Archive for March, 2010

So, it passed. Now what?

March 22nd, 2010

The very essence of the fabric of our society has changed today and forever.  The questions that arise from the passage of health care  reform are endless in number and the answers will be both evolutionary and revolutionary.  Not unlike those dark or bright days following the passage of Medicare back in the 60’s, the naysayers are predicting the end of the United States and those individuals who will be positively impacted are finally able to sleep through the night without feeling the steady stream of their own tears flowing across their cheeks because they either couldn’t get care or couldn’t afford to pay for the care.

It is more than a cultural change, it is a humanity change.  The key to both, however, is the word change. Those who have wonderful, sustainable, well-financed lives with adequate health insurance are concerned that their hard-earned dollars will go to support an inefficient welfare sate.  Interestingly, many of these people clearly may benefit tremendously by these changes, but  they are unsure as to what that change will represent to them personally.

When Medicare passed, those who did not or could not embrace it quickly enough did have significant life changes.  On the other hand, those who could ended up doing better than they could have ever dreamed.  The same was true of the managed care movement of a dozen years ago. The real question here seems to be one of  “The Greater Good.”  Will it be worth it to help our fellow man?

The bigger issue in my mind is the question of our ability to shift from sickness to wellness care. Wellness and prevention, Tort Reform, Big Insurance, Big Pharma, were all part of the dance.  What will their involvement be in this new healthcare plan?  My insurance friends are predicting the end of their world. Will it be the end or just a different model?

What do we need to do to make it work?  We need to end two wars, decrease the DoD spending accordingly, and monitor those who abuse the system.  We still need Tort Reform. We need to reimburse our physicians for counseling their patients about wellness and prevention as well as for end of  life choices and options.

Telemedicine technology

In a recent article in the Harvard Business Review by Gardiner Morse, The Ten Innovations that will Transform Medicine, we see a stimulating list of opportunities that could make this all work better:

1. Evidence Based Decision Making
2. Payment Innovation (based on outcomes and volumes)
3.  Patient Portals for access to personal health information
4.  Behaviorial Economics
5.  Protocols that work for specific treatments
6. Accountable Care
7. Regenerative Medicine (incl. adult stem cells)
8. Virtual Visits  (telemedicine)
9.  Genetics
10.  Robotics

Regardless of your personal view of healthcare reform, it was clear that the system has been broken for a very long time, and whatever religion or spiritual belief you embrace, it has to be supportive of an effort that will potentially stop destroying the lives of others due to either a lack of available healthcare or a lack of finances.  Stay Tuned.

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Healthcare Reform. . . It’s only just begun

March 10th, 2010

This week’s Bloomberg Business Week magazine featured a phenomenal and very personal story of healthcare that actually captures many of the challenges around healthcare reform.  The author, Amanda Bennett, takes us on a journey that she has titled, “Lessons of a $618,616 Death.”  The true title, however, should have been, “How Do You Put A Price on 17 Months?”  In this article, Ms. Bennett takes us on the step-by-step, blow-by-blow journey that ended with her husband’s death.  She and a friend painfully reconstructed every page of his medical records, every dollar paid by her insurance companies, and every charge made by the various doctors and hospitals that treated him during the last years of his life.

Business Week end-of-life issue - Nick Jacobs - healinghospitals.com
Amanda Bennett and Terence Foley

She showed 1.) the grand total of charges, $618,616, 2.) the actual monies paid by the insurance companies to the hospitals after contractual negotiations, $254,176, and 3.) the total paid by her family, $9,468. In the article, she described the 30% overhead/administration costs, the costs of experimental drugs inside and outside of trials, and the 4,750 pages of medical records that were amassed during this time. For those of us who have “spent our time” trying to live within, cope with, and better understand America’s healthcare system, there were no surprises.  For those of us who have watched a loved one take this cancer journey with all of its mysterious unknowns, there were also no surprises. Ms. Bennett’s quote, “The system has a strong bias toward action,” was, I believe, the most poignant in the entire piece.

A few weeks ago, I had lunch with a very healthcare-savvy individual who, when I jokingly referred to death panels, almost came across the table at me.  She did not believe it was funny.  To say that she was passionate would miss the point.  Only the day before, I had spoken with another very intelligent healthcare reform advocate who indicated that the entire concept of death panels emanated from a payment code that reimbursed physicians for simply (or in some cases finally) talking to patients about their alternatives.  I had heard other explanations, but neither mattered.  What matters is that, in many instances, we are not discussing appropriate alternatives or revealing the quality-of-life issues often overlooked before beginning long courses of experimental drugs, or oncology drugs that may not have any positive impact on the health outcome of the individual.

