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Combining My “Ideal Medical Savings Accounts” And “Reference Pricing”

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

President Obama has declared over
and over again that no one has presented ideas better than Obamacare. 

I believe he has no interest in
listening to anyone.

I sent him 6 letters between 2008-2009
presenting my solution to repairing the health care system. These ideas were
from a practicing physician’s perspective. President Obama paid no attention.


President Obama fooled many people
with his intentions, including me. The traditional media is finally catching on
to him. 

All of the stakeholders are at fault
in causing the dysfunctional healthcare system. The dysfunction is the result
of all the stakeholders trying to adjust to ever changing government regulations
during the last 48 years

Obamacare is making that dysfunction
worse.

A consumer driven healthcare system
is the only way to Repair the Healthcare System.

I think President Obama wants the
healthcare system to fail. He wants to prove that the free market cannot
succeed.

He is deaf to the fact that the
healthcare system is not a very free market system.  Government regulations, tax favors, and tax
barriers over the years have interfered with the free market in healthcare.

The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) intends to transform the
health-care system, extend coverage,
reduce costs and increase quality—all
without asking anything of the patients.

 Consumers will pay
with higher taxes, of course, but otherwise will face no incentives to make
wise choices, compare price with performance or shop for value.

 Doctors, hospitals,
insurers and, most of all, the government will do that for them, which is
hardly reassuring.

 This reflects what I
call the "impossibility theorem" in health care. The impossibility theorem maintains that patients cannot
make good choices, but, rather, must be dependent on the well-intentioned
decisions of others.

Policy makers believe this theorem by
definition. But, just to make sure, they have structured the health-insurance
system to ensure that patients are never asked or allowed to make
price-conscious choices.

The arrangement underlies the innumerable
rules, subsidies, entitlements, mandates and prohibitions that collectively
make health care the least efficient part of the economy.

 ObamaCare makes it worse.

I do not think consumers believe or trust President
Obama. Consumers certainly do not believe “the impossibility theorem.”

Consumers are ready for some common sense healthcare
policy. They just do not know what to do.

Consumers must be given incentives to control
healthcare costs. This can be done in several ways.

Consumers must be put in charge of their health and
healthcare dollars.

The
central pillar of effective healthcare reform is the creation of a system that
forces the healthcare insurance industry to be competitive and answerable to
consumers.

Consumers
must have incentives to control costs. This, in turn, would force hospital
systems and physicians to be competitive and reduce costs.

The government’s
role should be to empower consumers to have greater control over their
healthcare decisions, their health, their healthcare dollars and their
healthcare coverage.

The
government should teach consumers to make educated choices in their healthcare
decision-making.

Price
transparency of healthcare fees and parity of tax deductions between the individual
insurance market and the group healthcare insurance market is essential.

It is fool
hearty to assume that the redistribution of wealth, raising taxes by means
testing and price fixing will solve the problems in the healthcare system.

  “Why on earth would we want a system,
especially with something as personal as health care, where all of these free market
signals are lost, and insurers responding to regulators, not to us?”

Entitlement programs have never produced free market
efficiencies
. Entitlements have created unsustainable, unfunded liabilities.

Leadership must face this problem not add to the
problem.     

In the past seventy years medical advances through
research and technology have improved medical care and medical outcomes. Medical
advance has focused on fixing diseases after they have occurred.   

Consumers are the only ones that can prevent most
medical and surgical problems.

They can prevent most chronic diseases such as Type 2
Diabetes, heart disease, lung disease and others. 

Consumers are also the only ones that can prevent the
costly complications of a chronic disease.

A healthcare system must be constructed to incentivize
consumers to be responsible for their health and healthcare dollars.

Eighty percent of the healthcare dollars spend on
diabetes care is spent treating the complications of diabetes.

A healthcare system must be developed to align all of
the primary and secondary stakeholders’ incentives.

Only consumers can align all the stakeholders’
incentives.

Government control of the healthcare system cannot and
has not aligned those incentives.

Right now we are seeing bureaucracies making a $634
million dollar error with healthcare.gov. This is only the tip of the iceberg
for the problems in store for Obamacare.

The solution is not a single party payer. We will have
the same problems or worse because of the expansion of Medicaid. President
Obama’s hope was the cost of increasing Medicaid would be shifted to the
states.

The increase in cost will increase the federal deficit
and unfunded liabilities.

A healthcare system must be constructed to empower
consumers. I have written in detail about my ideal medical savings accounts.

I have pointed out that it can be very democratic.
Everyone can be insured while decreasing the costs.    

The ideal medical
saving accounts will motivate and empower consumers to save money by staying
healthy, staying out of the emergency rooms, and decrease over testing and over
treatment.

Consumers would be
motivated to shop for the top value and quality care.  

The government would
require providers to publish the discounted prices paid by the government and
the healthcare insurance companies to all consumers.

My ideal medical
saving account would incentivize consumers to save money. It would be the
responsibility of consumers to shop for the best price at the best quality.

Consumers would
carry their medical records digitally on a flash drive or on their smart phone
to avoid over testing. They would reap the financial benefits of these cost savings.

Consumers, after
the initial $6,000 dollars was spent, would receive first dollar healthcare coverage.
 

