Monday, January 25, 2010
QD: News Every Day--Health politics becomes health policy
ACP Internist's wrap-up of current events turns its attention toward health care reform, and how health care policy translates into health care delivery.
Health care reform
Congressional legislation will move forward with the least controversial elements of health care reform: solving Medicare's pending insolvency and closing a gap in Medicare Part D coverage. But Democrats and Republicans differ on how to accomplish such goals. (Wall Street Journal)
Medicare's reimbursement system has long stuck in the craw of primary care physicians. As a result, they don't always accept such patients, so one in three Medicare enrollees had trouble finding a primary care doctor when entering the Medicare population, according to a June 2008 report by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. The impact is shortening an already pressed primary care system. In Arizona, only three of that state's 15 counties have the appropriate ratio of primary care doctors to the general population. (The Arizona Republic)
Physicians aren't waiting for health care reform that may never come. They continue to leave community practice and delve into concierge care, which they say allows them to practice the thorough, hands-on medicine they'd envisioned when they graduated medical school. ACP Fellow David Grulke, MD, of Norfolk, Va., converted his practice to a concierge model in 2002. He charges $660 to $1,080 annually (unlike some practices that charge thousands or more) and describes it as a service for ordinary people who want a relationship with their doctor. In the same article, Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, tells the Virginian-Pilot such arrangements are the symptom of a broken care system. (Virginian-Pilot)
Haitian relief efforts
ACP Member Myriame Casimir, MD, was raised in Haiti. Today, she returns there on a medical mission comprised of her and 20 other providers from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. (Chicago Tribune)
Also, an aid worker used a first-aid app on his cell phone to survive 60 hours trapped in the rubble of a building. (CNN)
In case you missed it ...
ACP Fellow Turi McNamee, MD, blogs about the "weekend effect" and concludes that, on Satursdays and Sunday, it's better to be shot than have a heart attack. She covers her local hospital's shifts on weekends and wonders what the impact will be on her facility's relaxed atmosphere if more research leads to an increase in weekend staffing. (True/Slant)
Labels: concierge medicine, disaster response, health care reform, medicare, primary care shortage, QD, weekend effect
posted by Ryan DuBosar at
10:10 AM
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Send comments to ACP Internist staff at acpinternist@acponline.org.
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Blog log
Members of the American College of Physicians contribute posts from their own sites to ACP Internistand ACP Hospitalist. Contributors include:
Albert Fuchs,
MD
Albert Fuchs, MD, FACP, graduated from the
University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine, where he
also did his internal medicine training. Certified by the American
Board of Internal Medicine, Dr. Fuchs spent three years as a
full-time faculty member at UCLA School of Medicine before opening
his private practice in Beverly Hills in 2000.
And Thus, It Begins
Amanda Xi, ACP Medical
Student Member, is a first-year medical student at the OUWB School
of Medicine, charter class of 2015, in Rochester, Mich., from which
she which chronicles her journey through medical training from day
1 of medical school.
Zackary Berger
Zackary Berger, MD, ACP Member, is a primary care doctor and
general internist in the Division of General Internal Medicine at
Johns Hopkins. His research interests include doctor-patient
communication, bioethics, and systematic reviews.
Controversies in Hospital
Infection Prevention
Run by three ACP
Fellows, this blog ponders vexing issues in infection prevention
and control, inside and outside the hospital. Daniel J Diekema, MD,
FACP, practices infectious diseases, clinical microbiology, and
hospital epidemiology in Iowa City, Iowa, splitting time between
seeing patients with infectious diseases, diagnosing infections in
the microbiology laboratory, and trying to prevent infections in
the hospital. Michael B. Edmond, MD, FACP, is a hospital
epidemiologist in Richmond, Va., with a focus on understanding why
infections occur in the hospital and ways to prevent these
infections, and sees patients in the inpatient and outpatient
settings. Eli N. Perencevich, MD, ACP Member, is an infectious
disease physician and epidemiologist in Iowa City, Iowa, who
studies methods to halt the spread of resistant bacteria in our
hospitals (including novel ways to get everyone to wash their
hands).
db's Medical Rants
Robert M. Centor, MD, FACP, contributes short essays contemplating
medicine and the health care system.
DrDialogue
Juliet K. Mavromatis, MD, FACP, provides a conversation about
health topics for patients and health professionals.
Dr. Mintz' Blog
Matthew Mintz, MD, FACP, has practiced internal medicine for more
than a decade and is an Associate Professor of Medicine at an
academic medical center on the East Coast. His time is split
between teaching medical students and residents, and caring for
patients.
Everything
Health
Toni Brayer, MD, FACP, blogs about the rapid changes in science,
medicine, health and healing in the 21st century.
FutureDocs
Vineet Arora, MD, FACP, is Associate Program Director for the
Internal Medicine Residency and Assistant Dean of Scholarship &
Discovery at the Pritzker School of Medicine for the University of
Chicago. Her education and research focus is on resident duty
hours, patient handoffs, medical professionalism, and quality of
hospital care. She is also an academic hospitalist.
Glass Hospital
John H. Schumann, MD, FACP, provides transparency on the workings
of medical practice and the complexities of hospital care,
illuminates the emotional and cognitive aspects of caregiving and
decision-making from the perspective of an active primary care
physician, and offers behind-the-scenes portraits of hospital
sanctums and the people who inhabit them.
Gut Check
Ryan Madanick, MD, ACP Member, is a gastroenterologist at the
University of North Carolina School of Medicine, and the Program
Director for the GI & Hepatology Fellowship Program. He
specializes in diseases of the esophagus, with a strong interest in
the diagnosis and treatment of patients who have
difficult-to-manage esophageal problems such as refractory GERD,
heartburn, and chest pain.
