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I Left My Job: What Do I Do Now For Healthcare Insurance Coverage?

February 19, 2012

inHealthcare Insurance Industry, Medicine: Healthcare System, Patients Problems

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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

“Dear Dr. Feld

My wife and I are 43 years old. We have a 7 year old daughter. All three of us are in excellent health. We have minimal medical bills and yearly checkups.

I just left an executive position in a company that had excellent healthcare insurance.

I am in the process of hunting for a new executive position. I am currently uninsured. I have the option to buy COBRA insurance for the next 18 months or until I get a job with good healthcare benefits.

The COBRA premium quoted to me to be $1600 per month or $19,200 per year. My former employer told me he was paying $15,000 for the same insurance.

I cannot afford $19,200 per year. Neither can I afford not to have healthcare insurance coverage for my family in case of catastrophic illness. I searched the Internet for the best option.

There were at least 97 healthcare insurance policies offered for individual coverage. After I got through understanding the fifth policy I was exhausted. None seemed to be a good deal.

I have been a reader of your blog and always say to myself thank God I do not have to deal with the dysfunction you describe. I could not believe I would be in this situation.

You seem to understand the problems in the healthcare system. What do I do next?

Thank you in advance for any help you can offer.

Sincerely

H”

I have received other letters of disbelief from young people. They did not appreciate how unfair, non transparent and truly dysfunctional the healthcare system was until they encountered the problems.

The future belongs to the 20 -50 year old age group not seniors. They are all consumers and potential patients. They are are going to need a viable healthcare system at some point in their life.

This age group must take an interest in developing an understanding of and take responsibility for getting involved in fixing the dysfunctional healthcare system now.

In general 20-50 year olds are not sick. Only 20% of the population is involved in dealing with the healthcare industry at one time. Eighty percent of the population does not interact with the healthcare system. When they do they realize how dysfunctional it is.

100% of the consumers must demand, simultaneously, the healthcare system become transparent and equitable.

The structure of Present Obama’s healthcare reform plan has not yet delivered nor does it have a chance to deliver is promises. In fact, it has made the healthcare system more dysfunctional and unfair.

Change in the system has to be consumer driven in order to force the government to reform the system so it is affordable and accessible to all. This means honestly eliminating waste at all levels.

President Obama’s waivers to favored groups and concession to vested interests political pressures will not improve the system.

I totally understand that when dysfunction affects the other guy, young busy unaffected consumers have no interest in being involved in actively changing the system. However, they are going to be the other guy at some point.

In answer to the reader’s question “What do I do?”

He could sign up for COBRA. The COBRA system is a flawed system. It is a dishonest promise. COBRA was accepted by congress and consumers without understanding its underlying consequences.

“The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) gives workers and their families who lose their health benefits the right to choose to continue group health benefits provided by their group health plan for limited periods of time under certain circumstances such as voluntary or involuntary job loss, reduction in the hours worked, transition between jobs, death, divorce, and other life events. “

Nothing in the Department of Labor’s document covers how the premiums are determined by the healthcare insurance industry.

A consumer electing to take COBRA is charged the calculated premium for an individual healthcare plan. The premium is very high.

Actuarial calculation is designed to the benefit of the healthcare insurance industry. The calculation is not transparent. I suspect the government does not oversee the calculation.

COBRA is about the only option good for a 50 year old obese male with hypertension and hyperlipidemia who has a wife and a 7 year old child. He would be rejected for all private insurance plans.

The individual state’s “high risk pools’” premiums are even higher than COBRA’s premium. The high risk insurance coverage is less inclusive because it excludes any possible risk from underlying conditions.

I felt compelled to help this reader.

He needed coverage in case of a catastrophic illness in his family until he obtained a new position. At his age and health history he should not have any trouble getting accepted for a high deductible policy.

I told him to check which insurance company his family’s physicians accept. It was UnitedHealth.

The 8^th plan down the list of UnitedHealth options for high deductible was a $10,000 called Plan 100. The premium would be $318.82 a month. The deductible was $10,000. The plan provides full first dollar coverage after the $10,000 deductible is met up to 1 million dollars.

UnitedHealth Plan 100 underwritten by Golden Rule also had a $7,500 deductible for $417.

I thought this was the plan for this family. Their routine healthcare costs were less than $1000 year. The premium for the $7,500 deductible is $5004 per year. Total savings vs. COBRA is $19,200-$6004= $13,196.

If there was a catastrophic illness in his family and it cost more than $7,500 his total cost would be $7500 plus $5004 for his premium for a total cost of $12,504. He would still save $6,696 (19,200 for COBRA vs. $12,504= $6,696).

The big disadvantage is his premium costs are not tax deductible as it would be for an employer. At a 30% tax rate this consumer would have to earn $27,429 in order to pay $19,200.

The adjudication of claims is simple. The physicians send the bill to UnitedHealth. UnitedHealth allows physicians their negotiated fee. The consumer is then sent an explanation of benefits for allowable fees.

Since the consumer has not reached the deductible, he is required to pay the physician’s allowable fee. This fee is credited toward his $7,500 deductible.

When the deductible is reached the full allowable amount for services is paid. This is the best deal under the present healthcare insurance options for this family of three.

