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Confessions of a Cultural Anthropologist: The Cause and Cure of High Health Costs

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By RICHARD REECE

Today’s medical students are being inducted into a culture in which their profession is seen increasingly in financial terms. Add in such pressures as the need to pay off enormous debts, and it is not surprising that students’ choices are dictated by the desire to maximize income and minimize work time.

Pamela Hartzband, MD, and Jerome Goodman, MD
“Money and the Changing Culture of Medicine”
New England Journal of Medicine, 1/08/09

I have a confession to make.  I think the cause of high American health costs is straightforward, but it is not simple. It is American culture in general and the physician culture in particular.  There is nothing wrong with this, and I point no fingers.

The Way We Are
It is our culture.  It is the way we are, the way we’ve been for 232 years. It is our distrust of government and high taxes. It is our want to be free to choose. It is our belief in for equality of opportunity for access to the latest and best of care.

It is the notion, stemming from frontier days and conquering of the West,  that action speaks louder than words, that if you do something specifically, it is better than doing nothing generically. “Don’t do nothing, do something,” as the saying goes.Continue reading…

The Medical Home Bandwagon and the One-Hoss Shay: Expectations and Assumptions

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By RICHARD REECE, MDReece

Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay that was built in such a wonderful way? Logic is logic. That’s all I say. Now in building of a chaise, I tell you there is always somewhere a weakest spot. — Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)

Expectations are high. States, health plans, and the Medicare program are making substantial financial bets that implementation of the medical homes will lead not only to improved care but also to long-term savings, largely by reducing the number of avoidable emergency room visits and hospitalizations for patients with serious chronic illness. Some see the medical-home model as a means of reversing the decline in interest in primary care among medical students and residents, and others argue the broad implementation would reduce health care spending overall. — Elliot Fisher, MD, MPH, “Building a Medical Neighborhood for the Medical Home,” NEJM, Sept. 2008

When people jump on the bandwagon, they get involved in something that has become very popular. The term “bandwagon” is usually applied to politics but spills over into other fields. It is also called the herd instinct, or going for the apparent winner. — Various Sources

When I think of the Medical Home, a concept introduced by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 1967, just now rapidly gaining speed and traction, two images spring to mind,

  1. A bandwagon.
  2. The wonderful one-hoss shay, which ultimately collapsed because of minor defects in its construction.

Bandwagon
Everybody is jumping on the medical home bandwagon. And for good reasons. It’s so damn logical. Health costs are out of control. The population is aging. Countless studies show primary–based systems are popular, cost less, satisfy patients, and achieve better quality and outcomes. Besides, American primary care physicians are unhappy with the present system, and so are American patients. It’s time for a change. The problem, logic says, stems from our specialty-dominated, fragmented system and growing shortages of primary care physicians.

A New Approach?
Why not, then, create a new approach where primary care physicians form medical homes, and with the help of a newly hired care coordinator, and a team of providers operating under the guidance of the doctor, offer continuous, comprehensive, coordinated care of chronic diseases (the 4 C’s of medical homes)?

Logic Builds Momentum
The logic of this approach explains why everybody is enthusiastically leaping on the medical home bandwagon. Leapers include:

  • Medicare and CMS, who are paying for a three year demonstration project, to be completed by 2010, to see if this new wagon works, has wheels, saves money on hospitalizations, and makes for a sustainable growth rate for health costs.
  • The Obama Administration, which has vowed to reform health care and save money through more primary care physicians, prevention, EMR use, and chronic care management – the medical home pillars.
  • Major primary care associations – the American Academy of Family Practice, The American Academy of Pediatrics, The College of Physicians, and The America Osteopathic Association – have joined forces under the umbrella of the Patient-Centered Primary Care Consortium to issue a set of Joint Principles and are churning out white papers on medical homes.
  • State legislators, who have taken the lead from state medical societies and the Physicians’ Foundation, and are endorsing Medical Home demonstration projects in at least 20 states. The numbers grow each month.
  • Academic institutions, such as Johns Hopkins, Duke, and the University of Rochester, who are pouring money and other resources into building and testing medical homes and other outreach programs.
  • The American Medical Association, the American Association of Medical Colleges, and societies of medical directors and state medical society executives, all of whom have bought into the concept.
  • NCQA, who think medical homes contribute to improved medical care.
  • Even the health plans, especially Aetna and the UnitedHealthGroup, who would like to serve as intermediaries in the process, selecting what doctors qualify for being medical home participants and what they will be paid.

