Many doctors -- people who have invested more time in training and education than almost any other group in our society -- are spending half of their work hours on paperwork and arguing with insurance companies
I'm aware. But simply going electronic is not going to fix this. All it will change is the data entry method from pen and paper to stylus and tablet. If you want to fix the arguing with insurance companies you are going to need to regulate how they can conduct their business -- which (while long overdue) is probably going to increase costs even further. Should the insurance company have a veto over the form of treatment or medication that your Doctor can proscribe? Probably not. But if you remove that veto costs will go up. It seems criminal to me that nobody is even bothering to acknowledge this.
There's also a number of other things that need to be fixed. As a random example, one of the tricks that drug companies use to extend patents is to "invent" an extended release version of the same drug they've been selling for years. Tort reform might also be in order. Have any friends in the medical field? Ask them what they pay for malpractice insurance and if there would be better ways they could spend that money.
The level of inefficiency and waste in American medicine borders on criminal
I agree. I've just never heard of Government as a solution for inefficiency and waste.......
Having these records would make it easier to switch providers
I don't know if I buy that. It's pretty easy to get your records now. You request them, sign a disclosure and receive them in a few days. Some providers will even copy them right there for you. Perhaps going electronic will eliminate the wait time to have your chart pulled and copied but perhaps it won't. Will there be legislation in place that requires them to give you copies faster? Or will the excuse just change from "we need to photocopy your chart" to "we need to get IT to open up your records for the new provider"?
There's also privacy issues that need to be addressed. I know people will scream 'HIPAA' at the top of their lungs but have you actually read your insurance contract lately? Yeah, law enforcement/civil parties can't generally subpoena your Doctor to get at your medical records -- but they can and do subpoena insurance companies for billing records, which tell them much the same things. Why that's allowed is beyond me but it is.
If this can save so much money why isn't the health care industry already doing it? Are they really that stupid or are all the promises of big savings not likely to pan out?
I'd like to get out to sea someday just to see the sky without light pollution. Your story isn't the first one I've heard that makes me jealous I've never made it. The closest you can come on land is probably the Australian Outback. Every year I've tried to get up to the Adirondacks for the same reason and every time I've made it we've had full cloud cover:(
In my area it's not as bad -- you can actually drive 15 minutes and escape the worst of the city lights -- but it's still not the same as being out in the real boonies or out to sea. I feel real bad for the city dwellers that have never even seen the Milky Way or more than a handful of stars.
About the only thing I can think of that might lead to a hunter-gathering situation would be a full scale nuclear war.
Even that's a tough one. Why would a full scale nuclear war destroy our knowledge of agriculture? It's been around for 10,000 years or so. It wouldn't scale as well without modern technology but it would still support a larger population base than a hunter/gatherer lifestyle.
Most humans would die within 2 weeks of being put outside a 50 mile radius of civilization even with a gun, a bow and a spear. We're becoming a physically weak species and would be no match to any animal half our size. Most people don't even know how to start a fire and would freeze to death during a regular winter in the northern part of the US.
That's a pretty sad statement but your probably right. I'd like to think that I'd do better -- I actually know how to start a fire and even if you can't find food the human body can survive for longer than two weeks without food. Water is another issue of course......
You did say 'pray' though. Which animal would you want to be taking on an armed homo sapiens? Waiting for it to die from starvation doesn't count. You have to take it on and kill it. Keep in mind that it has the advantage of the most powerful brain in the animal kingdom and can kill you from a distance. Another thing to consider is that it might have friends that are also armed. Humans are social creatures after all.
Actually, without any modern technology, we would be the hunted.
Define "modern"? Firearms have been around for at least half a millennium. The bow and arrow goes back thousands of years before that. The spear is even older. Any one of those is a pretty good equalizer against any other animal that walks this planet. Humans as a species haven't been pray for a long time. There's always the unlucky individual -- it still happens today -- but I think it's a pretty big leap to say we'd all be pray without modern technology.