He bought the high deductible Plus 100 insurance. He also complained about the confusing array of options and prices, the lack of transparency about these options, and difficulty in easily understanding the options.

He said he is a pretty smart fellow. He had difficulty in figuring out what to do and was ready to pay for COBRA coverage.

He asked, “How could people of average intelligence figure it out?

It would be easy if there were a questionnaire that would automatically determine consumers’ healthcare policy needs and direct them toward healthcare insurance policies that would fix their needs.

I told him the game is rigged. The insurance industry does not want you to figure out what policy is best for you. It wants you to buy the most expensive policy that might not address your needs.

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

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Jem • February 21, 2012

It is consider a hard time to a people like us nowadays whereby our source of income is just a means of our jobs. Insurance is essential for our future assurance, but how to afford it if the private sector insurance premium is so huge, I think the government should step in, and to regulate the policy whereby beneficial to both insurer and the customers.
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The Fourth Spoke In the Business Model For A Successful Healthcare System

February 15, 2012

inEMR, Medicine: Healthcare System

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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

The fourth spoke of a successful healthcare system’s business model is my Ideal Electronic Medical Record (EMR). I have been speaking about the Ideal Electronic Medical Record since 2006.

I have been an advocate of EMRs since 1992. An appropriately designed user friendly EMR would improve workflow efficiency, increase physicians ability to communicate with patients, hospitals and other physicians and reduce costs. Presently it costs physicians $7 to pull a chart.

There have been many EMRs built by many technology companies in the last 20 years. The price of an EMR has ranged from $ 5,000 to $120,000 per physician. The practice disruption to install a new system has been unbelievable.

Hospital system costs to install EMRs have ranged from $500,000 to $5 billion dollars.

In 2007 the deficiencies in Kaiser’s EMR were exposed to the chagrin of the Kaiser board of directors.

“Kaiser: Critical Need To Cut Rising Costs”

“$7 billion in losses if no action taken, HMO report says”. Kaiser has invested $3 billion in data system created by Epic Systems Corp. Kaiser’s project supervisor e-mailed 180,000 employees detailing his frustration with Kaiser’s Electronic Health Record System, which he considers inefficient and unreliable. The project supervisor brought his concerns to the Kaiser HMO’s board. He said the information was not taken seriously “because of conflicts among top executives.” Doesn’t this sound typical of the hierarchical bureaucratic systems we live in?

The creation of a fully functioning electronic medical record is extremely complicated. Physician practices and hospitals have different needs.

If hospital administrators are choosing a company to build the EMR invariably the software company builds the EMR for the payer (hospital). The hospital is their customer.

The physicians on staff are not their customers. Patients and physicians are their real customers but they are not considered the customer. The EMR should be built for patients’ benefit. It should be built to improve the patient physician relationship.

The EMR must be designed so that it does not interfere with the physicians' workflow and improves physicians’ care of patients.

The only way this is going to happen is if consumers are responsible for their health and healthcare dollars. Consumers will then drive their physicians to obtain a fully functional EMR.

Little progress has been made in getting large numbers of hospitals and physicians to install EMRs. There are many reasons for this dilemma. The principle reason is cost.

As the government and the healthcare insurance industry decrease reimbursement to hospitals and physicians, hospitals and physicians are hesitant to make large capital investments for EMRs.

As of 2010 only 12% of US hospital have installed at least basic EMRs. Only 2-3% might qualify for having fully functional EMRs. A fully functional EMR has to meet 23 to 25 of government imposed criteria. In 2012 these criteria define “meaningful use” developed by President Obama’s healthcare administrators.

The "minimal use criteria" will become more complex by 2014. This means the cost of upgrading an EMR will increase. Converting from ICD-9 to ICD-10 will add to the upgrading costs.

The government bureaucracy has added another gigantic hairball in the middle of the patient physician relationship.

Government bureaucrats looking at the healthcare system believe in fully functioning EMRs. Some hospital and physicians in small practice cannot afford the prices of EMRs despite the $27 billion dollar subsidy President Obama included in his Economic Recovery Act.

The $64,000 dollar maximum per physician subsidy, if they qualify, is less than the cost of the functioning EMR cost. The millions of dollars in hospital subsidy don’t match the billions of dollars in costs, service, upgrades and maintenance needed by hospitals for a functioning EMR.

No one in President Obama’s ever expanding government healthcare bureaucracy ever thought of putting an Ideal Electronic Medical Record in the cloud and charging the physicians and hospital 1 penny per click per month.

This formatting of the Ideal EMR would align the incentives of the government, hospitals, physicians’ practices and patient care.

There would be a universal EMR with automatic upgrades, maintenance and service.

Organizations that have spent a lot of money would move over to the system because they would avoid service contracts, maintenance fees and the cost of upgrades.

All the software the government felt was necessary to make the Ideal EMR completely functional would be in the system. New regulations necessitating added software would be incorporated into this Ideal Electronic Medical Record.

Practice Fusion is a new website that provides an electronic medical record for free to physicians. It is sponsored by ad revenue.

This website might have struck gold. It has grown from 10,000 users to 50,000 users in the last two years. It has meaningful use criteria embedded in the software program.