Interestingly, Ms. Bennett did indicate that for all of the time, money, and pain invested in this journey, no one could confirm that her husband’s life was actually extended by these medical experiences.

Someone once described America’s healthcare system to me like this:  You walk into Nordstrom, order several three-thousand-dollar suits, a dozen shirts and some handmade, silk Italian ties, then turn to the person beside you and say to the clerk, ‘”He is paying for this.”  Our heroine Ms. Bennett did mention the fact that her husband would probably have questioned the use of all of these funds in this manner and the relationship that these expenditures might have had on all of the other people in the world who might have been helped by these dollars.

Taking the Hell Out of Healthcare by Nick JacobsWhen healthcare reform is discussed, it is personal.  It is also deep, and it is costly, but the bottom line always comes back to this: “How do you put a price on 17 months?”  In my book Taking the Hell out of Healthcare, I discuss the journey that my father and our neighbor took together over about a 17 month period.  Both diagnosed with lung cancer, my father decided to go for it all.  He had surgery, chemo, radiation, more radiation, and more chemo.  My neighbor, a man without significant health insurance coverage, decided to spend his time with his family.  They both died on the same day.  My father died in a cold, tertiary care hospital where no clergy was present, his family members were not all able to be there with him, and it was over.  In contrast, our neighbor died peacefully in his home, surrounded by his entire family.

Ms. Bennett did say that she was glad that she was not a bureaucrat having to deal with these issues.  Frankly, I wish that she was!

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Gotta Love This Guy (Oh, yeah, and this is an editorial comment)

March 1st, 2010

As we begin to emerge from the bottom of a V-shaped recession, we all pray that it does not evolve into a W-shaped recession. Having been a witness for the majority of this economic challenge rather than an officer in charge, I’ve observed several significant issues that have impacted the hospital industry.  They have included the downgrading of bonds, a serious lack of access to capital financing, cutbacks in elective surgeries and elective donations to our health care foundations,  All of which has resulted in a deep degree of uncertainty as to when  all of this will be over.

V, L, W, U or L-shaped recovery vs. recession

The fact that many of the economic practices that got us into this mess have still not been discontinued or are being reshaped into the newest version of the scam du jour does not bring peace of mind to the vast majority of us, a deeply concerned citizenry.  Add to that the billions and now trillions that we are committed to repay over the next several generations, and one has to wonder about the ability of our current political system to respond appropriately to these challenges.

Warren E. Buffett

Warren Buffett’s annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders criticized Wall Street executives and board members in a way that most of us would liked to have expressed, but which only Buffet could articulate. This is because his comments are clearly supported by his business acumen and investment skills.  He broadsided the leadership of Wall Street for failing to control risk and for avoiding  what very clearly should have been the “severe” consequences of these failures.  He chastised the bankers in particular for designing and implementing their own industry’s doom and then piling the losses onto investors, while they themselves have managed to maintain lavish lifestyles.

“It has not been shareholders who have botched the operations of some of our country’s largest financial institutions,” Buffett wrote. “Yet they have borne the burden, with 90% or more of the value of their holdings wiped out in most cases of failure. Collectively, they have lost more than $500 billion in just the four largest financial fiascos of the last two years. To say these owners have been ‘bailed-out’ is to make a mockery of the term.”

“The CEOs and directors of the failed companies, however, have largely gone unscathed…Their fortunes may have been diminished by the disasters they oversaw, but they still live in grand style. It is the behavior of these CEOs and directors that needs to be changed: If their institutions and the country are harmed by their recklessness, they should pay a heavy price – one not reimbursable by the companies they’ve damaged nor by insurance.”

With his sentiments firmly ensconced in my mind, I have to wonder about the current rounds of outrageous health insurance increases perpetrated upon the customers of many of our largest and most profitable insurance companies.  As a hospital CEO, I learned very early on that no matter how low we held our charges, those savings would not be passed on to the patients because the middle man controlled this aspect of the “business.”  Incentives are completely upside down in the system at many levels, and the political commitment to truly work toward meaningful change seems not only misguided but also seriously uninformed.

Blair House health summit, February, 2010

Bottom line?  We need to be heard.  We need to work toward systems that make sense: protection from catastrophic financial situations brought on by major illnesses or accidents, primary care that truly helps the patient manage their health challenges at a reasonable cost, and a complete change from a sickness-based to a wellness-based reimbursement system that is not dependent upon the insurance companies for the decision making proposition.

Sometimes right is truly black and white, and until we embrace palliative care, incentivize individuals for taking care of themselves, and deal with tort reform, progress will be only a delusion.

U.S. Health Care Reform Timeline: 1910-2010

U.S. Health Care Reform Interactive Timeline: 1910-2010

Click image above to view full-size, interactive timeline. (Will open in a new web browser window.)

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