Word: patient
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...consider that nearly every patient who has a big hip or knee operation will run a fever for a while afterward. No one really knows why. But let the computer pick up the temperature elevation and make me address a pull down menu that includes "fever of unknown origin" and I have to add a diagnosis to the patient's chart that often means a bigger payment - though the only treatments for this fever are being given anyway...
...makes money in ways like this, using cleverly designed "thought bins" that are put into the program by profit-maximizing, code-savvy administrators. EMR can inject more higher-paying codes into our patient contact and squeeze that much more money out of it - quite innocently too. It is, after all, a computer forcing these choices...
...practice can bill more and improve its bottom line, even after paying the billing company for its services, which run 6 to 10 percent of gross. The insurers got computers so the doctors are getting them too. It's an arms race - though, unfortunately one in which good patient care is watching from the sidelines. (Read "The e-Health Revolution...
...this tends to be the message, all too often the mechanism is much simpler. Computerized medicine means both more information - and less medicine. Less therapy, less surgery and less testing too. That's how it saves money. A variety of promising terms describe it - terms like targeted treatment, algorithmic patient-care, fiscally responsible medicine and evidence-based practice - but for doctors treating patients, one word describes how computerized records save money. Denial...
...aren't bad enough to "justify" expensive tests or treatments, (according to sources chosen by - you guessed it - insurance companies) the computer tells everyone, immediately, "you're going to eat this." Might this eliminate unnecessary testing and save money? Sure. But who determines what is necessary? Who should a patient trust to make her medical decisions? Can the government or an insurance company be as good an advocate as her doctor...