Word: careful
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...know their Physician well," he says. When people join the plan, they will have a thorough examination. In the unstructured way that most Americans guard their health, five or ten years may elapse between exams. Under the health plan, however, the aim will be on constantly-supervised care. The initial exam--accompanied by a barrage of "screening test"--may be able to pick up many potential problems long before they erupt. From the beginning, health plan physicians will emphasize nipping illness while it's easy to nip instead of waiting for the kind of full-scale disease that requires...
Medical statisticians have run studies comparing group practice plans with normal family doctor care. What they've found is that patients who use institutionalized groups practice facilities -- like California's private Kaiser Plan clinics--spend much less money on health care than do patients of single physicians. The saving may come because each doctor can see more patients; or it may be because the cluster of specialists make preventive medicine more effective. But clear. Each medical care dollar goes farther when spent in group-practice clinics...
...FINAL part of the Health Plan's drive on medical costs come with its elaborate plans for "outpatient" services. Since hospital care costs -- the "impatient" expenses of medical jargon -- are easily the most expensive component of medical care one good way to trim costs is to keep people out of the hospital. Coupled with the health plan's drive for prevention will be its attempt to treat its patients in the center, instead of sending them off to the modern--and costly -- hospital...
Pollack doesn't contend that outpatient care can be a complete substitute for hospitalization. The health plan won't try to perform surgery in back rooms of its health center. But Pollack claims that about one third of the patients in a hospital on any given day do not medically need to be there. They no longer need the 24-hours care the hospital provides; and if adequate outpatient clinics were available, the patients could recover at home, making occasional visits to the clinics...
...areas have decent outpatient facilities, and so marginal patients fill the hospital beds. By providing a center with intensive outpatient and ambulatory care facilities, the health plan hopes to clear the hospitals of the people who should not be there...