Obama Stimulus Package Will Not Save Money on Health Care

[Guest guest]

THE OBAMA STIMULUS PACKAGE WILL NOT SAVE MONEY ON HEALTH CARE

 

The Obama stimulus package includes $20 billion to help convert all

medical records to electronic. Now I ask, why does the government

have to spend a single cent, when all they have to do is to mandate

this change? Who gets the money? President Bush has already

encouraged a mandate to do this very thing: convert to electronic

records by 2014. And so all medical and other health offices are

being encouraged, and even threatened, to convert. The threat is

that if doctors do not convert they can be fined heavily or jailed

for insurance fraud. It is considered fraud if a doctor uses an

incorrect diagnosis code or treatment code, or if a procedure is not

documented properly. We are swimming in a sea of legalism and to the

devil with the quality of care. So doctors are told this conversion

is a must. They are lead to feel that they are in the minority if

they aren't already electronic, when in fact only 17% of medical

offices are on electronic records. Doctors are either intimidated or

sick of this nonsense. It is my contention that going to electronic

records potentially violates privacy of information between patient

and doctor. Furthermore, it costs thousands of dollars for just one

small doctor's office to convert. My suggestion is for insurance

companies to give the poor doctors credit for being honest. Of

course they aren't all honest, but going electronic doesn't make them

so, and only deepens the distrust between health care providers and

third party payers. Then when electronic records are used, they all

look the same. A report from a doctor's office on one patient looks

like his report on hundreds of his other patients. The insurance

adjusters look at this and think, " What bunk! " So this is the answer

to handwriting by physicians that insurance clerks cannot read? Yes

but no. But it won't save money or improve health care.

 

Another proposal in the Obama economic stimulus package is to

encourage the use of more technology in medicine and research. I

have long held the belief that, to lower the astronomical costs of

health care, doctors need to rely less on technology and more on good

listening and physical diagnostic skills. Most diagnoses can be made

from a good case history. These lab and high-tech tests are

tremendously expensive. Also, prevention is much cheaper and

effective than medical care. I would encourage that natural

medicine be tried before the more expensive and invasive medical

techniques.

 

William P. Kotheimer, D.C.