Primary Care Category
Retail Clinic Treating Mostly Uninsured
Wal-Mart jumped into the healthcare arena with their retail clinic program called Convenient Clinics to provide improved access to care earlier this year and towards the end of last year when many media headlines broke the story of retail clinics. There was an immediate flurry of activity with store chains such as CVS in the Boston, MA area where some 2000 of these clinics were to be established over the coming months and year (2008).
Emergency Department crowding not due to medical indigence.
From the New York Times published on May 6th 2008 comes a report that emergency departments (ED) are busy but fewer patients seen in the ED are uninsured. Data was collected from a study in the Annals of Emergency Medicine (AEM) and published on line on the 14th of April 2008. The AEM study specifically looked at a rise in ED use over an eight year period from 1996 through 2004 to see if the rise in ED use was associated with insurance status. Their conclusions showed that while there was a rise in ED usage nationally during the study period it could not be solely attributed to medical indigence.
States bribed by CMS to turn away Emergency Department Patients.
Bribing healthcare organizations to screen patients presenting to an emergency department is not the way to control healthcare costs. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is doing just that though. As part of a multi-million dollar incentive to the states it wants to divert patients with “non-emergency” medical problems away from local emergency departments and point them to other resources within the community. The goal is to decrease the cost associated with seeking care in that emergency department. This care is typically more expensive than care provided by clinics or a primary care provider.
Patient Care or Market Share, Two seemly opposing forces.
Scott MacStravic over at World Healthcare Blog authored a great piece the other day regarding the physician shortage and the use of mid-level providers as a means of improving access to care. I wanted to take an opportunity to echo Scott’s comments with this subject.
Medical Tourism: Who really pays? Who really saves?
Periodically the news enlightens us with not so glamorous stories of individuals seeking medical care outside the borders of the United States (U.S.). These reports are usually about everyday people seeking cosmetic surgery, dental care, or some other medical treatment that they are unable to access in the U.S., usually due to the associated costs or their insurance status.
Emergency Dept, Outpatient Clinic, and Primary Care Provider visits on the rise.
Ambulatory healthcare utilization continues to rise. Physician office, emergency department, and outpatient clinic visits are all increasing. Statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics show that there were 1.2 billion patient visits to primary care provider (PCP) offices, hospital outpatient clinics, and emergency departments (ED) in 2005 (a rate of 4 visits per person annually). Visit rates per population have all increased over the past decade and continue to do so.
Prescribing exercise for improved health and well-being
There appears to be a linear relationship between physical activity and health status: up to a point, the more exercise you do, the healthier you are. There is evidence that exercise prevents and slows the progression of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, certain cancers, osteoporosis, depression, and dementia. And yet, 60% of Americans are inactive.
