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Category Archives: Health Care Reform
Exchange Plans Could Undermine ER Safety Net
Most everyone assumes that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) facilitated Exchange Plans, by increasing the number of insured patients and reducing the rolls of the uninsured, will generate additional revenues for hospital Emergency Departments and emergency physicians. However, the net effect of these Exchanges and other aspects of the ACA could spell disaster for many emergency care safety net providers. On the surface, it appears the PPACA should have a positive impact … Continue reading
New Recipes for Health Care Delivery
My wife is a trained chef, and by definition I guess this means she is always open to new ways to prepare food and new recipes to try. She certainly creates her share of new recipes, at the rate of about two per week, for her blog, The Wimpy Vegetarian. I was reminded of the propensity of chefs to forsake the old and adopt the new when Susan tried a new way to prepare corn … Continue reading
How Much Is the Nation Spending on ER Care? Wrong Question
Recently, Drs. Lee, Schuur, and Zink published an article in Annals of Emergency Medicine that detailed three different approaches to estimating the percentage of total national health care costs that were expended for emergency department care. The statement in this article that most health care journalists have picked up on is related to the authors’ assertion that spending on ER care could amount to as much as 10% of national health care budget. This clashes significantly with … Continue reading
‘Choosing Wisely’ Laying the Groundwork for Denial of Coverage
When the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) decided not to join the Choosing Wisely campaign, I was among those who expressed disappointment with this decision, in part because I have long been a proponent of efforts to encourage more cost-effective care in the ED. In fact I had already independently done a significant amount of work in the development of such strategies. I recognized that there were legitimate concerns about participation in this campaign, … Continue reading
Obamacare May Hurt Emergency Physicians Financially
Many emergency physicians have expressed support for the provisions in Obamacare that expand Medicaid coverage; though they usually acknowledge that coverage does not necessarily mean access to care. Certainly, moral considerations account for much of this support, but in addition, emergency physicians tend to believe that providing Medicaid coverage to many of the currently uninsured will benefit them as well, by reducing the financial burden that comes with providing care to everyone, including many patients … Continue reading