“Almost” Everyone
Almost everyone, in other words, across the political spectrum have concluded medical homes are a leap forward and are willing to climb aboard for a bandwagon ride. The key phrase here is “almost” everyone. Forming and paying for medical homes are very much political processes, where “everybody” may not include those who want a piece of the action or feel their economic status is threatened.

Assumptions
It is assumed, of course, coordinated, comprehensive, continuous care of chronic disease in an aging population is an overwhelmingly logical thing. I agree, but it is still useful to examine medical home assumptions.

I am reminded of the story of the economist stranded on a desert island with fellow castaways. The castaways are surrounded by thousands of miles of ocean, but are blessed with cases of canned goods from their sunken ship. But, alas, they have no way of opening the cans.

The group turns to the economist for an answer, and he says, “First, assume a can opener.” We’re assuming here that medical homes will serve as can openers to save the system. The cans, however, may be full of worms.

Perhaps it’s time to examine the assumptions that might cause the wheels of the Wonderful One Hoss Shay, known as Medical Homes, to come off.

  • The first assumption is that there are enough primary care physicians to make medical homes enough of an impact to make a difference reforming the system. The stark truth is that a desperate shortage of primary doctors already exists, most medical students and residents shun primary care, and we have no idea how many primary care doctors would bother to go through the paperwork to qualify or to build the infrastructure (an EMR and a hired coordinator are mentioned as necessary medical home ingredients), to undergo the scrutiny of being audited for quality or complying with performance compliance markers, or to be paid enough to be motivated to create a medical home. Venture capitalists, alert entrepreneurs, retail clinic operators, and major corporations like Walgreens sense a primary care vacuum and are moving fast to set up primary care based worksites in major corporate sites having sufficient numbers of employees.
  • The second assumption is that new payment platforms will help create and sustain medical homes and be sufficient incentive to recruit primary care doctors through more lucrative “blended” payment systems – fee-for-service, a capitation fee for managing a patient panel, and patient-centered bonuses for rapid responds to same day visits and email or phone to patients. The predominant mindset among American physicians it to cure, fix, restore, or repair swiftly and episodically rather than manage or coordinate over the long haul. Whether new payment schemes will lure U.S. primary care doctors is unknown, as is how much money will be required to win the hearts and minds of primary care doctors or whether lack of adequate compensation alone is the basic “turn-off” for medical students or residents considering primary care.
  • The third assumption rests on the notion that every medical home physician will have an EMR and will be able to talk, refer, and send complete electronic patient information to, other entities in the medical neighborhood – clinical colleagues, hospitals, pharmacies and other care providers. This is a giant leap of faith since only about 15% of physicians currently have EMRs and PHRs are in their infancy. It may be this barrier can be overcome through federal subsidies for EMRs, requiring physicians to meet connectivity standards, and rewarding collaboration through payment increases, pay for performance bonuses, and shared savings, but, in my opinion, the system is at least a decade away from this electronic utopia.
  • The fourth assumption is that primary care physicians will be comfortable with collectively “managing” the medical affairs of patient panels, making the data entries required, and massaging, analyzing, and responding to data determining the outcomes of a population health model. American primary care doctors, weary and wary of paperwork and third party hassles and managerial manipulations, may respond by choosing to opt out by rejecting Medicare and Medicaid participation; treating individual patients as they see fit; retiring; seeing fewer patients; going into concierge, cash-only, locum tenens practices; seeking employment outside the medical home, or medical careers unrelated to direct patient care. Instead we may see armies of physician extenders managing diabetes, hypertension, stable coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive lung disease, osteoarthritis, depression, upper respiratory infections, and gastro-esophageal reflex.
  • The fifth assumption is that patients would welcome such a model. In his popular blog, KevinMD, Kevin Pho, says many patients may be annoyed by being asked to be in a medical home, when they only have one symptom or one disease that may not need to be “managed.” Also Americans are mobile with 20% of Americans moving each year. Many patients may not be looking for a personal physician or a medical home. Finally, keep in mind that most people who frequent emergency rooms do so because the emergency rooms are “there,” not because they are uninsured, underinsured, or lack a primary care doctors (Myna Newton, et al, “Un insured Adults Presenting to U.S Emergency Departments, “ JAMA, October 22-29, 2008).
  • The sixth assumption is that the medical home is a politically and financially neutral concept. This isn’t the case. Nurse practitioners, nurse doctors, physician assistants, and other medical specialists will lobby to set up their own Medical Homes, if for no other reason, than to make up for the primary care shortage. Another, probably more important factor, may the resistance of specialists. Organized medicine, now dominated by specialists, is aware that Congress’s present Sustainable Growth Rate (SRG) is supposedly revenue neutral, meaning if you reward primary care physicians through Medical Homes, you take away from specialists.

