Archive for September, 2007

Banning MRI

Friday, September 28th, 2007

Kevin, MD has a post suggesting that MRI scans may be banned across the European Union as early as next year. DrRich followed the link provided therein, thinking he would be deposited at the Onion. To his mild surprise, however, he was taken instead to News-Medical.Net - where a seemingly legitimate article confirmed […]

Posted in Wonkonian Rationing | No Comments »

More Praise for Fixing American Healthcare

Thursday, September 27th, 2007

David E. Williams has posted a new review of DrRich’s book, Fixing American Healthcare - Wonkonians, Gekkonians, and the Grand Unification Theory of Healthcare, both at the Health Business Blog and at the World Congress Blog. Mr. Williams seems to like the book a lot (despite the title, which has drawn groans from others). […]

Posted in Fixing American Healthcare | No Comments »

The AMA Takes on In-Store Health Clinics

Friday, September 21st, 2007

Despite the fact that covert rationing has systematically separated the interests of doctors from the interests of their patients, thus programmatically destroying the doctor-patient relationship, leaving patients to fend for themselves within a cruel healthcare system, and leaving doctors to wallow in frustration at their loss of autonomy and at the demolition of their once-proud, […]

Posted in General Rationing Issues, Primary Care in America | 3 Comments »

Pay for Performance and Covert Rationing (2)

Friday, September 14th, 2007

In a previous post, DrRich described the most obvious problems with Pay for Performance (P4P) when applied under a system of covert rationing. In the present post he addresses some of the more subtle and insidious aspects of P4P.
Consider, firstly, that the large insurers - and to some extent Medicare - have by now successfully […]

Posted in General Rationing Issues, Primary Care in America | 2 Comments »

DrRich on Smartmoney.com

Thursday, September 13th, 2007

With all due humility, DrRich wishes to call everyone’s attention to Igor Greenwald’s “The Invisible Hand” column in Smartmoney.com. This week Mr. Greenwald features none other than DrRich and his new book, Fixing American Healthcare. DrRich sincerely hopes you will have a look at it (the column and the book, that is).
DrRich […]

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Pay for Performance and Covert Rationing (1)

Tuesday, September 11th, 2007

Pay for Performance (P4P) is the latest trend among health insurers and our friends in the government in their never-ending efforts to assure that patients in their charge are receiving top-quality healthcare. At least, that’s what they say.
Under P4P, certain “clinical practice guidelines” are developed by Medicare or private insurers, based on the principles of […]

Posted in Gekkonian Rationing, Wonkonian Rationing, General Rationing Issues, Primary Care in America | 8 Comments »

The New Dutch Healthcare System

Friday, September 7th, 2007

Jason Shafrin at the Healthcare Economist has posted an excellent analysis this morning of the new Dutch healthcare system, also described yesterday in the Wall Street Journal.
The three operating principles of the Dutch system are these:
1) All individuals must purchase health insurance on the private market.
2) Health insurance companies must insure anyone who applies.
3) The […]

Posted in General Rationing Issues | No Comments »

Weep Not for UnitedHealth Group

Thursday, September 6th, 2007

Vanessa Furhmans of the Wall Street Journal Health Blog reports that a group of state insurance commissioners “plan to announce a multi-state settlement with [UnitedHealth Group] concerning some of its claims-paying systems.” It appears that regulators from four states have been negotiating a settlement with the health insurance giant for years. According to Furhmans, “the […]

Posted in Gekkonian Rationing, Wonkonian Rationing | 1 Comment »

A Truly Admirable Degree of Inefficiency

Tuesday, September 4th, 2007

Stanley Feld, MD, has an interesting post on his “Repairing the Health Care System” blog, describing how health insurance companies systematically screw doctors out of their deserved reimbursements. They accomplish this by employing byzantine rules, by strictly enforcing unintelligible requirements that shift like the sands, by establishing arcane appeals processes, and, when all else fails, […]

Posted in Gekkonian Rationing | 2 Comments »