The US Healthcare "system"
Below is the text of a message I just posted at change.gov. They are asking for the opinions of ordinary American's on our healthcare system and what to do about it. Here you go:
I am an ER nurse in Denver and Boulder, CO. I have personal and professional experience with the woes of our healthcare system.
Personally, my girlfriend and I had been saving money to buy our first house together. All that money and more has since disappeared after my girlfriend had to have an emergency appendectomy while we were on vacation in Vermont.
The total bill came to $21,000. We were, of course, not worried because we are both nurses and have health insurance provided by the hospital we both work at. Well, we still haven't gotten a straight answer (4 months later) but it looks like our share of that bill will be anywhere from $4,000 to $14,000. The uncertainty is killing us, and it looks like the final bill will surely be more than we could have expected. We are just hoping she won't have to declare bankruptcy.
This is something that could have happened to anyone. Anyone can get appendicitis, and there is no treatment other than an emergent appendectomy. How can our economy survive when the average American can get hit with a $10,000 bill out of the clear blue sky? How do we save for a house or our (hypothetical) childrens' education?
Professionally, as an ER nurse, I see a lot of the wasted healthcare money firsthand. Well over half the patients I treat are using the Emergency Room inappropriately for minor or chronic complaints that could better be handled by a primary care provider or an urgent care clinic.
Some examples:
-Sore throats
-Mosquito bites
-High blood pressure (for months)
-Extremely minor trauma (like stubbed toes, bruises, etc.)
-I'm out of my meds for... diabetes, hypertension, etc.
People don't seem to realize or care that being seen in the emergency room is extremely expensive. Even worse, some people don't have any other options. ER's are required to see every patient that shows up, whereas urgent care clinics and primary care offices can pick and choose the patients with a means to pay them.
The solution to this problem is two fold:
1. Give every American access to primary care (by providing a means of payment).
2. Incentivize them to use their primary care by making it cheaper and easier to use than the Emergency Room.
I know those two things are very simple and extremely hard to implement at the same time, but the alternative is to continue wasting millions (billions?) of dollars on unnecessary Emergency Room care. This, of course, leads to the personal problem described above. The corporations that make up our healthcare system are not going to absorb those costs. They are going to push them onto the consumer.
Thank you for reading,
Climbingnurse, RN, BSN
I am an ER nurse in Denver and Boulder, CO. I have personal and professional experience with the woes of our healthcare system.
Personally, my girlfriend and I had been saving money to buy our first house together. All that money and more has since disappeared after my girlfriend had to have an emergency appendectomy while we were on vacation in Vermont.
The total bill came to $21,000. We were, of course, not worried because we are both nurses and have health insurance provided by the hospital we both work at. Well, we still haven't gotten a straight answer (4 months later) but it looks like our share of that bill will be anywhere from $4,000 to $14,000. The uncertainty is killing us, and it looks like the final bill will surely be more than we could have expected. We are just hoping she won't have to declare bankruptcy.
This is something that could have happened to anyone. Anyone can get appendicitis, and there is no treatment other than an emergent appendectomy. How can our economy survive when the average American can get hit with a $10,000 bill out of the clear blue sky? How do we save for a house or our (hypothetical) childrens' education?
Professionally, as an ER nurse, I see a lot of the wasted healthcare money firsthand. Well over half the patients I treat are using the Emergency Room inappropriately for minor or chronic complaints that could better be handled by a primary care provider or an urgent care clinic.
Some examples:
-Sore throats
-Mosquito bites
-High blood pressure (for months)
-Extremely minor trauma (like stubbed toes, bruises, etc.)
-I'm out of my meds for... diabetes, hypertension, etc.
People don't seem to realize or care that being seen in the emergency room is extremely expensive. Even worse, some people don't have any other options. ER's are required to see every patient that shows up, whereas urgent care clinics and primary care offices can pick and choose the patients with a means to pay them.
The solution to this problem is two fold:
1. Give every American access to primary care (by providing a means of payment).
2. Incentivize them to use their primary care by making it cheaper and easier to use than the Emergency Room.
I know those two things are very simple and extremely hard to implement at the same time, but the alternative is to continue wasting millions (billions?) of dollars on unnecessary Emergency Room care. This, of course, leads to the personal problem described above. The corporations that make up our healthcare system are not going to absorb those costs. They are going to push them onto the consumer.
Thank you for reading,
Climbingnurse, RN, BSN