why is the medical community so ass-backwards?

[arcessita]

Thanks to my fall, I have discovered that aside from diagnostic tools, the entire medical community has its technological head up its ass. The hospital can't talk to your doctor, the ambulance can't talk to the hospital, and two doctors' offices certainly can't talk to each other. Every single thing I have had to have done, no matter how simple,

Comments

[crashworks]

Here then the cause of spiralling health care costs... not because we spend less on health care or because insurance is worse or because diseases are worse... but because the whole medical industry is run by a bunch of bumbling feebs incapable of spelling the words "customer service".

[valjean]

Which is sad, because medicine is a customer service industry to begin with. A lot of the problems stem from 1)HIPAA, which prevents anyone not directly in patient care to discuss the case with anyone who needs to be without having the patient sign a release of information waiver; and 2) the fact that medicine is run by business and government; both of which, while finding it necessary to decide the entire construct of medical billing, manage to make it so confusing that it's almost impossible for the average person to make heads or tails of it. Case in point - Medicare Part D =)
Will it save the government money - probably; will it cause millions of people each year to go without medication - most certainly.

[crashworks]

I don't think it's just that medicine is a business, because there are lots of business that work well. I think it's because it's a business where there's no incentive for improved performance or efficiency, where there's no way for the customer to compare the quality of service provided here vs over there, and even if there were, often no realistic means for the consumer to even choose whom to patronize!

[valjean]

Oh - one last part to my rant - on top of the fact that business runs medicine these days, they find it necessary to make adjustments to the medical billing codes every year - adding, removing, and my personal favorite - changing.

[valjean]

I'm sorry you had to go through all that. Your doctor seems somewhat incompetent if he can't take staples out. ALL general practitioners can do that, all it takes are little wire clippers and a pair of forceps - then look at it and say - "that's healing well" and put a bandaid or some antibiotic cream for it. He's probably referring people out since he makes money on each referral. Most doctors' offices these days are still run with paper charts, and if you don't have a good staff, sadly a lof of things slip through the cracks. Some are switching over to an electronic medical record system, but installation, training, and conversion of charts from paper to electronic are all daunting tasks.

As for the ambulance - most of them don't really deal with insurance companies, since insurance isn't normally an emergent piece of information at the time - problem is, they don't ever go back for it either - they just send the bill with (often times without) a claim form.

[arcessita]

They told me he didn't have the right tools for that. I suspect that he decides not to buy the tools so that he can make more money from referrals and not have to do any work.

The sad thing is that my insurace company *does* have an electronic referral program, and my doctor's office just can't seem to use it properly.

It seems silly not to call the hospital for the information. I imagine they'd get paid quicker that way.

[terra_lily]

I'm so sorry. *hugs* :(

[arcessita]

::accepts:: Thanks. I'm getting to where I don't really care what's wrong with me anymore; I just don't want to have to go see any more doctors.