Conclusions
The medical home movement is logical and is intended to correct the current costly fragmented specialist dominated system by creating “homes” for patients with chronic disease to receive more coordinated and comprehensive care at less cost with better results. Medical homes are currently riding a political bandwagon, but the assumptions that the system will be transformed by medical homes remain politically and pragmatically untested. That’s why multiple demonstration projects are underway. Meanwhile, let us hope for the best and pray that a fundamental shift in the system towards more primary care occurs. Making medical homes a reality will take hard work and political arm-twisting.

Patients still choose docs based on word of mouth

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By Sarah Arnquist

Patients still choose where they receive care based on good old word of mouth and referrals from their doctors, despite numerous Web sites and initiatives aimed at giving them information to compare the cost and quality of doctors and hospitals.

That’s the finding of a new national study released today by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) and funded by the California HealthCare Foundation.

The key findings were:

  • In 2007, only 11 percent of American adults looked for a new primary care physician. In doing so, half relied on recommendations from friends and relatives, 38 percent relied on physician recommendations, and another 35 percent used health plan information.
  • When choosing specialists, nearly all consumers relied exclusively on physician referrals.
  • Use of online provider information ranged from 3 percent for consumers undergoing procedures to 7 percent for consumers choosing new specialists to 11 percent for consumers choosing new primary care physicians.
  • Very few of the 35 million adults who underwent a medical procedure used information other than the doctor’s referral in deciding where to seek care.

The bottom line: All the hoopla about consumer shopping and seeking out the bargains and best value for themselves, may be just that – hoopla.

How do all the Health 2.0 platforms launching into this area plan to change this ingrained consumer behavior?

Could a larger investment in primary care cure the health care system?

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By Deron SchriverStethoscope

I’m going to go out on a big ol’ limb here by saying that 90 percent of our health care problems could be solved by rebuilding and refocusing our primary care delivery system.

It’s the issue most discussed issue in reform circles (aside from single-payer) and it makes perfect sense. Toyota has succeeded because it goes to great lengths to find the true source of quality issues. They have recognized that addressing root causes significantly limits efforts needed because you avoid treating secondary level problems that occur further down the line.

A highly trained, appropriately paid primary care physician with a focus on prevention, coordination and patient education could solve so many other problems. There are many preventable chronic illnesses out there driving up our costs.

Continue reading…

Can Health Plans Explain Why They Aren’t Re-Empowering Primary Care?

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By Brian Klepper & David Kibbe

Mh_counseling

Sometimes a whisper is more powerful than a shout. Here’s a cartoon from Modern Medicine that shows a Medical Home counseling session between a primary care physician (PCP), a specialist and the health plan. The PCP looks forlorn, while the specialist and the insurer have their backs turned, fuming. It is perfectly true.