The You Tube and its accompanying You Tubes explains the system. It is easy to set up. It is free and seems secure. I still have some questions. However Practice Fusion might be right on target.

Remember, online banking did not take off until it was free.

Practice Fusion might be the disintermediator of the electronic medical records industry in healthcare just as ITunes was the disintermediator for the music industry.

Whoever said physicians are not computer literate was wrong. The only way the healthcare system is going to be fixed is if patients and physicians take the initiative without government and its bureaucratic complexity or interference.

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

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Practice fusion

Practice fusion tours.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=pVYdPcqlSf8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCk1V2uuq1o&feature=related

Medical Alarm • February 17, 2012

I like very much your way of presentation.. I got more useful information on this blog.. Thanks to sharing the useful information….
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Ideal Medical Savings Accounts For Everyone: Encourage Patient Responsibility!

February 12, 2012

inConsumer Driven Health Care, Information Technology in Healthcare, Medicine: Healthcare System

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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.

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 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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The Second Spoke Of The Wheel: The Ideal Medical Savings Account

February 8, 2012

inConsumer Driven Health Care, Health Savings Accounts vs Medical Savings Accounts, Healthcare Insurance Industry, Information Technology in Healthcare, Medicine: Healthcare System, Stakeholder Mistrust

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Stanley Feld

"Dear Dr. Feld

If your ideal Medical Savings Account is such a good idea why has it not become more popular?"

The reason is simple. The Ideal Medical Savings Account does not exist as a healthcare insurance option. The healthcare insurance industry has obfuscated the purpose of creating financial incentives for consumers with the offer of Health Savings Accounts.

The Health Savings Accounts keep premium dollars in the healthcare insurance industry’s control at the end of the year. Consumers are able to use unspent money on healthcare deductible in the future.

The Ideal Medical Saving Account puts the money not spent in a separate tax-free trust for consumers’ retirement. The logic is to reward consumers for good health financially and to encourage consumers to be responsible for their health and healthcare choices.

The goal is not to reward the healthcare insurance company it is to reward consumers. The healthcare insurance industry is controlling the consumer’s money for its own profit.

Despite its faults HSA’s are becoming very popular. It is the fastest growing healthcare insurance product in America.

President Obama wants to eliminate HSAs. His goal is to increase government control over consumers’ healthcare choices. He does not want consumers to control their healthcare dollars. He wants to control consumers.

The healthcare insurance industry’s goal is to maximize its profit. It is not concerned about the consumer’s health. The more consumers in the healthcare system the more premium dollars the healthcare insurance industry controls.

Using the power of lobbying and the influence of lobbyists it has been able to rig the game against the consumer.

"Wendell Potter, former senior executive^[1] at Cigna turned whistle-blower, has written that the insurance industry has worked to kill "any reform that might interfere with insurers' ability to increase profits" by engaging in extensive and well funded, anti-reform campaigns."

"This is nothing new. However, as consumers (patients in all three categories) the Internet and social networking can empower us to have more influence over the politicians than lobbyists."

"After all, we are the people who give them their jobs. Some might say this is a naïve view. However, recent events have shown the effect of People Power and its ability to disrupt the establishment and its lobbyists.

The industry, however, "goes to great lengths to keep its involvement in these campaigns hidden from public view," including the use of "front groups." Indeed, in a 1998 effort to successfully kill the Patient Bill of Rights at that time, “the insurers formed a front group called the Health Benefits Coalition to kill efforts to pass a Patients Bill of Rights.

While it was billed as a broad-based business coalition that was led by the National Federation of Independent Business and included the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Health Benefits Coalition in reality got the lion’s share of its funding and guidance from the big insurance companies and their trade associations."

The question is why would the National Federation of Independent Business or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce do this? They either don’t understand the healthcare insurance industry’s motives or they received grant money from the healthcare insurance industry. Both groups are working against the benefit of it own people.

"Like most front groups, the Health Benefits Coalition was set up and run out of one of Washington’s biggest P.R. firms. The P.R. firm provided all the staff work for the Coalition. The tactics worked. Industry allies in Congress made sure the Patients’ Bill of Rights would not become law."^[2]"

Obamacare and the Democratic congress have also yielded to the demands of the healthcare insurance industry. President Obama’s goal is to control all medical decisions for patients to keep healthcare costs down. Most advocates of Obamacare overlook this fact.

President Obama’s individual mandated purchase of healthcare insurance would increase the number healthcare industry’s customers. Its profits would increase.

Medicare and Medicaid are totally dependent on the healthcare insurance industry for administrative services. This results in keeping the healthcare insurance industry in control of healthcare spending. The 2.5% overhead for Medicare and Medicaid continuosly repeated by government officials is completely bogus.

The healthcare insurance industry receives at least 30% of every Medicare and Medicaid dollar spent.

The administrative services costs are supposed to be no more than 15%. However, large sums of administrative costs are applied to direct patient care. Each administrative cost has a profit center attached to it.

These profits center increases the healthcare industry’s profits. In turn the salaries of the executives increase.

The Ideal Medical Savings Account eliminates all these layers of bureaucracy, profits and abuses.