In the SCO movie, I have a feeling Darl McBride will be played by Nicholas Cage. He will be twitchy, incomprehendable at points and everyone will love to hate him.
Yeah, but he'll team up with Sean Connery and kick some open source ass;)
If, like approximately 1/2 of the American population, you currently had no health care at all, your attitude would probably be different.
A) Nobody has "no health care". There's always the emergency room -- in the US they can't turn you away for lack of ability to pay. This isn't ideal but it disproves your statement of "no health care at all"
B) There's ~47,000,000 Americans without health insurance. Out of a population of ~300,000,000. That's 15.67%, not 50%
Neither of those are ideal but if you are going to post on a subject at least get your facts straight.....
I would hate for the few exceptions in history to sidetrack my general statement.
The "few" exceptions? Western history is filled with examples of well fed populations fighting each other. Do you really want a list of the wars fought in Europe for the last 200 years?
The isolation might have something to do with the fact that virtually every President of the 20th century had somebody try and take a shot at him......
and letting the POTUS fly commercial air and deal with the TSA like ***ANY OTHER AMERICAN***?
Maybe because the airfone offered to commercial air passengers doesn't meet the needs of the Commander-in-Chief should the United States be attacked by a hostile power while he is in transit?
I don't really care as I'm in the (apparently shrinking) pool of people who only use my cell phone to make and receive phone calls.
Does anybody know what happened to Verizon's much touted plan to provide open access? Funny how we haven't heard anything about that lately isn't it? If I was a cynical person I might assume that they only made that announcement to forestall efforts to impose an open network via the regulatory structure.....
Mr. Dell (and many others, not to single him out), do not wish to pay the cost of the country that created him. It seems treasonous
It certainly seems like a bit of a change from some of the CEOs of yesteryear that would provide benefits like subsidized housing, medical care, vacation time, pensions, higher wages, etc, etc, etc that were innovative for the times. The CEOs didn't do it for purely altruistic motives (stopping unions was a motivation -- of course if you aren't screwing your workers why do they need to unionize?) but they did it nonetheless.
Compared to some of them Mr. Dell certainly does seem like a traitor. I'm going to remember your quote for future discussions.... "does not wish to pay the cost of the country that created him".... I think that sums it up quite nicely.
and flat, non-negotiable taxes for moving capital - ANY capital - out of the country.
What happens when other countries impose similar taxes to keep their capital from leaving the country? Imported capital is the only thing keeping us afloat at the current moment.
I wish there were some type of initiative/referendum that citizens could use to challenge laws, not because they are unconstitutional or otherwise legally invalid, but because they have failed to deliver the results that were promised
Well there is one way but people seem too stupid to utilize it. They'd rather keep voting in the incumbent because "he's done good things and has experience" or just blindly vote for the guy who shares the same party affiliation as them. Those of who are smart enough not to do this have our votes buried by those who aren't or by rigged electoral processes (gerrymandering in the US, I'm sure other countries have their own version).
What we do now is offset this drain on the economy (overall inefficiency) by outsourcing a lot of the production which allows you to actually purchase the products you want and need.
And when you outsource all of that production and gut the middle class whom is going to be left to buy your products? Playing devils advocate here but I've lived in an economically depressed region my whole life and I have yet to see any benefits come to my region from free trade. What I have seen is a lot of jobs shipped to Mexico (thank you NAFTA) and very few jobs coming into town to replace them.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh yeah...and avoid vending machines too
Especially this one ;)
Many doctors -- people who have invested more time in training and education than almost any other group in our society -- are spending half of their work hours on paperwork and arguing with insurance companies
I'm aware. But simply going electronic is not going to fix this. All it will change is the data entry method from pen and paper to stylus and tablet. If you want to fix the arguing with insurance companies you are going to need to regulate how they can conduct their business -- which (while long overdue) is probably going to increase costs even further. Should the insurance company have a veto over the form of treatment or medication that your Doctor can proscribe? Probably not. But if you remove that veto costs will go up. It seems criminal to me that nobody is even bothering to acknowledge this.