I have always been
satisfied with the front-end incentives. I have never been satisfied with the
catastrophic coverage. It does not provide financial incentive for consumers to
save.

I finally figured
it out. Consumers would continue to receive first dollar coverage if they spent
over the initial $6,000 after the initial stakeholders.

The discounted
hospital, surgical and medical device costs would be published along with
outcomes.

Discounted prices
for services could also vary for the same services. The outcomes could be the
same.

A hospital system
with better outcomes should receive more. If the hospital system negotiates a
higher fee than another hospital system but has the same outcome the consumer
should be liable for the difference.

 In this way the decision for choosing the
provider is in the hands of the consumer.

Combining my ideal medical saving account and “reference
pricing” will incentivize consumers to be in control of their healthcare costs
and their health and healthcare dollars.

Consumers should receive pretax dollar treatment for
all expenditures.

Consumers will then shop for price and quality to
their financial advantage.  This will
incentivize providers to compete on both price and quality.

The Oklahoma Surgical Center has forced local
hospitals to do just that
. The Surgical Centers’ online prices were one half to one
fifth the prices of the local hospital.  The hospital centers are now starting to
compete on price and quality.

 The combination
of the ideal medical saving accounts and reference pricing will incentivize
providers to be aligned with consumers’ goals.  

 The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone

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Ideal Medical Savings Accounts For Everyone: Encourage Patient Responsibility!

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

The third spoke in the future states wheel is Patient Responsibilty for their health and Healthcare dollars.

The Ideal Medical Saving Account would decrease the cost of the Healthcare System because it would dis-intermediate the Healthcare System’s complex and convoluted business model.

The Ideal Medical Savings Account should be an option for all consumers who have all types of insurance coverage. The Ideal Medical Savings Accounts would create competition for patients among physicians. It would create competition among healthcare insurers.

Medicare, Medicaid, corporate self-insurance plans, association healthcare plans, individual healthcare plans and ordinary healthcare insurance plans provided by employers could all offer the Ideal Medical Savings Account.

If MSAs were structured as my Ideal Medical Savings Account is structured the result would be a decrease in the cost of healthcare, a decrease in premium costs and an increase in healthcare quality.

The Ideal MSA must be paid for by pretax dollars as all other healthcare plans are.

If the government, individual or employer puts the first $6,000 of insurance in individual trusts for the consumer the entire healthcare and medical care supply chain would be disrupted by consumers.

An immediate argument is Medicaid patients are not smart enough to determine their own healthcare needs if they were responsible for the first $6000 of healthcare insurance coverage.

This is rubbish. It is condescending to patients on Medicaid. If the government is so worried they should provide education to help these Medicaid consumers make wise healthcare choices using available social media.

 

 The entire goal of the Ideal Medical Savings Account is to provide incentives for consumers to become responsible for their health and healthcare needs rather than be entitled to medical care.

The mechanism for this reversal from a dysfunctional system’s business model to a functional system’s business model is patients’ owning their healthcare dollars and having financial as well as medical incentive to be responsible for their health, maintaining their health, and choosing the most efficient and effective medical care.

Consumers would become Prosumers (Productive consumers) of health care rather than passive consumers of healthcare.

This mechanism has worked in many industries using the Internet as a facilitator.

The Internet can become an extension of the physicians care.

At present there are many web sites offering advice to patients. The defect is they are not an extension of the physician’s care of the patient.

Physicians would be motivated through competition for the patients’ owned healthcare dollars to choose the sites for his patients that would be an extension of their care.

Physicians associations could create web sites for their members.  Social networking between physicians and their patients could direct their patients to that site. This would be the meaning of an extension of the physician’s care.  

Patient responsibility is the third spoke in my formulation of the future state business model of a functional healthcare system.

 

Slide20

It must be remembered that the present state’s business model is dysfunctional. It must be repaired.

The future state must not be encumbered by any of the baggage of the dysfunctional present state business model.

If the future state model is made clear to patients, potential future patients and recovered patients (consumers) they will demand for this future state model.  

Using social media consumers can drive the healthcare system to the future state business model.

It is similar to what ITunes did to music publishing, Amazon did to book publishing and Netflix did to the movie industry.

 It turns out everyone is better off and the system is more efficient and costs less for consumers. 

The consumers would own the first $6,000. They would be responsible for the management of there healthcare dollars. They would also be responsible for choosing their physician.

I have found that when physicians and patients sign a patient physician contract the treatment results improve. Both physicians and patients have their responsibilities clearly defined.

The patient physician contract motivates patients to be responsible for their own care. Patients responsible for their care is critical to successful clinical outcomes.

If there were a financial incentive attached to this physician patient contract along with a potential bonus the results would be even better.  

This was especially true in the treatment of Diabetes Mellitus.

In treating chronic diseases such as Diabetes, physicians must be the teachers, prescribers and coach. Patients must become the professor of their disease. Patients live and care for their disease 24/7.

Financial incentives would motivate patients to take an active role in their medical care.  

Obesity is a major problem in America today. Patients and patient education is the only solution to the “The Obesity Epidemic.”

The only way to decrease obesity is by burning more calories than is eaten.  Society must encourage exercise, and reducing intake. It turns out society encourages the opposite.