It is a perfect opportunity for “People Power” to demand through social networks that the Ideal Medical Saving Account be added to healthcare insurance choices.

The Ideal Medical Savings Account puts the power back in consumers’ hands.

Neither traditional insurance plans or Medicare or Medicaid provide financial incentives for patient to be responsible for their disease nor their healthcare needs.

Financial incentive for all categories of patients (consumers) can serve to increase adherence to physician’s treatment instructions.

Financial incentives can stimulate consumers to be educated consumers of both healthcare and medical care.

Financial incentives can serve to incentivize patients to become professors of their chronic disease. Self-management can avoid many emergency room visits and hospitalizations.

Instant adjudication of claims can decrease many of the excessive administrative costs.

The Ideal Medical Savings Account is simple and transparent to consumers.

IMSAs revives the patient physician relationship. It drives the government and the healthcare insurance industry to the edge of the medical care transaction. It disrupts the hairball and will instantly disrupt the food chain that is failing under the weight of healthcare costs.

The Ideal Medical Savings Account is a perfect healthcare insurance product if deployed properly. Social networks must be formed to demand its availability in order to permit consumers’ (patients) to drive the healthcare system.

Social networks on other levels can force physicians to be more competitive.

The result would be a reduction in the healthcare system’s cost while eliminating administrative abuse, waste and fraud.

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

Please send the blog to a friend

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Consumer Driven Healthcare As A Result Of Social Networks

February 5, 2012

inConsumer Driven Health Care, Medicine: Healthcare System

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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

To Reader, You can increase the size of slides to read them by double clicking on the slide.

Social networks can express the feelings and preferences of various groups. They have given people an individual voice. If there is universal agreement on a social network, the social network can change the supply chain of any organization, government policy or even government.

We have seen it this week in the rapid reversal of policy by Nancy Brinker and the board of directors of the Susan Komen Foundation toward the funding of Planned Parenthood of America.

Ms. Brinker and the board were not very transparent for the reasons of its policy change in the first place. The original defunding policy was probably the result of the Foundation’s own funding pressures by pro-life contributors.

The rapid reaction of the Susan Komen Foundation social network, which was so skillfully developed by Ms. Brinker, was the probable reason for the switch back to the original policy.

The new policy was to withdraw funding for Planned Parenthood’s providing mammograms for needing women. The new policy contradicted the mission of the Susan Komen Foundation. The social network reacted and the new policy was rescinded.

It took only a week to change the policy back to the old policy.

Social networking caused congress to abandon SOPA and PIPA in two weeks.

Both examples prove the power of the people.

The real question is how do you mobilize the power of the people to fix the healthcare system?

Everybody of all age groups knows the sound bite,“the healthcare system is broken.”

Not many people understand the reasons it is broken. Nor are many people interested in creating the bandwidth to know those reasons until they become sick.

People who are not sick really do not care as long as they perceive they have adequate healthcare insurance coverage.

Many President Obama fans think he is doing a great job reforming the healthcare system because of his use of well-known sound bite that the healthcare system is broken. He has promised to fix it.

He has promised to decrease healthcare costs and provide adequate access to healthcare for all people.

I have shown that President Obama’s healthcare reform act will increase healthcare costs, increase the budget deficit, decrease access to care and ration care.

Even before his healthcare plan is fully implemented it has resulted in an increase in cost of care, decrease access to care and rationed care.

Below is a comment from a neurosurgeon who was returning from a CMS seminar about restriction of access to healthcare.

It is a worthwhile to listen to his comment on new HHS regulations limiting access to care.

https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/?ui=2&ik=5b73a6d1b7&view=audio&msgs=1354467a5b029c30&attid=0.1&zw

A way to mobilize “the people power” is get people 20 to 50 years old to understand what is being done to destroy the healthcare system. Everyone is going to need the healthcare system eventually.

These younger people understand how to develop social networks and get them to have a desired effect.

In order to reduce the cost of healthcare and increase the quality, the system must be converted from a government and healthcare insurance industry driven system to a consumer driven system.

I was “called out” by a reader because I called the new system a consumer driven system. He wants to call it a patient driven system. He defines all consumers as patients.

“ In my opinion, everybody is a patient, and a member of one of three groups: The first group is composed of

"Patients in waiting" (the well, who require periodic screening and health information to stay well, and the worried well, who are coping with issues of some sort for which they have yet to seek professional advice);

The ailing, composed of people who are actually coping with conditions of one sort or another that make them less than well; and

The recovered, those who have regained an adequate measure of good health and functional capabilities after having experienced and recovered from a spell of illness.

What we need to do is to work to make all three publics (to use a marketing term) aware of the fact that regardless of which group they may currently occupy, they are all stakeholders in the mess we currently call the healthcare system.”

This is a great point. It might inspire the “patients in waiting” to get involved now before it is too late.

In my 2020 business plan for the future state, patients are in charge not the government or the healthcare insurance industry.

Patients would own their healthcare dollars. They have incentive to be wise consumers of healthcare and take responsibility for their health and healthcare. They would also have the incentive to make prudent healthcare and medical care choices.

The consequences of this ownership would change the behavior of the government and the healthcare insurance industry.

