Search Results for: chaos veil

June 5, 2013 By e-Patient Dave 9 Comments

“Chaos, behind a veil of secrecy”: Show me the cash flow

Original post here was June 2013. Or, jump to the Nov 2015 update below.

Latest in my series Let patients help, cost-cutting edition

I’ve blogged several times about the greatest truth I’ve learned about the business of medicine. It’s the title of a 2006 Health Affairs article by Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt: The Pricing of US Hospital Services: Chaos, Behind a Veil of Secrecy.

The cost chart at right shows what’s happened since Reinhardt’s paper appeared, in the middle of the chart. It’s what you’d expect if slush is flowing around with nobody watching.

Today I was reminded that it ain’t just hospitals. :-)
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Last week I got my annual checkup. There were two separate problems in my hospital’s appointment system, so I ended up leaving too late to get the simple lab work my doctor had ordered; I said I’d get it done at a local lab.

Today I visited AnyLabTestNow, a chain with a local office. I called ahead, and for walk-in self-pay, it’s $49 for the chemistry panel I needed (Calcium, CO2, etc) and $49 for the cholesterol, total $98. And a $10 off coupon, on the site! Just $88.

Or not.

[Read more…]

March 4, 2013 By e-Patient Dave 4 Comments

Let Patients Help, Cost-Cutting Edition: “Chaos behind a veil of secrecy”

One blog I read regularly is “Not Running A Hospital” by Paul Levy, formerly CEO of my hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess. Today’s post is A Tale of Two Blues, in which an MIT professor colleague recounts the insane, infuriating situation with his insurance company. His tale:

The last couple of months have been very heavy duty bad medical stuff for me. Horrendous. So, I’ve been able to see the dysfunctional medical insurance system in action. Do you understand how Blue Cross/Blue Shield actually works? Out of, oh, maybe 80 transactions over 2 months — they managed to get one, as in the number 1, correct. The rest are mistakes, mis-billings, computer errors, everything one can imagine. And the only reason I can ever figure it out is because I am dogged and know something. I can’t even begin to imagine the bone-head database that lurks behind all of it, along with inept programming, but whatever it is, the people running the place (sorry if I tread on toes) — up to and including all the executives, are simply, sorry to say, totally bonkers. And they are just middlemen. They aren’t providing services, just managing to extract rents. Badly.

P.S. BTW, my running statistics on them, is that out of 540 transactions with them over the past 1.8 years, they have gotten two, as in the number 2, correct. Not a good batting average. Why are they so inept?

As regular readers know, this general subject (not BC/BS of MA) has been one of my pet peeves lately, especially since I so often hear “Our costs are high because patients are irresponsible lazy slugs.” I summarized the past year’s posts in a comment there; I’m pasting it in here:

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A quick preliminary response, Paul:

As I think you know, Paul, this is something I’ve been blogging about for the past year. [Read more…]

April 28, 2019 By e-Patient Dave 8 Comments

What’s up with the US health system?? (What I’m doing in 2019, episode 1)

*Click to enlarge this composite of images from previous posts*

I haven’t been blogging nearly as much as I did five years ago, largely because my early blogging was all about trying to figure out “what the heck is up with the American healthcare system???” and it’s now been two years since I had any new realizations. Here’s a summary of that, then some quick hits on recent and upcoming events.

No, wait – this part turned out long, so I’ll continue tomorrow with the “quick hits.” For today, here’s the baseline I reached two years ago.

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July 13, 2018 By e-Patient Dave Leave a Comment

“What will this cost?” Episode 4 of Power of the Patient, with Clear Health Costs

Episode 4 of the Power of the Patient podcast is live here.

Want better control over your health costs? Investigative journalism has finally come to healthcare, and it’s winning prizes bigtime.

My guest Jeanne Pinder is a former New York Times editor whose company Clear Health Costs has just won the Edward R. Murrow award for investigative journalism, for their contribution to the “Cracking the Code” series in New Orleans. [Read more…]

November 14, 2017 By e-Patient Dave 6 Comments

American healthcare: a malignant tumor that can’t stop killing its host

As I said recently, I’ve been writing less here for a number of reasons. One is that I’ve been asked to write on other sites. Another, a sobering factor, as that after years of study, I’ve concluded that the American healthcare system has tied itself in a fatal knot. The post shown here, on the Patient Power blog, is an example of both.

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New Orleans investigative reporters expose health cost craziness, with ClearHealthCosts

Video of the first episode is below.

Last updated April 10, 9:30 pm ET.

Regular readers know that among my various causes – patient-centered care, patient access to our medical records, etc – is the importance and challenge of managing our health costs. For years I’ve blogged about my own experience – see the list of posts below. Occasionally I’ve blogged about my friends at ClearHealthCosts, who have been busting their butts to … well, make health costs clear. And for years I’ve wished we had more public attention on this crazy situation. Because when costs are chaotic, it can be hard to get the care your family needs without getting hurt in the process. How ironic is that?

So I’m thrilled to say that WVUE in New Orleans (“Fox 8 NOLA”) started a new series April 5, “Cracking the Code: The Real Cost of Health Care,” followed immediately by a print series by the Times-Picayune‘s Jed Lipinski. From what I’ve seen so far, each is spot-on. ClearHealthCosts is a big part of the project.

To my surprise a simple Skype interview that I did was used in the first TV episode. I can’t wait to see more.

It’s all new so for the moment I’m quickly adding this page to my site … I’ll update it when I can. For now, here’s video of the first episode, and below are my past posts on health costs. I hope it helps.

FOX 8 WVUE New Orleans News, Weather, Sports, Social