Mayor Bloomberg is doing the right thing in New York City. He uses simple transit Subway advertisements to increase awareness caloric intake. He has required each restaurant to publish calorie counts.

It is a simple educational message that everyone can understand. It is amazing how intelligent people misjudge their caloric intake.

Constant repetition of calorie counts of various foods along with estimates of calories burned can result is a cultural change for the need to burn more than we eat.  

Companies such as FitBit are building simple products to help us achieve this goal. 

Obesity contributes to the onset of many chronic diseases. The treatment of the complications of chronic disease result in eighty percent of the healthcare dollars spent for direct patient care.

If a consumer abuses his health and ends up spending the initial $6,000 he has no money left to put into his retirement account.

If a patient has a chronic disease and has excellent control of his disease he can avoid the complications of his disease. If the patients take the appropriate medical care avoids hospitalization and the emergency room for the year, the provider of his Ideal Medical Saving Accounts can afford to give that person a bonus for his retirement account.

This would add an additional financial incentive for consumers.

As a society we are smart enough to solve the problem of a dysfunctional healthcare system. The present course is unsustainable.

The future state’s business model with consumers responsible for their healthcare dollars and the patient physician relationship restored can achieve the goal of a sustainable healthcare system. 

The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” is, mine and mine alone

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Medical Savings Accounts and the Problem of the Uninsured

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

We have experienced an increased number of uninsured patients for the past 16 years as insurance premiums have escalated and employers have been reducing and eliminating medical insurance benefits as part of the employment package. In 1990, 34.4 million Americans were uninsured. At that time, 85% of the uninsured patients were members of a family with a working adult.

Today, that number is 46.6 million, according to a new Census Bureau report. This represents 15.9% of our population up from 15.6% of our population in 2004 representing an increase of 1.3 million in the last 2 years. The number of workers with no health insurance rose from 26.5 million to 27.3 million. Nearly all the increase in uninsured was among working adults.

Do you think we need a creative innovative solution to ensure that all Americans have affordable and comprehensive health insurance coverage? You bet!

Congress has so far failed to reach a consensus on how to even approach the problem.
Our difficulty is we have an elected Congress that professes to support the publics’ vested interest but in reality is swayed by vested interests’ political contributions. This is the reason they are in a State of Denial about everything including medical care of our population. America does great when the crisis is overwhelming. When the crisis subsides we resort to our highly developed short attention span and ignore our problems. We leave ourselves vulnerable to be taken advantage of by stakeholders who are protecting their vested interests.

What should we be focusing on?

1. As the price of insurance has increased and out of pocket payment for the employed has increased, the price of coverage has exceeded the price the employers can afford.

2. People working and not covered by employer provided health insurance have to pay for health care premiums with after tax dollar, while their employers pay for employee health insurance with pre tax dollars.

3. Evolving tax laws and employee benefit laws are causing employers to act in ways that cause the employer to provide fewer benefits to the employee. The biggest impact is felt by moderate to low income families. They are priced out of the market. If they get sick, they figure they can get medical care paid for by their community. The result is an increase in economic pressure on the individual and the community.

In light of this the facilitator stakeholders try to protect their envisioned vested interests at the expense of the patients and society. Policy makers have proposed to force everyone to buy insurance. The goal is to force the employer to buy insurance for the employee, or force the uninsured to buy insurance or go on Medicaid. The State of Massachusetts just passed a law mandating insurance and guarantying insurance for all.

It seems to me all of these proposals ignore real reason people do not buy insurance on their own in the first place.

They cannot buy reasonably priced insurance on a before tax basis. The patient is disadvantaged by an expensive and defective third party payer insurance system that does not permit them to control their healthcare dollar.

A Medical Saving Account system in a Price Transparent environment cures all these defects. Real insurance would be sold to individuals using after tax dollars in a freely competitive environment. The competitive environment would not be price manipulated by the insurance industry as the Medicare Part D benefit is. People would have an economic motivation to purchase insurance and keep themselves healthy. If someone had a chronic illness and if they avoided the complications of disease they could be rewarded economically.

Families on Medicaid could be motivated in the same way with the government providing the same or similar subsidies. The cost of care to State governments would be less than it is today. However, we would be empowering to the Medicaid family to make independent decisions rather than demoralizing these families in the present system of care rationing.

Americans yearn to be free and make free choices. We are not a dumb people even though our education system is crumbling. We need enlightened leadership not imprisoned by our hierarchical bureaucracy. I believe it is going to be up to the population of 40-50 year olds to step forward and say “we are sick and tired of this and we do not want to take it anymore.

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Notice What Could Happen with Medical Savings Accounts

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

With Medical Savings Accounts notice what could happen when you put purchasing power in the patients’ hands. You give patients the incentive to spend money wisely.

Some patients are going to make good medical care decisions. Some patients will make poor medical care decisions. If the patients make poor medical care decision and do not purchase necessary care they will get sick and even experience complications of chronic disease. They will not only lose the money in the trust accounts for that year, they may lose their health. Patients would now be in the position to be responsible for their health care decisions. The decision would not be a bureaucratic and politically influenced decision.