Both would become facilitators at the edges of the healthcare system and not the gigantic hairball in the middle of the system obstructing the patient physician relationship.

Social networking could force the government to relinquish its quest to control everybody’s choices and access to care.

A consumer driven system would decrease the demands for expensive excessive care by the patients because they have “skin in the game.” The result would be to decrease the cost of healthcare.

These results would occur if all the other spokes of my 2020 business plan on the wheel were accomplished at the same time.

Many of you may remember the hope of a physician in Brooklyn.

“I cannot finish my career in Medicine without finding a way to integrate experienced people with great ideas and insight with young people who know how to create the tools to bring innovative approaches to actually create a functional healthcare system.”

It is my hope also.

Innovative software can be built for the future state that empowers patients in waiting, the ailing patients and the recovered patients (consumers) with the tools to express their needs.

Patients in all three groups can accept and take responsibility for their care.

In order to transform the healthcare system you do not need all the consumers in the country to be in the social network. It simply has to be compelling enough for people to join as the goals get the attention of others.

Consumer (Patient) Driven Healthcare along with the Ideal Medical Savings Account will be the foundation of this transformative healthcare system.

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

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It Is All about How You Look At Things

February 1, 2012

inConsumer Driven Health Care, Information Technology in Healthcare, Medicine: Healthcare System

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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

My son Brad Feld wrote in response to my blog“How Software Innovation Can Cause Creative Transformation Of The Dysfunctional Healthcare System”,

Outstanding blog post dad.

And I think your punchline is completely correct – the healthcare software innovators should focus 100% of their energy on the patient and the physician (their customer). That would quickly transform everything in the healthcare supply chain.

Can you imagine what would happen if the government subsidized Borders and Barnes & Noble? Yup – pretty easy to see that they'd be doing fine and "bookstores would be classified as a public good." What nonsense.”

Healthcare policy makers are trying to reform healthcare using a defective business model.

The business model of 1945 to 1965 was a model that put the patient and physicians in the center of care.

Post Medicare in 1965 the business model changed because lots of government money came into the healthcare system. The secondary stakeholder began to devise ways of taking that money out of the system before and after the money was spent on direct patient care.

The relationships between patients and physicians became distorted. A giant hairball of vested interests by secondary stakeholders came between the patient physician relationships.

Well-intended policy makers tried to fix the system by making revisions and updates to a broken business model.

These revisions only made the healthcare system more expensive and less effective in the care of patients.

The 2011 business model is a jumble. The secondary stakeholders control the healthcare system and interfere with the patient physician relationship.

President Obama’s healthcare reform law is making the healthcare system worse. It is pasting regulations and restrictions on top of a failed business model.

It does not consider a way to get back to the effective business model of 1945-1965 for the 21^st century.

It reminds me of Microsoft and Windows. Microsoft is pasting revisions on top of the DOS operating system of the 1980s rather than revising the operating system.

Obamacare has added complexity to the system. There are many bad ideas such as Accountable Care Organizations and pay for performance rules to name just two. It does not deal with tort reform or patient responsibility for their own care and their own healthcare dollars.

Rather than pushing the secondary stakeholders to the edges of the healthcare system, Obamacare gives these stakeholders increased control over patients and physicians and destroys the patient physician relationship.

The critical turn is necessary now.

The 2020 business model of Obamacare will increase the velocity of healthcare system collapse. The result will be an increased budget deficit. Healthcare spending can escalate beyond GDP in 40 years.

At this critical turn we must go in a sustainable future state direction. The business plan must be exchanged with a completely new business model. The new business model must be unrestrained by the present business model.

This is where software innovation comes in. Software must be built that redirects the model to a consumer driven healthcare system.

It has been a disaster for the government, healthcare insurance industry and hospital systems to control the healthcare system.

It must be controlled by consumer choice, responsibility and actions with consumers owning their healthcare dollars. Legislation must be written to provide consumers with choice, responsibility, and incentives for compliance.

Consumers are the only ones that can demand this option. Consumers changed the course of SOPA and PIPA. Consumers can change the course of healthcare.

The secondary stakeholders will not give up their power easily. It will only come as a result of the Internet and innovative software that teaches consumers about their power.

Steve Jobs did it with iTunes, iPods, iPhones and iPads. Apple is about to do it with TV. Jeff Bezo did it with Amazon and the publishing industry.

The 2020 business model in the future state must have the following advocates, software developers, healthcare policy wonks, CEO’s of large corporations and small businesses. Most importantly, people 20-50 years old who are ell must start becoming engaged now so they can have a viable healthcare system when they get older. All these groups must think about the future state without present government restrictions. Steve Jobs did it for Apple. It can be done for healthcare.

The components of the future state should be,

The Ideal Medical Savings accounts,
The Ideal Electronic Medical Record,
Patient Responsibility for their care and healthcare dollars,
Patient education as an extension of physicians care
A team approach to chronic disease management with the patient becoming a professor of their disease, the team leader and the physician the coach with his healthcare team assistant coaches,
Tort Reform
Integration of specialty care.

All of these components must be executed at the same time. Consumers must be taught to drive the system.

Skeptics who are try to hold on to power and protect the validity of past policies will fight hard just as the music industry, the publishing industry and the movie industry have.

