Healthcare Giant Faces IT Nightmare

Joan writes "Kaiser Permanente, the largest HMO in the U.S., has spent about $4 billion on an unreliable electronic medical record system that is impacting patient care, according to a 722-page internal report revealed by Computerworld. The CIO resigned after the news came out, and CEO George Halvorson is telling the media that the goal is an alarmingly low 99.5% uptime and that all the problems are really just power outages. Yesterday, Slashdot covered a story about the possibility that the NHS in the UK could now claim the 'biggest IT disaster' prize, but Americans, fear not: so far, the Brits are running a much more efficient failure at $24,000 per physician per year, while America's KP is spending $76,920 per physician, per year on its failing project."

Comments

Re:maybe they can merge

[Anonymous Coward]

Hold on a second!
He didn't mention the synergies that merging the two products would bring to the core competenancies of both organizations.

Now that I have, can I get the job?

Re:well this obviously can't be right

[bunions]

In a truly free market, incompetent doctors would put themselves out of business because all their patients would be dead - problem solved!

Re:Probably not.

[John Newman]

I doubt it. I bet there are more bankruptcies as a result of credit card overextension, or poorly managed home loans, than as a result of medical expenses.

A recent study that made some ripples in the media indeed found that half of all bankruptcies were due to medical bills. Most frighteningly, they found that 75% of families forced to declare bankrupcty for medical bills had health insurance.

Re:Probably not.

[twotommylong]

A true life story

I have a dependant, who became afflicted with a rare conditon about a year ago, and we ran up 207,000 (and counting) of medical bills this year. Tomorrow is their last day of therapy... at which point 'we hope' we're done. Therapy costs $2000 a day.

The day they were discharged from the hospital for the inpatient, my employer also saw fit to lay me off, with 11 weeks of severence, and, of course, no extension of company paid benefits beyond the end of the termination month. COBRA cost me 1000/month for what was in the industry know as 'high deductible health care' [basically it's medicare part d for healthcare.. with a huge 'donut hole']. My plan has a 10,000 out of pocket max, and then the insurance pays 100%

Couple this with the getting the 'best doctors' to deal with this meant going out of network... when you go out of network, you see "oh, I'm only going to pay $10,000, as that is my Out of Pocket Max" Err, no.. see health insurance companies have this 'usual and customary' valuation of procedures, saying that if doctor charges $4500 for a MRI, and Medicare only reimburses that at $2000, well, the insurnance will only pay 100% of the '$2000', leaving the 'insured' paying the $2500 that is 'not covered'. You'll be surprised that an insurance company will pay $100 to an innetwork physician, for an office visit, but only pay $35 for an out of network physician, because medicare has deemed that 'usual and customary.'

So the bill yesterday said, after insurance paid "their share" of all claims that I still owe 97,000 (remember that 10,000 'out of pocket Max'. This after the privilege of paying $9000 this year for insurance coverage.

Note We have depleted 20,000 for living expenses while I was looking for a new job, and now that I have a job we have dedicated 500 a month to pay off the debt, and I am spending 2 hours a day appealing most of the 'usual and customary' valuations, which I will probably whittle off about 50K (I have no problem paying the difference between the common 'negotiated' rate with in network providers and Mayo's bill, but Medicare just doesn't cut it).

This is not a sob story, I'm actually been in the health industry most of my adult life... but If I were 20 years younger, and all this happened, I'm certain I'd be bankrupt.