lower enrollment but a higher public need (i.e.:  nurses, family practitioners, obstetricians, general dentistry).

 9. Offer grants to cover 100% of tuition towards specific medical degrees in return for 2 year commitment to actively practice a minimum of 1300 hours/year in under-served areas (i.e.:  Indian reservations, low-income urban areas)

 10.  Standardize health insurance underwriting for specific chronic conditions on the condition they be certified by a physician to be under control for a minimum of 1 year with either diet/lifestyle change or medication at time of application (i.e.:  Type II diabetes, asthma, cholesterol, high blood pressure).  The rating factor applicable to these conditions when they meet the controlled criteria should be standardized (i.e.:  asthma +1.5%, Cholesterol +3.0%).

 11. Cancer survivors who have been certified to be in remission for a minimum of 5 years and have no other risk factors must be offered coverage with the pre-existing condition rated in the same manner as those conditions referred to in item 10.

 12.  Insured individuals who actively reduce their health risks (i.e. appropriate weight loss or gain, smoking cessation, reduced cholesterol, etc) may, at their discretion, request a review of their physical condition by their family/primary physician 2 months prior to the renewal of their policy to present to the insurer which is to be considered in determining renewal rates.  Significant, maintained health improvement should be “rewarded” with consideration when underwriting renewal rates (i.e.:  if rate increase would have been 8% consideration might allow for a reduction to a 6% or 7% rate increase). 

 13.  A public access website should be created using Medicare accumulated data showing a RANGE OF AVERAGE cost of care for the most common diagnoses and treatments by zip code (i.e. New patient office visit/consultation in zip code 60606:  $180 – $215).  (Although this information is more typically available to members of insurance plans through their secured websites, for uninsured individuals, gathering this information in order to make informed health care decisions is very difficult.)

 14. If medical procedures can be performed safely and more cost effectively overseas, allow 50% of travel exclusively for the performance of these procedures to be tax deductible if not covered by an insurer.  If the patient is insured, insurer must cover the procedure cost at the benefit level specified by the COC, assuming the procedure cost is a minimum of 25% less than if performed in-country:  i.e.:  if their in-country contracted rate for San Diego, CA for a hysterectomy is $1400 with the patient responsibility of 20%, the insurer would pay up to $1050 to the out-of-country provider with the patient paying 20% of the actual cost.  Insurance carrier has the right to ‘vet’ the out-of-country facility to ensure appropriate care and safety.  Insurance carriers would be permitted to negotiate contracts with out-of-country facilities and make a listing of “approved” facilities available upon request to insured’s.  Insurance carriers would NOT be permitted to pressure insured’s to receive care out-of-country.

 15. The US should seek to enter into an agreement with other like-minded countries to create an international fund (contributions to which would be pro-rated based on each country’s population) the purpose of which would be to subsidize pharmaceutical and scientific research into treatments and cures for cancer, HIV, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, etc.  Distribution of funds to be determined by a board of independent, non-political scientists, medical professionals and representatives from organizations such as WHO, NIH, CDC, etc and their international counterparts.

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Contracts to Limit Posting Physician Ratings Online Hold No Interest for Many Patients
By RADHA CHITALE
ABC News Medical Unit
March 5, 2009—

Patients are likely to seek health care information wherever they can these days, from friends, other patients and, increasingly, the Internet. They may also have the urge to add their own voices to the mix.

For these patients, Web sites such as Angie’s List and RateMDs.com can be a place to opine and rate their physician experience.

But information on the Internet is still information on the Internet, which means it is of uncertain credibility. And inaccurate physician ratings have the power to do a lot of damage when patients forget to take them with a grain of salt.

A company called Medical Justice from Greensboro, N.C., has been attempting to remedy what it calls misinformation by heading off would-be posters with a waiver, to be signed pre-treatment, in which patients promise not to contribute to online rating sites about their doctor.

But the idea of signing such a waiver does not sit well with some patients.

