LCHM Fall 2017 - 28

PRACTICE
MANAGEMENT

REFERENCES:
1. Waste and Inefficiency in the U.S. Health Care System, New England Healthcare Institute Feb. 2008
2. the employee health care tax deduction - npr.org....
rarely-discussed-health -tax-break Dec. 4, 2012
3. https://www.forbes.com/sites/
lawrencehunter/2012/02/12/obamacare-and-the-constitution-are-contradictory-one-must-fall
4. Supreme Court Allows Nationwide Health Care
Subsidies. June 25, 2015
5. NHE Fact Sheet - Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
Services March 21 2017
6. Wall Street Journal pg. A18 November 15, 2016
7. Geneva: WHO, 2000, http://www.who.int/
whr/2000/en/index.html
8. https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/
bp101.pdf ...February 28, 2008
9. Steven B. Cohen, JAMA. 2012; 307 (8):773

Physicians would prescribe generic drugs,
eliminate unnecessary drug prescriptions, eliminate unnecessary laboratory and diagnostic study
prescriptions, eliminate unnecessary elective
medical procedures, and eliminate unnecessary
elective surgical procedures.
I favor sustainable healthcare for our children
and grandchildren. Insurance companies would
adjust premiums for age and risk. Income
indexed subsidies (state block grants) for the
poor would continue. Corporate and Individual charity and physician largesse should
be encouraged.

Valuable healthcare places the patient at
the center of healthcare and offers same day
appointments for care. Emergency rooms and
urgent care centers must be for emergencies
and urgent care. Valuable care provides plans
for patients with similar needs, for example
bundled cost for open heart surgery and back
pain. Value is added by discouraging rewards
to physicians for volume. Valuable physicians
listen and use "words of comfort" to help treat
patients. (25)

Physician healthcare teams can care for the
poor and elderly, the disabled and the mentally
ill and eliminate more than $700 billion per
Younger employees would phase into ex- year of inefficiencies. By improving the way
tended tax deferred Health Savings Accounts U.S. healthcare is delivered and paid, Indiana,
(HSA). Income indexed Federal tax credits Rhode Island, Colorado and New York and 21
would encourage tens of millions of healthy other states are making healthcare efficient and
and employed young citizens to buy health valuable. (26) Valuable medicine uses efficient
insurance. At an actuary determined date new technology to improve and lower the cost of
enrollees into Medicare would cease and at a healthcare. (27)(28)
calculated date attrition would end payouts
from Medicare.
We can care for the millions of genuinely needy
citizens and have affordable local healthcare. As
Physicians are teaching a culture of safety. value and competition is added, insurance
Physicians and nurses are using anti-inflam- companies will provide competitive products and
matory drugs in place of addictive narcotics decrease premiums. Physicians and patients and
for chronic pain control. They are steering high technology can make healthcare compassionate,
risk infants and adults to "high volume centers." affordable, sustainable and valuable.
Physicians and health care teams are using new
information systems and using data to plan care
The silent "elephant in the room" is the
and sharing data with other physicians. They are greater than $700 billion per year of healthcare
shifting healthcare dollars to "healthful eating "inefficiencies." We press on.
and living." (23) (24)
28 Lehigh County Health & Medicine | FALL 2017

10. www.cbo.gov ....July 24, 2012
11. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_
Payment_Advisory_Board By Jan 1, 2015,
12. T Stoltzfus Jost, J.D. N Engl J Med 2010; 363:103105, July 8, 2010
13. Ketelaar NA, et. al. (2011), Cochrane Database Syst
Rev 11: CD004538
14. Pear, Robert, Health Official Takes Parting Shot at
"Waste." New York Times, Dec. 3, 2011
15. Congressional Budget Office 2016
16. 2017 www.healthaffairs.org
17. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/52486 ...June
26, 2017
18. US healthcare reform Obamacare repeal bill Financial Times July 19, 2017
19. Kelley, Robert, "Where Can $700 Billion in Waste
Be Cut Annually from the US Healthcare System?"
Thomson Reuters, October 2009.
20. www.healthaffairs.org/healthpolicybriefs/brief.
php?brief_id=82 December 12, 2012
21. Berwick, Donald M., and Andrew D. Hackbarth,
"Eliminating Waste in US Health Care," JAMA 307, no.
14 (April 11, 2012): 1513-6
22. Dartmouth Institute for Health and Clinical Practice, 2012; www.dartmouthatlas.org
23. Berick, DM, et. al., JAMA 295: 324, 2006
24. Pennsylvania Safety Update 2013, INFORMED
25. "Cutting For Stone" by Abraham Verghese, 2009
Knopf Doubleday, Penguin Random House
26. The Senate's Medicaid Moment, WSJ, Review and
Outlook, pg. A14, June 7, 2017
27. The Benefits Of Health Information Technology: A
Review...March 2011
28. Revolutionizing Healthcare - Forbes Dec 19, 2013

http://www.npr.org https://www.forbes.com/sites/ http://www.who.int/ https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/ http://www.cbo.gov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_ http://www.healthaffairs.org https://www.cbo.gov/publication/52486 http://www.healthaffairs.org/healthpolicybriefs/brief http://www.dartmouthatlas.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of LCHM Fall 2017