In the end the skeptics will realize the virtues of Pareto efficency. All the healthcare industry secondary stakeholders will thrive, as the patient physician relationship once again will be revitalized.

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

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Janelle • February 4, 2012

Along the lines of a consumer driven healthcare system,there is a new web application that is free for families and a low cost for child care providers called MyGrowthCharts.com. Kind Regards.
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Medicine Is A Calling: Not A Business

January 29, 2012

inConsumer Driven Health Care, Health Savings Accounts vs Medical Savings Accounts, Medicine: Healthcare System, Stakeholder Mistrust

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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

I am pleased that I am able to stimulate comments from physicians in various parts of the country. Please keep the comments coming.

Many of these physicians feel trapped by the bureaucracy and medical care policies that are restricting them from developing a real physician patient relationship. The physician patient relationship is precious to the practice of medicine.

The positive physician patient relationship enables an enhanced therapeutic effect.

As stated by a previous physician writer in my last blog,

The patient has a complaint, the physician listens (or not), performs an examination (or not) makes a decision regarding the probable cause of the complaint, writes a prescription (or two, or three), offers some instructions regarding what the patient should be doing to help himself (or herself), says goodbye and asks that the patient return at some future date for reassessment (or not).”

Physicians have been trapped into this behavior as John Goodman pointed out. The patient physician relationship has been destroyed by the dysfunctional healthcare system. Obamacare is accelerating the dysfunction in the healthcare system.

Many tests are done for defensive medicine purposes. In fact the extrapolated cost of defensive medicine is $700 billion dollars a year.

Physicians might even give the patient a shot of something for good measure to prevent a malpractice suit.

The government, hospitals systems, and healthcare insurance industry control the healthcare system.

These secondary stakeholders have made physicians commodities. Physicians are trapped into going through the motions. Medicine is a calling not a business. Physicians have been forced into making it a business.

Physicians are so frustrated with the system that they are joining hospital systems to rid themselves of the bureaucracy and avoid practice responsibility and malpractice suits.

The hope is that it will lead to a “happier life.” Not true.

The privileged hospital employed physicians become the designated spokesperson by the hospital administrator for the staff physicians. They deny there is any anger or frustration toward the government, the hospital system or the healthcare insurance industry.

The rest of the physicians keep their mouth shut and trudge along angry and frustrated.

There is a mountain of pent up anger and frustration toward hospital systems by these physicians.

I received this note from another physician writer,

“Dr. Feld:

When I read your post last week “It’s All About Patients and Physicians”, I thought you were writing to me directly. I have been thinking about this for years. It is not only that software innovation in Medicine lags behind every other industry, but also the focus has not been in the correct area. As with everything else, the medical profession has given control to others.”

This physician is absolutely correct. In a country whose administration and congress is run by lobbyists who are not interested in patients or physicians but are more interested in protecting and furthering their clients’ vested interests the problems will not be solved. Medicine and Surgery do not have adequate representation or resources to make their case to the public.

Perhaps it is because the AMA is too democratic or too civil. The AMA’s customers are physicians. Physicians have deserted the AMA because of lack of representation.

I think the AMA might still have a chance with some bold leadership. After all without patients or physicians you wouldn’t have need for a “healthcare system.”

He goes on,

“Current software tools allow the development of disruptive systems that can put patients and physicians on the same side of the equation, develop networks to allow much better communications, and integrate the future of mobile devices that will transform healthcare. It should be possible to produce change in current relationships.”

It is not only possible it is probable. I need a Posse of consumers to step out and force the secondary stakeholders to not take advantage of them. This must be a consumer driven effort.

Consumers can be organized through social networking just as Internet companies, venture capitalists and citizen expressed their voice on the Internet and stopped the two Censorship Acts (SOPA and PIPA) that were being railroaded through congress. The traditional media did not cover these two bills until the organized effort was working.

President Obama backed these bills until it was obvious to all that the anti-censorship effort expressed the will of the American people.

Patients (consumers) need leadership and innovative software to demand that they own their healthcare dollars and healthcare care decisions.

I believe many physicians yearn for the ability to spend more time with their patients. Patients must demand it also and pressure the government to relinquish control over our healthcare system.

This writer/ physician’s note to me expresses this desire. It is an important story about the physician patient relationship’s key role in patient care.

“Let me begin with a story. I take care of an elderly man who lives in Brooklyn and suffered a stroke one year ago. At the time the patient was visiting with his son, who is a Rabbi in Chicago. The patient made an excellent recovery following high-quality rehabilitation at a Chicago hospital.

He is a survivor of the Holocaust who lives with his wife and is generally independent. Although his walking is slow, he is able to walk utilizing a cane to a nearby synagogue for services every morning. As I was interviewing him last week, he mentioned that most of his day is spent at home with very little to do.

He does not have television, and is not that interested in reading newspapers.

After hearing this, I excused myself to go to my office and bring back an iPad to show him. I placed it in front of him, and logged on to a website sponsored by Yeshiva University (yutorah.org).

I showed him that he would have access to literally thousands of lectures by leading rabbis that he could listen to on demand. His eyes widened and he looked at me with amazement. He asked me if that device needed a computer, and whether it would work in his home. He inquired about the cost.

