Word: labs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Turning the subsidized lab operation into a commercial assembly line is a problem that has been occupying other researchers at La Jolla. They are now weighing two ocean-front sites, both near power plants...
...problem is not loose-lipped doctors but the increasing complexity of medical care. No longer is all treatment provided at home or in physicians' offices. It is administered at hospitals or clinics, where nurses, lab technicians, therapists, pharmacists and other functionaries join with doctors in building mountains of medical information about the patient. To complicate matters, the patient does not pick up the hospital tab directly. That is done by insurance companies or government agencies, so-called third parties, all of whom claim a legitimate right to look into what they are paying...
...Some insurance practices operate directly to drive up costs. Many insurance companies will pay for lab tests only if they are done in a hospital on a supposedly sick patient. The result is to encourage hospitalization of untold thousands of people who could be diagnosed and/or treated at far less cost in a doctor's office. Says one Houston physician: "Say a man in his late 30s to early 40s complains of chest pains. I tell him he needs a thorough physical. In the office my fee would be $45, the tests $250, for a total...
...addition, it would give those unprotected by company or public plans a chance of buying insurance at a "reasonable" cost, although that figure has not yet been determined. This insurance, subsidized by the Government, would provide a "core benefit package," including hospital and physician services, X-ray and lab tests, and would also probably provide some kind of catastrophe coverage. Cost of the total Carter plan to the Government: $15 billion a year. Employees and employers would pay $5 billion...
...reform insurance practices. Some beginnings have been made: Blue Cross-Blue Shield will no longer automatically pay for a battery of tests administered to every patient who enters a hospital unless each test is specifically ordered by the attending physician. Insurance policies should be rewritten to pay for lab tests and other care administered in a doctor's office rather than a hospital. If Congress will not push the Blue plans and private insurers in this direction, corporations could and should. Exxon, General Motors and AT&T have the bargaining power that individual patients lack and a powerful incentive...