{"id":26,"date":"2009-07-27T21:56:25","date_gmt":"2009-07-28T01:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jalyhe.wordpress.com\/2009\/07\/27\/the-best-healthcare-in-the-world"},"modified":"2020-11-02T04:24:59","modified_gmt":"2020-11-02T04:24:59","slug":"the-best-healthcare-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/?p=26","title":{"rendered":"The Best Healthcare in the World?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Imagine that you bought a premium all-inclusive tour
\npackage, and a few months after the trip<\/span>, you got a bill from the Chefs Group,
\nclaiming that they are now an independent entity, and must be paid separately and in addition to what you’ve already paid<\/span>.
\nWould you be surprised? Annoyed? Or would you be using even stronger words or
\nnon-verbal expressions? <\/font><\/p>\n

Well, essentially the same just happened to us, in the
\nsetting of health care!<\/font><\/p>\n

I was diagnosed with a type of leukemia more than two years
\nago, at a local university hospital. Fortunately, with a new kind of medicine,
\nthe disease is well under control in short order, and has been basically in
\ncheck ever since, with occasional ups and downs. Unfortunately, we learned that
\nthere is no uniform way of performing blood tests and keeping track of the
\nprogress of the disease, so we have decided to pay about twice the insurance
\nco-pay, $35 instead of $18, for the privilege to keep using the university
\nhospital\u2019s diagnostic testing facilities, instead of an outside lab, so that
\nthe tests are at least longitudinally comparable. And we are very careful to
\nmaintain our health insurance, keeping the options the same from year to year.<\/font><\/p>\n

However, recently, after going through the routine for
\ndozens of tests, we got a bill from a \u201cPathologists Group\u201d. Upon inquiries, I
\nwas told that they\u2019ve decided to no longer accept our insurance, and would now bill
\nus directly. So all of a sudden, in addition to the $35 to the hospital for
\ntaking my blood and bone marrow samples, I must pay hundreds of dollars, and
\nmaybe more, to those who analyze the same samples! On top of that, for about
\nhalf a year neither the doctors\u2019 group nor the hospital told us about this
\nchange, even while I was using their facilities once every several weeks! After
\ntalking to someone representing the group for the first seemingly erroneous
\nbill, I now understand that for each visit two or three bills are generated
\nfrom the group, with most of them still unseen to us. From the couple of bills I\u2019ve
\nseen so far, I fear that unknowingly I have become indebted to them to the tune
\nof several thousand of dollars!<\/font><\/p>\n

I can understand the physicians who want to be paid better. I
\nowe my life to the physicians who diagnosed me, treated me, and to those whose
\nresearch brought the treatment to patients like me. And I\u2019m ready to pay with
\nboth my gratitude and my money (including insurance money) for their work. But something
\nin this new system is wrong. For one thing, where in this change of billing is
\nany consideration for the patient, either in its rationale, its process, or its
\ncommunications? Assuming it is legal, how can it be ethical to have different
\ngroups of professionals in a hospital to start charging patients separately? Should
\nI start to develop a check list of medical and service professionals working
\nfor the hospital for each of my visits, in case some other group becomes
\nindependent in the future?<\/font><\/p>\n

\nI cannot wait for President Obama\u2019s health reform to take effect. Our
\nhealthcare system seems to be crumbling down, even if it were the best.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imagine that you bought a premium all-inclusive tour package, and a few months after the trip, you got a bill from the Chefs Group, claiming that they are now an independent entity, and must be paid separately and in addition to what you’ve already paid. Would you be surprised? Annoyed? Or would you be using […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-and-wellness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":478,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions\/478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jaly.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}