His wife immediately told me that she wanted one (iPad) for him, and that their daughter would be calling me for the information about setting things up.”

Ninety percent of physicians would like to have time to relate to patients this way. The dysfunctional system has forced physicians to act differently.

This patient recovered from his depression. He is thriving with the use of his innovative device (iPad).

He goes on further to say,

I cannot finish my career in Medicine without finding a way to integrate experienced people with great ideas and insight with young people who know how to create the tools to bring innovative approaches to actuality.

I will describe the future state next. Innovative software can be built in the future state that provides patients with the tools to express their needs and for patients to accept responsibility for their care.

Consumer driven healthcare with the ideal medical savings account will be the foundation of this transformative healthcare system.

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

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Some Innovative Software Opportunities In Medicine.

January 25, 2012

inChronic Disese Management, Consumer Driven Health Care, Healthcare Insurance Industry, Information Technology in Healthcare, Medicine: Healthcare System

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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

I have pointed out that all the stakeholders are to blame for the dysfunction of the healthcare system.

I have also explained the difference between the healthcare system and the medical care system.

In the past two weeks I have explained that both the medial care system and the healthcare system are ripe for disintermediation with innovative software just as the publishing system was dis-intermediated with amazon.com, the music industry with ITunes and the movie industry with Neflix.

John Goodman has recently written a series of articles on how physicians are trapped by the current healthcare system.

The core problem has developed over the last 40 years. The government and the healthcare insurance industry have created a huge payment hairball between patients and physicians.

ICD and CPT coding has created complications beyond belief for patients and physicians. The ICD 10 is more confusing that ICD 9.

ICD 9 contained 15,000 codes. ICD 10 contains 68000 codes.

Instead of closing the window for fraud and abuse it has opened it further.

The problems with coding can be dis-intermediated by innovative software with its focus on patients and physicians.

A retired physician wrote the following note to me after reading my posts about innovative software and the destruction of the patient-physician relationship. His narrative was in response to the WSJ article “Should Physicians Use Email to Communicate With Patients?”

The writer is a retired physician with 40 years of private practice experience. He has lived through the development of the dysfunction in the healthcare system.

“Stan

This observation has been on my mind for a long time. The health issues in the 4th section of the WSJ today January

23,2011 caused me to put the ideas down on paper.

D”

“In doctors’ offices all across the country, a scenario like this is being played out as I write these comments.

This is an excellent description of the disconnect between the care of patients by physicians. Patients and physicians should have a relationship where patients are at the center of the physicians’ healthcare team. The physicians are coaches. The physicians’ team is the assistant coaches helping physicians treat patients.

“What happens next is where I’d like to spend a little time in this essay.

The written prescription/s may be hand-carried to the pharmacy, the doctor may telephone the prescription/s to the pharmacy, or more commonly these days, the prescriptions may be sent on line or by fax, with the doctor’s assistant doing the sending.

The government is now paying an incentive bonus to the physicians for e-prescriptions. Unfortunately 60% of physicians’ offices cannot afford the software.

This is a place for a fully functional ideal electronic medical record in the cloud.

“Now here is where the situation can get dicey. Up to 20% of all those prescriptions are never picked up by the patient. After an interval, they are returned to stock in the pharmacy. It is unlikely that the doctor will be made aware that this has happened.”

The e-prescription must be a two way street. The physician should be notified electronically by the pharmacy if a patient does not pick up a prescription.

The physician’s office should automatically contact the patient and explain the importance of the medication.

Other results can also happen. The patient picks up some, but not all of the prescriptions because of the cost versus what he/she can afford.

In the fully functioning EMR software can be included to enable the pharmacy to inform the physician.

Or the patient picks up all of the medications ordered. Once at home, the patient may or may not take the medications as prescribed.

The instructions from the doctor may be recalled incompletely or inaccurately.

The healthcare team can electronically reinforce instructions and goals for the medication using the Internet sites picked by the physician.

The physician’s healthcare team must be an extension of the physician’s care.

Freestanding organizations will fail if they are not an extension of physicians’ care.

The CBO recently revealed that President Obama’s pilot studies using freestanding chronic disease management organizations have failed to lower the cost of care.

My fear is that President Obama and his healthcare administrators will conclude that chronic disease management does not lower healthcare costs.

Effective chronic disease management of diabetes can lower the complication rate by at least 50%. Decreasing complications can lower the cost of care by 80%

The medications may not be tolerated by the patient, and as a consequence, he/she may elect to discontinue one or more of them, or may elect to take them in some manner other than as directed by the doctor.

The patient may not notify his physician of his difficulty taking the medication.

Social networking between physicians and patients and patients in that physicians practice could solve this problem.

Patients understand that most cognitive physicians are reimbursed for coded procedures. Advice over the telephone or email is not reimbursed. A mechanism for reimbursement must be developed for using social networking.

The medications may prove effective in alleviating the problem that caused the patient to see their physician in the first place, or they may not.

Most of the events described will not be known to the patient’s physician until the patient is next seen in the office, and maybe not even then.

E-mail could have malpractice liability in the current malpractice environment. This is one more reason Tort reform is essential.