Patients would be the principle buyers of their healthcare, not the insurance industry, the employer or the government. Patients would have the opportunity to compare prices and options for their own medical care

Physicians would be relating care and price to the patient and not to the third party payer. Hospital would no longer be making deals with the insurance industry and the government. They would once again be competing for patients by lowering prices and increasing quality of care.

The insurance industry would have to change. It would have to provide true insurance for expensive illnesses. They would provide insurance coverage for illness costing more than $6,000 in one year. Presently the insurance industry is an industry that owns patients, owns their insurance dollar, and decides the patients’ needs. It tries to control the physician and the hospital.

The employers would provide the money for the trust account and the high deductible policy. The patients would manage the first $6,000. The employer would help the employee pick the best high deductible policy. The employer would also help the employee make informed purchasing decisions.

The government would no longer be the buyer of last resort. It would provide subsidies for senior patients and indigent patients. It would regulate policy for the advantage of the patient. The government would not dictate what the patient should do. The government could create the environment for competitive markets by regulation. If physicians’ services, hospital services and private health insurance would compete for all customers, prices will fall.

We will see the fall in drug prices over the next six months as Wal-Mart rolls the $4 generic plan throughout the country. The government could achieved price competition on a state level by license requirements of price transparency.

I am not the first person to say all of this. However, vested interests other than the patients’ have stood in the way of its implementation. Remember, no one in power likes the balance of power disrupted, even if the system he controls is a failure. Individual interests rule over the common good. This needs to be changed.

There are criticisms and fears of implementing the MSA system. The criticisms and fears all seem lame to me. We will discuss these criticisms and fears shortly.

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Politics of Electronic Medical Records

Politics of Electronic Medical Records

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

The EMR project that President Obama forced on the medical profession in 2009 has not yet produced any evidence that EMR will save the country $350 billion in inpatient care and $150 billion dollars in outpatient care over a 15 year period of time.

The RAND analysts claim that more than $350 billion would be saved on inpatient care and nearly $150 billion on outpatient care over a 15-year period of time. 

The RAND EMR study was wrong. The study sounded good to President Obama because he thought EMRs would enable the federal government to control medical and surgical practices in America.

Unfortunately, data from three other studies, a cardiology group, a Harvard group and Canadian group showed there is no savings difference between paper records and electronic records.

The project has been a $38 billion dollar failure. I predicted the EMR project would fail in 2011. EMRs are a great idea. The EMR projects goals were wrong.

Wall Street Journal article in 2012 stated,  The electronic medical record (EMR) is touted as the key to containing costs, reducing errors, improving quality, and simplifying administration: an “elegant exercise in wishful thinking.

The RAND Corporation study was paid for by all the vested interests stakeholders involved in medical care except physicians and patients.

Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, the Cerner Corporation and Epic Systems of Verona, Wis. are the major EMR software companies who paid for the study.

In February 2009, after years of behind-the-scenes lobbying by Allscripts and others, legislation to promote the use of electronic records was signed into law as part of President Obama’s economic stimulus bill.

GE and the healthcare insurance industry were also major funders of the RAND Study. The Obama administration funded the implementation of the EMR project to the detriment of the healthcare system.

The healthcare system has not contained costs, reduced errors, improved quality or simplified administration. Each category has gotten worse.

I do not think the Obama administration’s primary interest was to fix the existing healthcare system.   If the EMR project hobbled the healthcare system, the population would beg the government to completely take over institute his “Public Option” and subsequently “Medicare for All.” There was no consideration of the fact that that Medicare and Medicaid are unsustainable.

The complete control of the VA Healthcare System has not worked out very well for the government. One important reason for the VA Healthcare System’s failure is the bloated government bureaucracy. Effective medical care takes instantaneous judgement and rapid execution. Government regulations inhibit the process leading to long waiting times and ineffective and costly treatment.

Medicare and Medicaid costs have been unsustainable and are getting worse. Why would a politician think complete government control over 20% of the GDP, the healthcare system, would be any better than a free market system where patients would take responsibility for their healthcare and healthcare dollars?

The government could provide the dollars to the needy with financial incentives attached for all in the system.

Ideal EMR should be for the benefit of physicians and their patients. The EMR should not be only for the financial benefit of healthcare insurance companies, the government,  the pharmacy benefit managers and the software companies.

The EMR project places the secondary stakeholder in the position to judge physicians’ behavior and subsequently penalize them if they do not comply with government regulations and expected results.

The EMR should be a tool to continually educate physicians to help them become better. It should educate patients so they can become professors of their disease and help them avoid the complications of their chronic diseases.

The EMR should not be a tool used by secondary stakeholders to penalize physicians and patients. This will not decrease the ever-increasing cost of healthcare.

At the moment EMRs are relatively useless. A lot of money has been spent by all the stakeholders with very limited benefit. There have been hundreds of examples published by all stakeholders about the defects in the present EMRs that do not allow for an increase in the quality of care and a decrease in the cost of care.

 My ideal EMR along with my ideal medical saving accounts can go a long way toward repairing the healthcare system. http://stanfeld.com/is_an_ideal_ele/

 

The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone.



