Doctors Are Refusing to Treat Obese Patients, and Other News
Florida doctors are refusing to treat obese patients.
Under-doctored? Rural Americans get more surgeries than city folks.
Report: Electronic medical records are vulnerable. But surely you already knew that.
AMA report: Standardizing EMRs would “stifle innovation.” But surely you already knew that as well.
I think the doctors actions are not trivial and this could get much worse — all over the country.
My last post referred to not treting obese people.
Standardization happens all the time with technology. This blog uses how many standards? Hundreds easily. HL7 is a standard, has that stifled LIS development? It is used to transfer data between many different system and works well enough – the XML version is even better. The main problem with this is the call for federal regulations – you want to kill innovation require the approval of a risk adverse regulator before any changes can be made.
The OB/GYN physicians in Florida are not discriminating against obese women out of a dislike for obesity. Rather, they claim they cannot face the increased risk from labor and delivery for obese women.
Per the last item: It would make an enormous difference in consumer-managed care if doctors had a clue about costs. They don’t. Neither does the account person at the doctor’s office. There is no set price. It depends on whether you have no insurance, whether you pay cash, or what your insurer’s negotiated rate is. Trying to price medical care is like shopping at a car lot with no window stickers on the vehicles.
If you want the cost of a test or procedure, you have to ask the doc for the code, call your insurance company (or have the doc’s office call), and request that the insurance company get back to you with the costs.
If you have an emergency, you are at the mercy of the provider and the insurance company. Good luck!
I would really like to manage my own health care expenses, but how will we ever get transparnency in costs???