Along with changing the way we pay for all health care and creating far greater pricing and performance transparency, we need to turn around the primary care crisis if we hope to substantively improve quality and cost.

Continue reading…

Exploring and conquering new health care frontiers

By Scott Shreeve

The September/October issue of Health Affairs is dedicated to reviewing concepts of the medical home. It is most likely the most current, authoritative, and impressive review of this emerging idea. Health Affairs is an excellent resource for health policy wonks to gather, but in recent years has become more accessible to the general health care audience. I would recommend it as required reading for anyone interested in learning about this trend.

Simultaneously, there have been some recently updated “state of the industry” reports coming out of the retail health clinic world. As noted by Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, the fact that more and more retail clinics are being created has increased access, improved quality through an evidence based approach to a limited set of clinical conditions, but has not done nothing to address the cost issue. In fact, increasing the supply of retail clinics, has simultaneously increased the demand for these services. This is a common phenomenon within healthcare, and the supply driven demand has been well described particularly in the hospital setting.

Continue reading…

Patients lost in the maze

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By Sarah Arnquist

Millions of patients are paying medical bills they don’t actually
owe after being confused about the practices of "balanced billing," according to a recent Business Week report.

The story goes onto discuss how it’s illegal for doctors, hospitals or labs to bill patients for the difference if they deem the insurance payment too low, but that it happens routinely to the tune of $1 billion each year.

Around the time that story first ran, THCB received this email from distraught reader, Paul Evans of Arizona:

I recently went into an emergency room at a local hospital in Scottsdale, Ariz. The doctor asked several questions and diagnosed kidney stones. To confirm this, he ordered a Cat scan and X-rays. While there I was given morphine for the pain. Two hours later, I was discharge with a prescription for pain pills and a strainer to examine my urine for the stone I would pass. I am insured by Aetna. Aetna received a bill for $6,000 and paid $4,000. I am now receiving bills for the remaining $2,000. All this for two hours in the emergency. Do I have to pay these bills? This is balance billing I think. What are my rights?  Help!!

Continue reading…

Hello Health open for business

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By Matthew Holt

Hello Health, the clinic that Jay Parkinson has been promoting for a while, is open for business. If all the patients are as happy as the first patient, success is assured!

The deal is that they’ve gone with mid-range concierge fee ($35 a month—around the cost of a low cost cell phone plan or high-end Netflix?) for patients to get access/membership and then have fixed charges thereafter. That amount is about three times what I pay for very basic low-end concierge services (basically email) at Tom Lee’s Metropolitan Medical Group in San Francisco, but way less than the typical $150–200 a month fee for high-end concierge practices.Hellohealth

What remains to me the tricky factor in their vision is how they’ll make this work with the bureaucracy & accounting behind high deductible plans (without taking on a ton of staff). But however that piece works out, someone needs to shake up primary care. Jay and his 2 colleagues are young entrepreneurial docs giving it a shake.

Health 2.0 had a film crew there with David Kibbe acting as roving reporter at the launch party. Much more on both these topics to come, but remember that Hello Health is also working with MyCa on a very interesting new interface to the EMR and much more.

Yes, you’ll see much more about the Health 2.0 Across America video starring David Kibbe and the MyCa interface at the Health 2.0 Conference.

On Rural Doctoring: The Landscape

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By Theresa Chan

This is the first part of a series that first appeared on the blog Rural Doctoring, where Theresa Chan writes about her experience working as a family physician and hospitalist in a rural Northern California community.

Ruralcare

I’ve been reading the blogs of medical students and residents with some interest lately. Their stories about the trials and tribulations of learning to stay awake night and day and how to deal with cranky attendings and even crankier patients take me back to the bad old days of my own residency.

I’ve also had a few glimpses of the osteopathic medical students (OMS) who are rotating in rural California as they assume their new roles as clinical learners. Hearing about and witnessing these experiences makes me reflect on my own training and the steps I took to become a doctor in a rural community. This post series will examine these steps in more detail, and I hope it will be helpful to trainees who are considering a career in rural health care.