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The Main Reason Behind Rising Medical Costs

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

 

President Obama and progressive Democrats such as John Kerry and Barney Frank wanted the healthcare system to become a single party payer system. Their problem was that they could not get enough votes in the house or senate.

https://youtu.be/f3BS4C9el98

 

 

https://youtu.be/-522hcm3woA

 

 

This goal for a single party payer by the progressives and Democrats must not be forgotten as the Trump administration tries to make a serious attempt to repair the healthcare system.

The Democrats and progressive will try to block this attempt at every turn.

All the stakeholders have played an important role in distorting the healthcare system  including the government, the healthcare insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the hospital systems, the physicians and patients.

A starting salary for a starting hospital administrator is $250,000 a year. A starting salary for a pediatrician is $90,000 a year. Top hospital administrators are paid between five (5) million and fifteen (15) million dollars a year. Mature pediatricians make $150,000 to $200,000 a year.

Which professional adds more value to medical care? Physicians add more value to the medical care system. Hospital administrators do not understand why physicians resent them.

Physicians also resent hospital systems ripping off consumers with $50 aspirins and $100 sleeping pillows. Consumers who care about the cost of healthcare do not understand why the government and insurance companies let hospital systems charge these obscene prices.

Most physicians do not pay attention to these costs until they are patients.

All of the stakeholders except the government and patients try to optimize the amount of money they take out of the system. Surgeons are much further ahead of primary care physicians in figuring out their value to the healthcare system.

As a result of advances in technology, physicians figured out that 70-80% of the work-ups done requiring hospitalization 30 years ago could be done as outpatient care.

The brick and mortar value of hospital facilities has decreased.

As soon as hospitals realized this they started to build ambulatory surgical care facilities and outpatient clinics.  Hospital system procedures are more expensive than free standing outpatient ambulatory surgical care facilities.

http://stanfeld.com/hospital-mergers-dont-work/

Hospital administrators somehow convinced the government that if they formed hospital systems and merged hospitals in an area they would increase their efficiency and they could decrease costs.

At the same time the management of private practices became complicated as a result of government regulations. Expensive electronic medical records were required but did   not work as advertised. Overhead increased while reimbursement decreased.

Many physicians became disgusted managing their complicated private practices. Some physicians quit practicing early.

The hospital systems offered to buy private practices for a “reasonable cash price”, provide an electronic medical record, do the billing and management of the practice and hire and pay full time employees.

Hospital systems usually paid physicians under contract the same take home pay they had for two years. After the two-year contract expired the hospital systems offered new contracts depending on a physician’s productivity or fired the physician. Physicians had no say in the matter.

Physicians and surgeons signing with the hospital system did not consider the criteria to be used for determining salary after their contract expired .

This hospital arrangement seemed attractive to many primary care physicians and some surgeons. The growth of hospital owned physicians increased from 20% to 70% of physicians in a region.

Organized medicine, the AMA and physician specialty groups, did little to warn or educate physicians of these unforeseen consequences.

Hospital systems did their best to isolate private practicing physicians from using their hospital facilities.

The only private practice physicians who were not marginalized by the hospital systems were physicians who were needed by the hospital system for the services they performed. As soon as the hospital systems were able to hire physicians to cover those services the private practice physicians were marginalized.

Large hospitals systems are making deals with insurers that squelch competitive hospitals.

President Obama’s plan was to allow hospital systems to hide prices from consumers and corporations. The goal was to discourage use of less-expensive rivals. This tactic would force the less-expensive competition to join the regional hospital systems as affiliates.

 At first hospital systems did not grasp the ultimate significance of enlarging hospital systems. They figured merging hospitals would increase efficiency and decrease the cost of medical care.

They also thought owning physician practices would decrease their reliance on in-patient hospital billings and their brick and mortar structures.

During the Obama years there was a tremendous increase in building growth on the campus of most hospital systems.

I never understood the hospital building growth. More building meant more hospital administrators and more overhead. I thought the government must have created some economic incentive for hospital systems to build more buildings on campus.  I could not find the  incentives given to hospital systems.

As hospital systems merged all the hospitals in a region the hospital systems realized they had a monopoly on not only hospital services but also physician services.

They could negotiate with healthcare insurance companies from strength.

Initially the healthcare insurance companies were in control of the costs and services that were available. The healthcare insurance companies lost their control over cost to the regional hospital systems.

Dominant hospital systems use an array of secret contract terms to protect their turf and block efforts to curb health-care costs. As part of these deals, hospitals can demand insurers include them in every plan and discourage use of less-expensive rivals. Other terms allow hospitals to mask prices from consumers, limit audits of claims, add extra fees and block efforts to exclude health-care providers based on quality or cost.”

There are hundreds of regional hospital system giants throughout the United States. In many cities there are two or three giant hospital systems. It is difficult for independents to negotiate contracts in these cities.

The Wall Street Journal has identified dozens of contracts with terms that limit how insurers design plans, involving operators such as NewYork-Presbyterian, Johns Hopkins Medicine in Maryland, the 10-hospital OhioHealth system and Aurora Health Care, a major system in the Milwaukee market. National hospital operator HCA Healthcare Inc. also has restrictions in insurer contracts in certain markets.”

This is a very big deal.

The goal of the government should be to lower the price of healthcare to all of its citizens including seniors, workers who get insurance from their employers and people who do not have employer sponsored healthcare.

The Obama administration did nothing about stopping hospital system monopolies. In fact, it encouraged them.