“I would not use a doctor that pushed that in any way,” said Danielle Panetta, 34, who has type-1 diabetes and visits specialists monthly to care for her disease. “It’s not legally binding as far as I’m concerned.”

Preventing the Inevitable?
Restricting online activity in any way may be a losing battle.

According to a study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 74 percent of adults in the United States go online and, of those, 80 percent look for health information online. Another study from 2006 showed that 29 percent of Internet users had looked online for information about a particular doctor or hospital.

“If there are doctors who are nervous, they should be nervous,” said Susannah Fox, author of the Pew studies. “This is a tried-and-true activity online, researching a product or service before you buy it.”

But Dr. Jeffrey Segal, CEO and founder of Medical Justice, says the waiver his company developed is not trying to restrict information but that the company is more interested in quality control.

“There is a disconnect between what we expect of health care in general and the system out there asking patients to rate their doctors,” Segal said, pointing out that the average doctor, who may see thousands of patients each year, may have only five ratings on a site.

Good Luck With Quality Control
“Patients are granted additional privacy protection above and beyond that mandated by law. In return, patients are asked not to post on online rating sites without the doctor’s permission,” Segal said. “It’s been characterized incorrectly as a gag [order].”

Segal said that the “additional privacy protection” includes physicians refraining from giving patient information to companies that may wish to market to people with specific health problems.

Still, attempts at quality control on the Internet appear to be dubious, at best.

Dave deBronkart, 59, who blogs at The New Life of e-Patient Dave, pointed out that his own excellent physician could get a handful of nasty reviews online.

“That’s just the nature of democracy,” deBronkart said. “I do think it’s hopeless to try to hold back the tide. And it’s going to be bumpy along the way but things will improve. … When things are transparent, things improve eventually.”

How Is Your Doctor?
And patients are looking for transparency in their health care information.

Jim Conway, senior vice president at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Cambridge, Mass., said the state of Massachusetts has been conducting consumer research in the past six months about what people want to know in terms of healthcare. One of the top three things users want to know is what other people think of their hospitals and their doctors.

“The perspective of the consumer is unbelievably important,” Conway said. “In helping people make decisions around where they’re going to seek care.”

But patients know that consumer rating sites, particularly anonymous, unmonitored ones, are not the be-all and end-all source for physician information.

“It’s a good thing for patients to have access to but you’ve got to watch out,” said Panetta, an attorney in Boston, Mass., who is also actively involved in diabetes patient advocacy. “The people that are more likely to use it are going to be people who have an axe to grind, and it may be because they’re crazy.”

Segal pointed out that defamers could also be competitors, former employees or ex-significant others. Nor is there a way to monitor undeserved praise.

The Waiver Is a Questionable Solution
But a waiver such as the one Medical Justice proposes doctors use may not be the solution.

“I don’t see how that kind of contract could actually protect the physician in any other specific way than they would have without the contract,” Panetta said.

As with other printed defamatory comments, Panetta said, the doctor could ask the host site to remove the comments and, if they did not, he or she could sue, which may not be effective.

“I think it doesn’t work for any of the parties,” Panetta said. “You can’t contract away liability.”

Straining the Relationship?
But the wrong kind of contract can set the tone for the important doctor-patient relationship.

“Great patient care is the result of a partnership and trust-relationship between the patient and the people taking care of the patient,” Conway said. “I worry that the introduction of something like this could begin to break down trust.”

Segal believes the waiver, if presented correctly, can address the trust issue head on while acknowledging the patient’s need to voice opinions about his or her experience.

“We don’t want to repackage the problem because we know the inevitability of useful Internet rating sites,” Segal said. “Try and view the program as a way to move the process forward where patients and doctors share in the solution rather than engaging in adversarial relationships.”

Preventing Internet users from using the Internet as they like is a tall order, doubly so when it comes to healthcare where seeking out others’ opinions is ingrained.

Blogger deBronkart knows exactly what he would do if his doctor confronted him with a waiver asking him not to post comments about him online.

“I would decline,” he said. “But I would look him right in the eye and say, ‘You don’t need to worry about me shafting you.’”
Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures

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