Continue reading…

A Primary Care Paradigm Shift

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By Dr. Richard Reece

Dick Reece is a retired pathologist and a prolific health care commentator with an active following, particularly among physicians. An astute, incisive observer, he is the author of 10 books; the latest is Innovation-Driven Health Care: 34 Key Concepts for Transformation. He is regular columnist on HealthLeaders, and writes his daily posts at MedInnovation Blog. THCB welcomes him. — Brian Klepper

RreeceSomething profound is happening in buyers’ and the public’s attitudes towards primary care and the health system. With inexorable rises in costs and corresponding decreases in access to primary care doctors, buyers and the public are mad as hell, and they’re deciding they’re not going to take it anymore. Something is badly and sadly wrong, and corrective measures are being put in place.

Signs of Paradigm Shift

Signs of a paradigm shift – a change in assumptions about the system’s basic structure – are everywhere. No longer do we accept the notion every patient should have a specialist for every disease, every life-improvement procedure, every orifice, and every organ. Care, it’s now assumed, must be coordinated to prevent people from falling through the cracks. We must stop wasting time and resources for patients and the system as a whole.

The U.S. system lacks timely access to primary doctors who oversee care. And specialty services are overused. Yet the U.S. has fewer primary care physicians per capita than any other country in the developed world. On the other hand, we have more specialists per square mile than other countries.

What’s Driving the Paradigm Shift?

•    Major corporate buyers, led by IBM, which spends $1.7 billion on health care, have created an activist organization, The Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative. Paul Grundy, MD, MPH, IBM’s Director of Health Transformation, chairs the Collaborative. It is based partly on IBM’s experience in Denmark, where it owns a company, and where patient satisfaction with care is 97% versus 50% in the U.S. Grundy believes every citizen should have a personal physician, and every physician should be rewarded for offering same day access, managing a patient panel, and be compensated for telephone and email consultations.

•    A vibrant movement is underway to “disintermediate” health plans. “Disintermediation” occurs when access to information or services is given directly to consumers. In the process, “middlemen” in the form of health plans may be ended, or their services transformed. That’s what consumer-driven health care is about, that’s why their existence in their present form is threatened, and that’s why health plans are moving rapidly to high deductible plans linked to health savings accounts.

•    The “medical home” concept is gaining traction. This concept hinges on two ideas: 1) placing the primary care physician at the center of care by having him/her coordinate overall care; 2) giving primary care doctors “ownership” control of specialty care referrals. America wants a health system in which the primary physician uses a secure computer platform to coordinate efforts of specialists, pharmacists, therapists, and others. Increasingly patients don’t appreciate why they must fill out a new form at each doctor’s office, why doctors don’t communicate with each other, and why doctors duplicate tests and don’t know what other doctors do. A number of medical home pilot studies are now being conducted. To make medical homes happen, doctors will need financial incentives and support to introduce technology, and coordinate care. Payers will need to step up the payment plate to help medical homes become real.

•    New business models to reduce cost and offer convenience are fast evolving. These include retail clinics, medical offices at the worksite, specialty clinics, urgent care clinics, elective surgical centers, and ambulatory facilities offering imaging, multiple specialty services, and one-stop care. Most of these are outside expensive hospital settings. Some are currently beyond the control of primary care physicians. At last count, there were over 1000 retail clinics, 500 worksite clinics, and roughly 3,000 urgent care facilities.

•    The physician empowerment movement is growing. The Physicians’ Foundation for Health System Excellence, which represents state and local medical societies, has completed a survey of 300,000 primary care physicians to highlight their problems, to educate the public, and to persuade policy makers to take steps to enhance the supply of primary care doctors, to pay them better, and to give them tools to offer comprehensive coordinated care. Sermo, a physician social networking site, has 75,000 members and will soon issue an “Open Letter to the American Public,” signed by 10,000 doctors to reflect physician grievances and to indicate how the system can be improved. These efforts, coupled with the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative, are designed to improve the lot of primary care physicians.

Conclusion: A new primary care paradigm is upon us and will fundamentally change how the U.S. delivers care.