“Certain hospital systems are able to command advantageous terms because they have grown through years of deal-making, shifting the balance of power between hospitals and insurers. In 2010, the year the Affordable Care Act passed, the annual number of hospital mergers shot up 40% to 59, and the number of deals has remained above 60 every year since, according to IrvingLevin Associates, a research firm that tracks health-care transactions.”

The Obama administration did nothing about it because the distortion in pricing is going to lead to collapse of the private segment of our healthcare system. Once the private segment of the healthcare system collapses a progressive government hungry to have power and control over the populous will install a single party payer system.

As proven over and over again, a single party payer system does not work. The government has to outsource all of the infrastructure to administrative services. The government does not control the administrative services overhead. Also, the government does not want to develop another uncontrolled and inefficient bureaucracy like the VA Healthcare System.

A single party payer system will lead to increases in unsustainable deficits and decreasing healthcare services.

It will take many years for the public to recognize that a universal single party payer system is inefficient. The government will hide the system’s inefficiency from the public.

The government should make common sense rules, enforce those rules and get out of  the healthcare administration business.

Medicare and Medicaid costs have not been recognized by the general public yet.

The VA inefficiency and lack of service by the VA Healthcare System has been recognized in the last two years by the general public. The government has assured the public that the VA Healthcare System is improving.

The insurance industry is trying to fight back.

“No hospital system should be able to exercise market power to demand contract agreements that prevent more competitively priced networks,” said Cigna’s chief medical officer, Alan Muney, in a written statement provided by the company.

The Trump administration is aware of all of these problems. President Trump is trying to figure out a way of negotiating a deal with all the providers who are taking advantage of consumers and the government. His administration’s actions have been delayed by the slow death of Obamacare.

If Obamacare was repealed last year I am sure the topic of hospital monopolies would be a hot topic of debate today.

President Trump is presently attacking the middlemen who have made drug prices so obscene. This is a big problem and an easier target.

“The effect of contracts between hospital systems and insurers can be difficult to see directly because negotiations are secret. The contract details, including pricing, typically aren’t disclosed even to insurers’ clients—the employers and consumers who ultimately bear the cost.”

Hospital contracts forbids healthcare insurance companies to cover many procedures that can be performed as outpatient services outside the hospital environment. I have listed some of the price differences between the more expensive outpatient hospital care facilities and the independent ambulatory care facilities.

There are many examples of how hospital systems rip off consumers and increase the cost of healthcare insurance for all including employers, individuals and the government. It is also decreasing the access to care for all.

If the government is really looking for a system that would work it should look at my Ideal Medical Saving Accounts are Democratic.

The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone.



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Consumers Need To Take Back Their Medical Care And Healthcare Dollars

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

A consumer driven healthcare system is the solution to the dysfunctional and unaffordable healthcare system that americans are presently experiencing.

President Trump wants to create the conditions for consumers to take responsibility for their medical care and their healthcare dollars.

The negative noise in the mainstream media should be ignored.

The Obamacare health insurance exchanges have failed. The Democrats and establishment Republicans should realize that the health insurance exchange plan was a defective system that it can not be repaired with patches and more money.

President Trump has signed an executive order to permit private associations to sell insurance. There are many associations that a person could belong too. Consumers could shop for the right association at the right price.

Democrats are behaving as if associations are a foreign enemy.

UnitedHealth has contracted with AARP (an association) to sell Medicare supplemental insurance. UnitedHealth sells this insurance across state lines.

USAA has contracted with Humana to sell Medicare supplemental insurance and Medicare Drug coverage.

There are many supplemental plans that consumers can choose from in these associations. These plans are sold across state lines and are competitive.

The government has to change the tax law to treat individual healthcare insurance plans bought through the associations to be paid for with pre-tax dollars just as the employer sponsored group plans do.

However, associations selling healthcare insurance are only the first step in empowering consumers.

A well-known retired physician (DEF M.D.) sent me his view on what consumers need to be aware of to survive any healthcare system. He calls it

“My Three Rules For Survival”

Remember my three rules for survival:

1) Stay the hell away from doctors.

They always either want to do something or prescribe something, and all too frequently do both.

A large part of this physician reflex is their need to practive defensive medicine. Physicians are afraid they might miss something and get sued.

Major tort reform is necessary in most states. Defensive medicine accounts for $250 billion to $700 billion dollars in unnecessary expenses each year.

I have outlined the steps necessary to remedy the malpractice (tort) crisis and its resulting overuse of testing and medication.

If anyone in President Trump’s administration wants to review the issue in full click on this link.

http://stanfeld.com/?s=Tort+reform

Nobody confronts the reality you mentioned , people are too fat, they drink too much and smoke, AND they don’t even think about the importance of, and benefits from, exercise.

 I started a war on obesity many years ago. Public officials and poly wonks have ignored my suggestions.

It would be worthwhile to read my post about obesity.

http://stanfeld.com/?s=war+on+obesity

The cost to all of us (including them) of all this denial of personal responsibility is huge!  We need to find ways to get people to focus on taking care of themselves, or to create cost incentives that will encourage them to do so.

