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| quote: | Originally posted by NeoPhono
Well, it's also bankrupt and cutting its payments for healthcare by about 8% a year. In fact, in the field of oncology, medicare has cut its payments for chemo therapy to 85% of the wholesale value for the medications. Doctors have to over-charge, or eat the costs themselves for the drugs required by patients because medicare won't cover the full cost for them. You also have to take into account the administrative costs to hospitals for working with medicare and medicare patients, which I would say are triple what a normal HMO costs, simply due to the paperwork involved (110,000 page diagnosis coding book for example!!!)
Thanks for the kind words. It's kind of funny, because in normal "chit chat," I'm always asked where I work. Suffice to say, as soon as I say "with cancer patients," the conversation abruptly ends. It doesn't seem to be a topic most want to talk about. It has some very difficult moments, but if you can totally seperate yourself from work when you're not there, you'll be okay. There have been a number of nurses I work with that have had complete breakdowns because they haven't been able to. Seeing death and suffering every day is challenging, but it gives a great perspective on life, but a horrible fear of ending up in a position similar to the ones I see.
FYI, here is where I work. http://www.jamesline.com/ |
True the financial numbers of Medicare aren't adding up right now and it is estimated by the Medicare Trustees to go broke in 2019. It needs some shoring up, but the administrative costs will not reach near the levels of HMOs, nor include profit margin. Medicare funding has been hurt greatly because the costs of technology and needs of patients have gone up while the pertcentage of medicare paid by workers and their employers have not gone up since 1985. It also has to do in part with some of the changes made in the Medicare Reform Act of 2003, which mandates managed care in many instances, which is at a greater cost. The higher costs for tchnology, increased patient needs and the aging of the baby boom generation will all add to HMO costs as well.
My background in healthcare came for 1 1/2 years when I was doing social work at a nursing home when I took some time off from school. The nursing home was basically divided into two wings on each floor, one private pay, one medicare/public aid. Naturally lots of people eventually moved from the private pay side to the other, as their money ran out as they were there for long term care and so I was able to see a difference in the care they received. People paying privately or through insurance did not receive the same amount of care, because that is where overworked staff chose to cut corners, because the other wing had government mandated goals, procedures, etc. that had to be met and extensively documented. I know all too well that the documentation can get overwhelming,as I went through much of it myself, at least on the social aspects, so I think that funding would have to be met to provide staff for the level of paperwork, but I think there would be a significant increase in the quality of care, though I realize not everyone would agree.
I'm gonna go watch the 2nd half of the Colts/Pats game, but I'll definitely check out the link tonight. I dealt on a very limited basis with some elderly people dying of cancer and it was pretty rough just seeing them a few times a week and not knowing if you'd see them again after a couple days off.
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