In a perfect world, a lot of the issues raised above could be made better by a few simple moves. The pharmacy could make the physician’s office aware that the prescriptions were never picked up.

Someone in the physician’s office could call or email the patient 3-4 days after the visit, and inquire whether the patient is taking the medication,

Reinforcing the physician’s instructions, and inquiring whether the medications are helping the patient, asking if there have been any problems arising from the use of the medication, and passing what is learned back to the physician.

The reinforcement of the instructions can be very helpful, and the awareness of issues relating to the medication can lead to more timely resolution of problems the patient is experiencing.

It has always seemed to this writer that the doctor-patient relationship would be well served if we all started to use what I call “The Doctor Phil Question”, which goes like this: “How’s that working out for you?”

It is all about patients’ responsibility for their healthcare and their healthcare dollar. It is about consumer driven healthcare and the patient physician relationship.

As long as the government and the healthcare insurance industry continues to drive a wedge between the patient and physician the cost of healthcare will continue to rise.

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

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Holy Cow!! A MakerBot Thing-O-Matic

January 22, 2012

inInnovations in Healthcare, Life's Experiences

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Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

Last week I flew to New York City to speak to a group of venture capitalists about my ideas on how to Repair the Healthcare System from a physicians point of view.

All of the software innovation in healthcare comes from software engineers who are influenced by secondary stakeholders that are trying to increase their profit from the healthcare system and not by physicians who have been in the trenches practicing medicine day after day.

My son, Brad Feld, was in Boston involved in a project at his alumni MIT. He decided to come down to New York and sit in on my meeting.

I love hanging out with Brad. It is always a learning experience for me. My readers have guessed by now that I love to learn and especially from my son. I especially love to learn about the potential of the future. It stimulates me to think.

Two months ago Brad sent me a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic. MakerBot is a company in which he and his venture capital firm Foundry Group invested. The MakerBot Cave is in Brooklyn, N.Y.

My MakerBot Thing-O-Matic came in five boxes weighing 25 pounds. I opened the boxes and it looked like at least a million pieces (o.k. at least a half million).

It reminded me of the time I was a medical student. My roommate’s father bought him a HealthKit HiFi. I helped him put it together.

It took us months to finish. When we finished the HealthKit I thought it was going to explode when we plugged it in. It worked to our joy!!.

A MakerBot Thing-O-Matic is a 3D printer. I saw it with Brad at CES in 2011. He invested in it then.

I told Brad I thought he lost his mind. I thought the MakerBot was just a toy making little kids’ toys.

Construction of my MakerBot Thing-O-Matic looks like a 10-12 hour project with a lot of software interaction.

After our N.Y.C meeting he took me to the Bot Cave in Brooklyn. Manufacturing things in Brooklyn has a nice ring to it.

As soon as I walked into the Cave I decided Brad once again made a brilliant decision.

The first thing that impressed me was the number of young (25-40) people working in the Cave (about 100).

If President Obama wants to create jobs he should visit the Bot Cave in Brooklyn. He would learn a thing or two.

I was told the next iteration of the MakerBot would be pre-built.

After watching these kids build them I got pumped to get home and build my MakerBot. I was also promised a personal assistant if I got stuck.

3 dimensional printing is beyond toys. There is a web site called Thing-O-Matic that lets users post their creations for other users. The MakerBot community has become an organic social network.

For example, someone designed a wall coat hook that is being reproduced all over the country. The Bot Cave had coats hanging on them everywhere.

I have been looking for flat electric outlet covers without curves. They have been impossible to find. All I have to do is scan my design into the computer, size it and print out a very sturdy electric outlet plate.

Three weeks ago I needed a replacement plastic gear. I had to buy all the parts for the machine just to get one part. Now (after I put my MakerBot Thing-O-Matic together) I will be able to reproduce any plastic part I want. The practical potential for 3D dimensional printing is infinite.

How does it work? It is all about software innovation. Your smartphone takes multiple pictures of an item. You import the pictures to the computer software. Maker Bot recommends multiple pictures at many angles to get the proportions perfect. The pictures are transformed into 3 dimensional co-ordinates. You hit go button and the machine melts the right amount of plastic at the weight you specify and extrudes your part or model in 3 dimensions.

Who would have thought there were people that smart to create an appliance like this machine for consumers.

The more intriguing thing is I could not understand the MakerBot’s potential until now. Brad understood it as soon as he saw it.

The reason is clear. He could visualize MakerBot’s potential. I predict everyone will have a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic in 10 years just like everyone has a smartphone after 4 years.

I have a gut feeling “we ain’t seen nothin yet.”

Everything will be consumer driven. Even healthcare will be consumer driven.

The MakerBot people gave me an iridescent expandable plastic bracelet for my wife.

It reminded me of the bracelet Hank Rearden in Atlas Shrugged. Hank Rearden gave to his wife a bracelet made out of Reardon steel after it was invented.

She did not understand its significance. His wife traded it with Dagny Taggatt, the heroine, for a diamond bracelet.

The future is in 3 D printing.

Brad thanks for taking me to the Brooklyn Maker Bot Cave and opening my eyes again.

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

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