While you are in this reading mood you should check out my pleas for the importance of patient responsibility.

ttp://stanfeld.com/?s=patient+responsibility

We simply cannot continue on the path we are on. I don’t recall ever seeing a patient on a “scooter”, and many in wheelchairs that are obese, and only getting fatter and fatter over time.

     2) Take as little medicine as you can.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers are continuing to drive up the cost of their products and are making enormous profits as a result.  Data is available re: the necessity of people getting medicines that they don’t really need, especially if taken long term on an ongoing basis.

To that, one can add the cost of unnecessary procedures that often leave patients worse off than they were before.  Direct to the public advertising of prescription medications creates demand that is often unaccompanied by benefit.

More and more current information regarding side effects and late effects of medications need to be provided, and not just put into the “fine print” on the package stuffers.

     3) Stay out of hospitals.

 They are dangerous places, with a high prevalence of patient injuries and deaths due to various sorts of medical errors that occur all too frequently, despite a host of quality improvement projects that are well-intended, but would be better in terms of effectiveness if they were made public on a regular basis.

 Scott Atlas makes good arguments for encouraging patients to “price shop” for services they must have.  To that information should be appended information about outcomes of what is proposed, which could, over time, become both hospital-specific and physician-specific.

I have expanded on Scott Atlas’ Wall Street Journal article in my last blog.

http://stanfeld.com/the-plan-to-empower-consumers-of-healthcare/

Most doctors and most hospitals have not much of a clue as to the outcomes of the services they provide their patients.

And, that is probably plenty for today.  DEF”

Consumers need to be educated to become aware of the many pitfalls involved in their new responsibility.

The educational process can be accomplished with online information and chat sessions. The government could provide the education necessary.

Consumers also need financial incentives to be encouraged to be responsible for their care and their healthcare dollars

This can be accomplished with my ideal medical saving accounts.

http://stanfeld.com/?s=ideal+medical+savings+accounts

Then and only then can we have a consumer driven healthcare system that will lower the cost of healthcare.

The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone

 All Rights Reserved © 2006 – 2017 “Repairing The Healthcare System” Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

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All Medical And Healthcare is Local

Stanley Feld M.D., FACP, MACE

It is apparent that Obamacare is failing. Obamacare was built on a defective business plan designed with the goal to have all medical care controlled by the federal government.

If a stakeholder could potentially develop a plan that would threaten the central government’s takeover of the healthcare system, President Obama and his administration would simply rewrite the rules to destroy the initiative.

A clear example is the new rules to destroy health savings accounts. Medical savings accounts are similar to health savings account. The difference is Medical saving accounts put the money in the consumers’ hands initially. If there is any money left of the deductible it goes into a retirement account that is not directed to healthcare. Health saving account direct the unspent money to healthcare costs in the future.

The states are responsible for Medicaid. States claim that the central government is impinging on states’ rights by directing states to do what the federal government tells them to do with respect to Medicaid.

States have fought and won their argument in the Supreme Court when the federal government was paying 100% of the bill for Medicaid if states extended Medicaid. The Federal government will pay 100% until 2017. Then payment will decrease to 95% until 2020. At that time it will decrease to 90%.

Twenty-two states are not participating. The issue is a states’ rights issue rather that a healthcare issue even though the states need the federal help.

Even with this help many people on Medicaid cannot find a physician or can afford the medical care.

Many plans are being canceled, and many doctors and hospitals are no longer being covered by the new plans on the health insurance exchanges.”

A Medicaid patient said, “Even though I am now on Medicaid, I cannot use it because I cannot find a doctor. “

Another recently discovered stifling of states innovative ability has come to light.

After much bickering after the Affordable Care Act was written state innovation waivers, also called 1332 waivers, which are to begin in 2017, were written into the law.

The state innovation waivers or 1332 waivers are like a golden parachute to states both participating and not participating in the Medicaid expansion program. They are allowed to dictate the conditions and receive federal money.

The 1332 waiver solves the states’ rights problem.

The 1332 waiver would provide states with block grant funding to provide healthcare insurance to state citizens. It also waives nearly every major component of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

A major provision of the 1332 waiver is that it is deficit neutral.

Two things could happen.

States wanting to experiment with a single party payer system could pursue it.

States that want to experiment with a free market healthcare system could pursue it.

Two prominent examples of innovative experimentation have been proposed.

In Arkansas, Governor Asa Hutchinson has signaled that the state’s “private option” Medicaid expansion. Medicaid beneficiaries would receive private insurance plans.”

 These private insurance plans would require higher spending for Medicaid. Theoretically the decreased spending in the Obamacare Exchange would offset the increased spending and better service for Medicaid patients. It would remain deficit neutral.

Rhode Island and Hawaii want to pursuit innovative entitlement programs that would cost less than the inefficient bureaucratic central cost.

The Obama administration could not tolerate the thought of the states being independent of federal control. A recent Friday afternoon, at 3 pm, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a rule change.

“These 1332 innovation waivers must still be deficit-neutral. However,

Savings from Obamacare may not be used to offset increased costs in other parts of a state’s health-care budget.”

The ruling by non-elected officials now makes these state controlled innovative experiments mostly impossible because the states cannot offset the savings.

Since all medicine is local, common sense dictates that states should be able to do a better job than a bloated federal bureaucracy in serving its local citizens’ healthcare needs.