I'm dok
Mike Aref, MD, PhD, FACP, is an academic hospitalist with an
interest in basic and clinical science and education, with
interests in noninvasive monitoring and diagnostic testing using
novel bedside imaging modalities, diagnostic reasoning, medical
informatics, new medical education modalities, pre-code/code
management, palliative care, patient-physician communication,
quality improvement, and quantitative biomedical imaging.
Informatics
Professor
William Hersh, MD, FACP, Professor and Chair, Department of Medical
Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology, Oregon Health &
Science University, posts his thoughts on various topics related to
biomedical and health informatics.
David Katz, MD
David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACP, is an internationally renowned
authority on nutrition, weight management, and the prevention of
chronic disease, and an internationally recognized leader in
integrative medicine and patient-centered care.
Just Oncology
Richard Just, MD, ACP Member, has 36 years in clinical practice of
hematology and medical oncology. His blog is a joint publication
with Gregg Masters, MPH.
KevinMD
Kevin Pho, MD, ACP Member, offers one of the Web's definitive sites
for influential health commentary.
MD
Whistleblower
Michael Kirsch, MD, FACP, addresses the joys and challenges of
medical practice, including controversies in the doctor-patient
relationship, medical ethics and measuring medical quality. When
he's not writing, he's performing colonoscopies.
Medical Lessons
Elaine Schattner, MD, FACP, shares her ideas on education, ethics
in medicine, health care news and culture. Her views on medicine
are informed by her past experiences in caring for patients, as a
researcher in cancer immunology, and as a patient who's had breast
cancer.
Mired in MedEd
Alexander M.
Djuricich, MD, FACP, is the Associate Dean for Continuing Medical
Education (CME), and a Program Director in Medicine-Pediatrics at
the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, where he
blogs about medical education.
More Musings
Rob Lamberts, MD, ACP Member, a med-peds and general practice
internist, returns with "volume 2" of his personal musings about
medicine, life, armadillos and Sasquatch at More Musings (of a
Distractible Kind).
Prescriptions
David M. Sack, MD, FACP, practices general gastroenterology at a
small community hospital in Connecticut. His blog is a series of
musings on medicine, medical care, the health care system and
medical ethics, in no particular order.
Reflections of a Grady
Doctor
Kimberly Manning, MD, FACP, reflects on the personal side of being
a doctor in a community hospital in Atlanta.
The Blog of Paul Sufka
Paul Sufka,
MD, ACP Member, is a board certified rheumatologist in St. Paul,
Minn. He was a chief resident in internal medicine with the
University of Minnesota and then completed his fellowship training
in rheumatology in June 2011 at the University of Minnesota
Department of Rheumatology. His interests include the use of
technology in medicine.
Technology in (Medical)
Education
Neil Mehta, MBBS, MS, FACP, is interested in use of technology in
education, social media and networking, practice management and
evidence-based medicine tools, personal information and knowledge
management.
Peter A. Lipson,
MD
Peter A. Lipson, MD, ACP Member, is a practicing internist and
teaching physician in Southeast Michigan. The blog, which has been
around in various forms since 2007, offers musings on the
intersection of science, medicine, and culture.
Why is American Health Care So Expensive?
Janice
Boughton, MD, FACP, practiced internal medicine for 20 years before
adopting a career in hospital and primary care medicine as a locum
tenens physician. She lives in Idaho when not traveling.
World's Best Site
Daniel Ginsberg, MD,
FACP, is an internal medicine physician who has avidly applied
computers to medicine since 1986, when he first wrote medically
oriented computer programs. He is in practice in Tacoma,
Washington.
Other blogs of note:
American Journal of
Medicine
Also known as the Green Journal, the American Journal of Medicine
publishes original clinical articles of interest to physicians in
internal medicine and its subspecialities, both in academia and
community-based practice.
Clinical
Correlations
A collaborative medical blog started by Neil Shapiro, MD, ACP
Member, associate program director at New York University Medical
Center's internal medicine residency program. Faculty, residents
and students contribute case studies, mystery quizzes, news,
commentary and more.
Interact MD
Michael Benjamin, MD, ACP member, doesn't accept industry money so
he can create an independent, clinician-reviewed space on the
Internet for physicians to report and comment on the medical news
of the day.
PLoS Blog
The Public Library of Science's open access materials include a
blog.
White Coat
Rants
One of the most popular anonymous blogs written by an emergency
room physician.
2 Comments:
The attempts by doctors to better connect with their patients may be the symptom of a broken system, but it has its place in any system. More frequent and direct management of patient health is a form of preventative medicine that has the potential to cut costs by avoiding the health costs of surgery and medications that arise when patients aren't at their healthiest.
This debate about healthcare needs to move beyond the barriers of democrats and republicans. It is time to start making the changes that are really necessary. Those are the obvious points. Maybe it is time to revisit the value that primary care physicians provide and move forward from there. This involves tackling the real reasons for shortages in primary care! I am a 4th year medical student and I can tell you that it starts with salary. I know physicians are paid well overall, but when a smart student can make over $350,000 starting as a radiologist and only $125,000 to be a primary care doctor, the choice is rather obvious for a smart medical student. This choice is obvious for hose with high amounts of debt and those without the debt. By focusing on those changes that will decrease cost and increase the quality of medical care, we can all agree that Americans will get better care at a more affordable price. The alternative is ust not possible, it will bring America down on its financial knees.
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