Health Care Needs a Fix

Why isn't Healthcare Safe?

Health care is a decade behind other high-risk industries in improving safety. Safeguards have already been implemented to reduce the likelihood of such lethal medical errors. Some hospitals are now using computerized prescriptions to ensure that pharmacists don't misread doctors' scrawled prescriptions. At the urging of anesthesiologists, anesthesia equipment is being standardized. And the Food and Drug Administration is trying to reduce confusion by ensuring that the names of new drugs don't sound too similar to drugs already on the market.

Far more is needed: a concerted and comprehensive effort to raise the bar on consumer safety in the health care industry, not unlike what has already taken place in other industries. Since many doctors already feel beleaguered by financial constraints imposed on their care, insurers and health maintenance organizations must also bear the burden of improving safety.

When Kevin Baccam of Urbandale, Iowa, went in for hernia surgery in August 2005, he expected to come home with a scar on the right side of his groin.

But the 33-year-old school district controller actually wound up with two scars in the delicate region - one on each side - after the surgeon mistakenly operated on the left and had to start over.

Nearly as painful, Baccam said, was when he opened his mail a few weeks later and saw his health insurance had been billed for both operations.

While it's not clear how many patients are charged for hospital errors, the federal government has an idea. In 2006, Medicare was billed 764 times for objects left behind after surgery, resulting in an average payment of nearly $62,000 per event. The agency was billed 33 times for patients who got the wrong blood, at an average cost of $46,000 apiece.

More than a decade ago, the Institute of Medicine warned that hospitals are dangerous places for patients due to the risks of infection and medical errors. These conditions may claim almost 1000,000 lives each year in the U.S. The National Patient Safety Foundation places the blame on deficiencies in the way doctors are educated and a medical establishment that resists change. They report:

Medical schools and teaching hospitals have not trained physicians to follow safe practices, analyze bad outcomes, and work collaboratively in teams to redesign care processes to make them safer.

“Health care remains fundamentally unsafe,” says Lucian Leape, a Harvard professor who spearheaded the the NPSF research.

Along with the unsafe practices and/or procedurs by physicians and hospital staff, we face another health disaster. Medicare/medicaid fraud.

"60 Minutes" did a great story in Oct, 2009 on Medicare fraud that should be required viewing for all people who support a government run healthcare program in this country.

The facts and figures presented by CBS's Steve Kroft were disturbing as were the details concerning how shysters bilk the system for an estimated $60 billion a year and has become one of, if not the most profitable crimes in America.

Please, read more and listen to the video: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/10/25/60-minutes-medicare-fraud-raises-troubling-questions-about-our-govern#ixzz0iTStrsX8

But, not to worry...

The Wall Street Journal "Digital Network"

Obama's Expert on Medicare Fraud

Health-care czarina Nancy-Ann DeParle built a career at companies that have had to defend themselves against federal investigations.

By STEPHEN MOORE

It turns out that President Obama's Health Care czarina, Nancy-Ann DeParle, knows a lot about all that Medicare waste, fraud and abuse that Mr. Obama wants to weed out.
Mr. Obama says he can free up $500 billion to pay for an expanded middle-class health care entitlement by eliminating waste and fraud in Medicare. Many are skeptical, but at least he has an underling who knows all about the subject.

Ms. DeParle ran the Medicare program under Bill Clinton, then left to serve on the boards of several medical care companies that later were charged with Medicare fraud. Five of the companies subsequently paid out $566 million in fraud or product liability settlements, with Medicare often being the victim of the alleged fraud. Meanwhile, she earned millions of dollars in board fees.

We can thank Investigative Reporting Workshop of the American University School of Communication for this information. It conducted a multi-month investigation. In one case, Ms. DeParle joined the board of Specialty Laboratories Inc., a California medical testing company, just two months before "federal investigators suspended Medicare payments and threatened to revoke Specialty's license to operate. The company agreed to pay a $700,000 fine. . . . Specialty was also sued this year by the state of California which seeks to recover hundreds of millions of dollars for the state's Medicaid program for what [California Attorney General Jerry] Brown termed 'massive . . . fraud and kickbacks' over the past 15 years."

One should be careful in jumping to conclusions about true culpability for alleged Medicare fraud. It's not infrequent that regulators bully firms into paying penalties to avoid legal costs or remain in good standing as government contractors. In some cases, the DeParle-connected firms did not admit to fraud or the cases are still unsettled.

But the bottom line, according of the AU Reporting Workshop, is still hard to jibe with the Obama administration's verbal war on the evils of lobbying: "In touting DeParle's accomplishments when he appointed her in March, Obama didn't mention the lucrative private-sector career she built since September 2000, when she left her government job running Medicare for the Clinton administration. Records show she earned more than $6.6 million since early 2001 . . . And the public wasn't told that much of that corporate career was built at companies that have frequently had to defend themselves against federal investigations. Critics see DeParle's re-emergence as a classic case of Washington 'revolving door' syndrome, despite Obama's suggestions that he would shut that door."

By the end of the Clinton administration, Medicare fraud was estimated by the U.S. General Accounting Office to costs taxpayers tens of billions of dollars a year. This happened on Ms. DeParle's watch. It makes one wonder how this czarina is going to root out waste when so much of it piled up the last time she was in charge.

I'm sure we can all agree that some kind of health reform is needed, however, a government program is not necessarilly the answer. Why not start with "fixing" what we already have. Just look at the two examples above that is not only costing the government, but the tax payers as well. I do not agree with this administration that all the blame goes to insurance companies. I recently had a stay in a hospital and asked for a copy of the total bill that my insurance company would get. I honestly could not believe what was before my very eyes. Of course, I'm looking at the total. The list of medications and/or services was in language not intended for my understanding.

With all the controversy surrounding the government's plans, it only makes sense for you to take charge of your own health.



Jackie Whalen
ash_now@yahoo.com
http://www.ashnow.com/999751

DISCLAIMER: This information is for educational purposes only, and not intended to replace the orthodox physician-patient relationship. If you are sick, you are advised to consult a physician, and together, along with your newly gained knowledge, work toward the resolution of your illness.