There's also a number of other things that need to be fixed. As a random example, one of the tricks that drug companies use to extend patents is to "invent" an extended release version of the same drug they've been selling for years. Tort reform might also be in order. Have any friends in the medical field? Ask them what they pay for malpractice insurance and if there would be better ways they could spend that money.
The level of inefficiency and waste in American medicine borders on criminal
I agree. I've just never heard of Government as a solution for inefficiency and waste.......
Having these records would make it easier to switch providers
I don't know if I buy that. It's pretty easy to get your records now. You request them, sign a disclosure and receive them in a few days. Some providers will even copy them right there for you. Perhaps going electronic will eliminate the wait time to have your chart pulled and copied but perhaps it won't. Will there be legislation in place that requires them to give you copies faster? Or will the excuse just change from "we need to photocopy your chart" to "we need to get IT to open up your records for the new provider"?
There's also privacy issues that need to be addressed. I know people will scream 'HIPAA' at the top of their lungs but have you actually read your insurance contract lately? Yeah, law enforcement/civil parties can't generally subpoena your Doctor to get at your medical records -- but they can and do subpoena insurance companies for billing records, which tell them much the same things. Why that's allowed is beyond me but it is.
If this can save so much money why isn't the health care industry already doing it? Are they really that stupid or are all the promises of big savings not likely to pan out?
I'd like to get out to sea someday just to see the sky without light pollution. Your story isn't the first one I've heard that makes me jealous I've never made it. The closest you can come on land is probably the Australian Outback. Every year I've tried to get up to the Adirondacks for the same reason and every time I've made it we've had full cloud cover :(
In my area it's not as bad -- you can actually drive 15 minutes and escape the worst of the city lights -- but it's still not the same as being out in the real boonies or out to sea. I feel real bad for the city dwellers that have never even seen the Milky Way or more than a handful of stars.
Reference for those too young to remember it ;)
I'll make a mental note to stay away from 18 wheelers for the next few weeks :P
About the only thing I can think of that might lead to a hunter-gathering situation would be a full scale nuclear war.
Even that's a tough one. Why would a full scale nuclear war destroy our knowledge of agriculture? It's been around for 10,000 years or so. It wouldn't scale as well without modern technology but it would still support a larger population base than a hunter/gatherer lifestyle.
Most humans would die within 2 weeks of being put outside a 50 mile radius of civilization even with a gun, a bow and a spear. We're becoming a physically weak species and would be no match to any animal half our size. Most people don't even know how to start a fire and would freeze to death during a regular winter in the northern part of the US.
That's a pretty sad statement but your probably right. I'd like to think that I'd do better -- I actually know how to start a fire and even if you can't find food the human body can survive for longer than two weeks without food. Water is another issue of course......
You did say 'pray' though. Which animal would you want to be taking on an armed homo sapiens? Waiting for it to die from starvation doesn't count. You have to take it on and kill it. Keep in mind that it has the advantage of the most powerful brain in the animal kingdom and can kill you from a distance. Another thing to consider is that it might have friends that are also armed. Humans are social creatures after all.
Actually, without any modern technology, we would be the hunted.
Define "modern"? Firearms have been around for at least half a millennium. The bow and arrow goes back thousands of years before that. The spear is even older. Any one of those is a pretty good equalizer against any other animal that walks this planet. Humans as a species haven't been pray for a long time. There's always the unlucky individual -- it still happens today -- but I think it's a pretty big leap to say we'd all be pray without modern technology.
It's already starting to take off commercially [wagnercompanies.com]
$40 plus S/H for a pole you could make yourself or find in a scrap yard with 10 minutes of effort. Gotta love the free market ;)
In the SCO movie, I have a feeling Darl McBride will be played by Nicholas Cage. He will be twitchy, incomprehendable at points and everyone will love to hate him.
