10 Steps To Health Care Reform – Here are 10 easy steps to cut health care costs and reform how health care spending is provided by Medicare and Medicaid.
The need for health care reform is obvious and the federal government says its ready to reform, but current spending is riddled with waste and fraud, so here are 10 easy ways to reform health care now.
- Target Health Care Fraud – The FBI says that fraudulent billings to Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers account for 3% to 10% of total health spending, and concedes its estimates may be low.
- Promote A Healthy Workforce – Johnson & Johnson J&J has been offering comprehensive wellness programs to its 100,000 employees since 1995. “Seventy percent of health-care costs could be prevented through lifestyle modification,” says Dr. Fikry W. Isaac, J&J’s executive director of global health services.
- Assign A Primary Care Doctor For Each Patient – A 2004 study estimated the U.S. health-care bill could fall by 5.6% if every patient had a primary care doctor responsible for coordinating all treatment and tests.
- Emphasize Community Health – 33% of U.S. adults are obese, and health spending on this group grew 80% from 2001 to 2006, to $166.7 billion. Community health programs can help lower these costs through structured weight loss programs and by promoting healthy lifestyle choices.
- Prevent Hospital Infections – Hospital-acquired infections cost $30 billion in 2006, but are easy to prevent with a zero-tolerance policy for spreading infection inside the hospital.
- Get Patients To Take Their Medication By Eliminating Co-Pays – A 2005 study estimated that every dollar spent on such medication-adherence programs can save $7 for patients with diabetes, $5 for those with high cholesterol, and $4 for high blood pressure.
- Explain End-Of-Life Options – Aetna found that high-quality care for the dying actually lowers health care costs. Terminally ill patients don’t need more expensive tests and futile treatments, they need more nursing care, pain management, and psychological support.
- Use Insurance To Manage Chronic Disease – Give patients financial incentives to improve based on their particular health issues rather than offering one-size-fits-all plans.
- Informed Patients Make Wiser Choices – Given that 37% of health care costs are spent on unnecessary treatments, explain thoroughly to patients the benefits and risks of medical procedures they may be facing.
- Lower Malpractice Costs By Apologizing Immediately – Under the policy, as soon as a hospital discovers an error, the patient is informed, the cause is investigated, and changes in procedure are recommended. If the provider is at fault, the patient is offered a settlement. Using this approach, the University of Michigan Hospital cut malpractice claims by 50%.
And that’s the latest news on 10 Steps To Health Care Reform.
Tags: health, health care reform, medicaid, medicare
November 22nd, 2009 at 2:19 pm
The government can’t do anything right. All they want to do is spend money we don’t have in order to get re-elected.
Any member of Congress that votes for this crap should be tarred and feathered!
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:34 am
Well between you, I and the brick wall, this proposed health care “reform” does nothing to fix the problems in our health care system, like the fact that 40% of Medicare spending happens in the last two months of a patient’s life when doctor’s run thousands of dollars in tests and do all sorts of unnecessary procedures instead of letting people die with dignity.
We really do need death panels!
February 3rd, 2010 at 5:40 pm
I worry about the Obama Healthcare Plan. Will it have dehabilitating changes on my fathers well being? How do the improvements to healthcare outweigh the cons?