The present system is a multi-trillion dollar failure. The states are correct in wanting to try something new.

The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone.

All Rights Reserved © 2006 – 2016 “Repairing The Healthcare System” Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

 

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Obamacare Is Increasing Health Savings Account Participation

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

Patients’ responsibility for their health and their healthcare dollars is one of the most important elements in a functioning and cost effective healthcare system.

Despite the fact that my ideal medical savings account (MSAs) would be more effective than health savings accounts (HSAs) in encouraging patient responsibility for their health and healthcare dollars, health savings accounts are flourishing because of Obamacare is costly and has taken freedom of choice away from individuals.

Devenir is a HSA Mutual Fund that accepts and invests HSA trust contributions and invests those contributions. Devenir just published a study that showed that:

1. As of June 30, 2015, the number of HSAs had climbed 23% from the previous year to 14.5 million.”

  “2. Account balances jumped 25% to approximately $28.4 billion over the same time period.”

In 2010 the year Obamacare was passed, there were 5.7 million HSAs with balances totaling $7.7 billion.

The Obamacare bronze plan is the least expensive federal health insurance exchange plan. Its coverage is poor and it has a high deductible that most people cannot afford.

The premium and deductible are only good for patients with pre-existing illnesses that have no other place to purchase insurance. That is the reason the demographic for enrollees from healthcare.gov is so poor.

The government is loosening the noose on HSAs even though it is still restrictive.

“For the 2016 tax year, you can make a deductible HSA contribution of as much as $3,350 if you have qualifying high-deductible self-only coverage or as much as $6,750 if you have qualifying high-deductible family coverage. If you are age 55 or older as of the end of 2016, the maximum deductible contribution goes up by $1,000.

For 2015, the contribution caps are the same, except the maximum deductible contribution for family coverage is $6,650. These amounts are increased by $1,000 if you were 55 or older as of December 31, 2015. You have until April 18, 2016, to make an HSA contribution for the 2015 tax year.”

You must have a qualifying high-deductible health insurance policy — and no other general health coverage — to be eligible for this HSA contribution privilege. For 2015 and 2016, a high-deductible policy is defined as one with a deductible of at least $1,300 for self-only coverage or $2,600 for family coverage.

For 2016, qualifying high-deductible policies can have out-of-pocket maximums of as much as $6,550 for self-only coverage and $13,100 for family coverage. For 2015, these amounts are $6,450 and $12,900, respectively.

If you are eligible to make an HSA contribution for a tax year, the deadline is April 15 of the following year (adjusted for weekends and holidays) to open an account and make a contribution for the earlier year.”

The government has increased the maximum deductible in 2015 and continues to increase in 2016.

For the 2016 tax year, you can make a deductible HSA contribution of as much as $3,350 if you have qualifying high-deductible self-only coverage or as much as $6,750 if you have qualifying high-deductible family coverage.

“ If you are age 55 or older as of the end of 2016, the maximum deductible contribution goes up by $1,000.”

More large companies are Increasingly offering workers high deductible health saving account. However, the employee is responsible for the high deductible and most of the plans are 70/30 coverage after the deductible is reached up to a maximum of $10,000.

Most large and small employers can afford to pay all or some of the high deductible and buy reinsurance for first dollar coverage beyond the deductible.

Both large employers and small employers are offering their employees health savings accounts. The full insurance premiums have become so high that employers are shifting the burden to employees by having the employee pay the deductible and the employer paying the reinsurance.

UnitedHealth has about 40 individual high deductible plans with 70/30 copays over the limit of the deductible. The maximum out of pocket cost is $10,000. The premium for a young married couple without kids is from $125 to $350 per month depending oo the deductible chosen. The premium increases with the number of children.

A great advantage to these plans now is that UnitedHealth has already negotiated the physicians’ and hospitals’ fees for you. The uninsured would pay retail price for the same services.

The cost to small to large companies is relatively difficult to find in an online search.

Most companies are self-insured and would not fall under the rigid coverage rules of Obamacare. The company can decide on the amount of the deductible they would pay for the employee.

The point of all this is health saving accounts are not as good as my ideal medical saving account. HSA’s do not provide enough incentive for employees or individuals to manage their health or healthcare dollars wisely as an MSA would.

A large defect in Obamacare is patients do not have incentive to be wise shoppers of their healthcare. They have restricted choice. They have little incentive to stay healthy because they have an entitlement program available that will take care of their expenses. There is no financial incentive for them to try and reduce the cost of healthcare.

If the consumers managed their health and healthcare dollars well the cost of healthcare would drop because the complications of chronic diseases would decrease to at least 50%.

If Republicans are looking for an alternative plan to the liberals’ and progressives’ inevitable march to a singe party payer system most of the infrastructure is already in place.

Only small modifications to the HSAs have to be made by the congress and the President and America would be on its way to a free market healthcare system.

This alternative healthcare system would align all of the stakeholders incentives including the government’s incentives, if the Obama administration did not want to increase its power by having more control over its people and its people’s freedom of choice.

My ideal Medical Saving Accounts would be democratic and cover everyone.

 The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone.

 All Rights Reserved © 2006 – 2015 “Repairing The Healthcare System” Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE