Dell Takes Health Care Online

abb_road writes "Dell will announce today that it will begin offering employees an online system to track health care; the system, which will focus on insurance claims, doctor visits and prescriptions, is expected to improve employees' medical safety while reducing costs. The electronic records are expected to dramatically improve preventative care; employees will receive ongoing alerts for suggested and continuing treatment of health conditions. The system should also improve coordination among health care providers, especially when patients need to see multiple physicians. Other employers are expected to follow Dell's lead; the government 'has estimated that health IT can add $140 billion a year to the productivity of the $2 trillion health care industry.'"

Comments

Re:the fundamental problem with insurance

[Mean Variance]

In January I decided to see a homeopathic M.D. to see if there was something I could do about my cold hands. After taking an extensive history, he decided that my autonomic nervous system was probably out of balance ...

Isn't "homeopathic M.D." an oxymoron? As long as we're throwing links around here are some about homeopathy:

Homeowatch (cousin of Quackwatch)
The Skeptic's Dictionary

And if you want to spew anecdotes, when my dad was in his early 60's he could barely walk across a room without being out of breath and had had a minor heart attack. With 4 weeks preparation with drugs and diet to prep for major surgery, he went through a triple bypass operation. After the recovery of a few months the results were astounding.

Bypass operations are not to be taken lightly, but that doesn't mean there aren't successful results.

Re:the fundamental problem with insurance

[fprintf]

Well it seems you are a perfect candidate for the "new" HRA and HSAs that the health insurance industry is going on about. Each person gets a small account that they can use however they wish.

With HSAs, which are US Federally qualified, you can deduct any expense that falls within IRS 213(d). Which means you can deduct chiropractice, homeopathic, eyeglasses or even massages. But the faster you deplete your account, the faster you are on your own to pay the other bills until the catastrophic coverage kicks in.

HRAs and HSAs are the new "medicine" for the broken healthcare system. Unfortunately the HMO mess created by those crazy Californians has left most American employees used to paying for healthcare with someone else's money. So few people are going to willingly accept being responsible, once again, for buying decisions regarding their healthcare.

This is, in a way, back to the past for this society. Back in the 50s when health insurance was a brand new way to attract and retain quality employees it was very much a pay as you go system. And the co-insurance was typically a straight 20%... so people paid very close attention to how much the doctor or hospital was charging them since that 20% was a really big hit on the wallet.