Word: patients
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Meanwhile, managed-care companies are squeezing payments to doctors so tightly that in late December 485 Denver-area physicians scrapped their HMO provider, Antero Healthplans, rather than accept a 15% cut. Their 3,000 patients had to scramble over the holidays to find somebody to treat them. Most wound up back with their old doctors, but after enough anxiety to underscore a remark by Peter Van Etten, president of Stanford Health Services: "In this insanity of economics in health care, the patient always loses...
Cynics may contend that doctors mainly want to protect their incomes by preventing HMOs from lowering capitation (per patient) payments. In California, where HMOs are most dominant, the average earnings of a primary-care physician dropped from...
...worker families. Some also trumpet their expertise in treating particular illnesses. "No. 1 in cardiac care," brags HealthSystem Minnesota--plus "96% early detection of breast cancer...above-average five-year prostate cancer survival rates." Some groups ask for $10 a month, in addition to the $70 payment each patient gets from his or her employer; others demand $20, still others $40 (no deductibles though). You pays your money--along with funds kicked in by such employers as Pillsbury, General Mills, Honeywell or Scotch tape-maker 3M--and you takes your choice...
...most important question to be answered about Choice Plus is whether it can really keep costs affordable, sustain the plan against political opposition and improve levels of medical care and service. The omens are good: 1997 bids from medical groups came in at an average cost per patient per month that was 8.5% lower than B.H.C.A.G. had anticipated. But these estimates are basically guesses. If they are wrong, the companies as self-insurers will pay the difference between actual costs and premium revenues out of their own pockets. That will not bankrupt Pillsbury or Honeywell, but it might sour them...
...than 100 points of comparison, ranging from "childhood immunization" to "ambulatory follow-up for major affective disorder." But HEDIS, with its emphasis on preventive care, is easy to manipulate. When cholesterol tests became a key criterion, HMOs scrambled to offer the tests--often with no follow-up on the patients' results. Most experts agree that it is much more useful for a patient to know the breast-cancer survival rate in a given plan than to know whether it offers free mammograms...