Yeah, but he'll team up with Sean Connery and kick some open source ass ;)
If, like approximately 1/2 of the American population, you currently had no health care at all, your attitude would probably be different.
A) Nobody has "no health care". There's always the emergency room -- in the US they can't turn you away for lack of ability to pay. This isn't ideal but it disproves your statement of "no health care at all"
B) There's ~47,000,000 Americans without health insurance. Out of a population of ~300,000,000. That's 15.67%, not 50%
Neither of those are ideal but if you are going to post on a subject at least get your facts straight.....
The American President doesn't have anywhere near that kind of power.
Thank god.
the VP can always shoot the President in the head.
When has a sitting Vice President ever got someone in th.... oh, never mind.....
I would hate for the few exceptions in history to sidetrack my general statement.
The "few" exceptions? Western history is filled with examples of well fed populations fighting each other. Do you really want a list of the wars fought in Europe for the last 200 years?
not isolated and treated like royalty.
The isolation might have something to do with the fact that virtually every President of the 20th century had somebody try and take a shot at him......
and letting the POTUS fly commercial air and deal with the TSA like ***ANY OTHER AMERICAN***?
Maybe because the airfone offered to commercial air passengers doesn't meet the needs of the Commander-in-Chief should the United States be attacked by a hostile power while he is in transit?
You owe me a new monitor ;)
...I'm glad my Verizon contract is up.
I don't really care as I'm in the (apparently shrinking) pool of people who only use my cell phone to make and receive phone calls.
Does anybody know what happened to Verizon's much touted plan to provide open access? Funny how we haven't heard anything about that lately isn't it? If I was a cynical person I might assume that they only made that announcement to forestall efforts to impose an open network via the regulatory structure.....
Mr. Dell (and many others, not to single him out), do not wish to pay the cost of the country that created him. It seems treasonous
It certainly seems like a bit of a change from some of the CEOs of yesteryear that would provide benefits like subsidized housing, medical care, vacation time, pensions, higher wages, etc, etc, etc that were innovative for the times. The CEOs didn't do it for purely altruistic motives (stopping unions was a motivation -- of course if you aren't screwing your workers why do they need to unionize?) but they did it nonetheless.
Compared to some of them Mr. Dell certainly does seem like a traitor. I'm going to remember your quote for future discussions.... "does not wish to pay the cost of the country that created him".... I think that sums it up quite nicely.
Obviously they never met my ex-girlfriend...
If your girlfriend was the one injecting stuff then you should have started a website to cash in ;)
I'd be a little perplexed if Haiti didn't have the animal in it, IT SHARES THE SAME GOD DAMN ISLAND with the Dominican Republic.
Yeah, but if they had said it was native to Hispaniola most of us Americans wouldn't have a clue what they were talking about ;)
and flat, non-negotiable taxes for moving capital - ANY capital - out of the country.
What happens when other countries impose similar taxes to keep their capital from leaving the country? Imported capital is the only thing keeping us afloat at the current moment.
I wish there were some type of initiative/referendum that citizens could use to challenge laws, not because they are unconstitutional or otherwise legally invalid, but because they have failed to deliver the results that were promised
Well there is one way but people seem too stupid to utilize it. They'd rather keep voting in the incumbent because "he's done good things and has experience" or just blindly vote for the guy who shares the same party affiliation as them. Those of who are smart enough not to do this have our votes buried by those who aren't or by rigged electoral processes (gerrymandering in the US, I'm sure other countries have their own version).
What we do now is offset this drain on the economy (overall inefficiency) by outsourcing a lot of the production which allows you to actually purchase the products you want and need.
And when you outsource all of that production and gut the middle class whom is going to be left to buy your products? Playing devils advocate here but I've lived in an economically depressed region my whole life and I have yet to see any benefits come to my region from free trade. What I have seen is a lot of jobs shipped to Mexico (thank you NAFTA) and very few jobs coming into town to replace them.