Medication Error (Me) Report Form: Fill & Download for Free

The fear is largely fueled by four things.A false assumption (with big political support) that a system based on universal coverage is the same thing as a single payer system. It isn't. Germany is a great example of a healthcare system with universal coverage and multi-payer (many of which are private insurance companies). We tend to lump the two together (single-payer and universal health coverage) because it’s convenient to argue a simple comparison than a more complex, nuanced one.A fear of "rationing" — which was set ablaze by Sarah Palin and her cavalier remarks about "death panels." The reality is that ALL healthcare (globally) is rationed - but systems from all the other industrialized countries start with “universal coverage.” Our system is largely based on who can afford to BUY health insurance — and if it's provided through employment (about 150 million Americans) you're chained to your employer for health benefits. It's artificial, but it's a great way to keep wages depressed because the employer is contributing to health benefits and getting a tax benefit at the same time. In other countries, employers make a contribution to the healthcare system, but those contributions accrue to the entire healthcare system — not just their own employees.An attitude and culture of what's loosely known as American Exceptional-ism. There is simply no other country on planet earth that can teach us anything. This was highlighted recently by The Commonwealth Fund report which ranked the U.S. “dead last” in comparison to 10 other countries. Our entire raison d'être is to be the world's beacon of shining success — in freedom, liberty, democracy and really everything (but especially technology). Healthcare is just assumed to be part of our “exceptionalism.”A fierce independence that has a really dark side. It took another Quora question to really help me see this one. The question was: Why do many Americans think that healthcare is not a right for its own taxpaying citizens, and should it not be considered as, or more, important by the American public than is education? Here's the #1 answer by Anon:The fundamental mythos of American culture, is that no matter how poor or humble your birth, you can through grit, spunk and hard work become wealthy and prosperous.On the face of it, and from the perspective of a class divided Europe, that seems incredibly noble and empowering. The idea that there is that much social mobility — that anyone can forge their own destiny is a powerful part of the American psyche. When it happens, it is an incredible thing. Something Americans can feel proud of.However, there is a dark side to this mythos. Which is this ... if anyone can win through hard work and effort, anyone who doesn't win, therefore deserves to be poor.At the core of all the anti-healthcare reform is the single concept "why should I pay for the healthcare of those losers.”Added together, these 4 things all contribute mightily to the runaway healthcare system we have today.Today — the National Healthcare Expenditure (NHE) for the USA is $3.5+ trillion per year (about 18% of our GDP) and it's growing at about 5% per year — for as far as the eye can see. The system we have is optimized around revenue and profits — not safety and quality (let alone equality). The lack of safety and quality is best highlighted by what’s known as “preventable medical errors. The number of those preventable medical errors leading to death? Somewhere between 210,000 and 440,000 — per year.How Many Die From Mistakes In U.S. Hospitals?That’s a really tough number to visualize — so it helps to add a visual context in the form of the biggest commercial aircraft carrier — the Airbus A-380.Now imagine that one of these crashed — every day — for a year. The industry (and world) would be so stunned that the whole fleet would be grounded on Day 2.Can we change this system it? Should we change it? Absolutely — but here's a 2 sentence quote on why that’s so hard:How many businesses do you know that want to cut their revenue in half? That’s why the healthcare industry won’t reform the healthcare industry. Florida Governor – Rick ScottThat "industry" — the U.S. healthcare industry — is best reflected in this single chart. It is both a global embarrassment and now, a perpetual national crisis.

Oh yes, I got proof in writing of medical error! When the worst happened I wasn’t shocked any more. By then I was used to it. When the doc presented his ‘diagnosis’ I told him that he was wrong, relaxed and bid my time. 3 months later I had the proof in form of a CT-scan + report with the correct diagnosis I predicted. The doc months before tried to get me onto a kind of cancer therapy that would have meant lots of money for him - and he was/still is a lecturer! Shocking - eh? -W

OQ: “As an American, would you like to switch your healthcare system to one like Canada?”I have lived and worked in both Canada and the US and this provides me with a unique perspective on the subject.My short answer is YES!!My protracted answer is as follows.EFFICIENCIESAs an Engineer I abhor inefficiencies and waste. The for profit healthcare system in the US is rife with inefficiencies and waste. Anyone who has used the healthcare system in the US is familiar with the mounds of paperwork that results from even a single visit to your PCP (family doctor). In any year you go for your yearly checkup and your doctor sends you for lab work and may also send you to a specialist. You naturally pay your Co-Pay at the doctor’s offices. The doctor’s office has uses a billing service or they directly code the visit and send their bill to your insurance. The Lab does the same thing. The specialist does the same thing. Your insurance reviews the bill and then applies there ‘discount’ (to arrive at the amount they will really pay for that service) and sends that back to the doctor and the lab and also sends you a copy (as an Explanation Of Benefits or EOB). After receiving the notification from your insurance, the doctor or the Lab will in turn send you a bill to cover what was denied by the insurer or what you owe as co-insurance or part of your out of pocket obligation. This process requires numerous people (including yourself) to handle or process the transaction. These activities add no value to the quality of your healthcare. This situation is a result of the multi-tiered, multi-payer system that we have in the US. This has led to specialized businesses evolving just to handle the volume of bills. Overall approximately 4% of the workforce in the US work in the field of healthcare billing. At last count there were over 44,000 jobs available in the US in medical billing and coding as posted on Indeed. United Health Group, the largest health insurance company in the US with a market share of 12.5%, alone has 270,000 employees with most of these working in the billing processing departments.VALUE - OR QUALITY HEALTHCARE AT AN AFFORDABLE PRICEAs a user of healthcare services I want to make sure that I get the best care for the money I (or the collective we because I pay taxes) spend on healthcare. I know that Doctors, Nurses Lab Techs etc. need to make a living and should get paid what they are worth. I know that hospitals and clinics need to be built. I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is purchasing health insurance and seeing a clear 25% going to insurance company operations, Management perks, Shareholders dividends and Corporate profits. That 25% does not include the costs for the billing departments of the hospitals, doctors and other health professionals. United Health Group as an example had 2017 revenues of $159 Billion from insurance premiums. It had operating costs of about $29 Billion (or about 19% of revenues) that included paying the 270,000 staff (a lot of who deal directly with the inefficient billing methods), rent, lease and purchase of buildings as well as Sr. Management wages and benefits including stock options. It had 5.25% net profit margin (after all expenses, taxes and dividends). It paid out to stockholders just shy of 2% of gross profits in dividends. So by paying my premiums I managed to support the life styles of both the Shareholders and Sr. Management and provide employment for people participating in the non-value added exercise of paper pushing. This number does not include the costs of the personnel working in the billing departments of hospitals and the doctors.In the US it is estimated that billing and bureaucracy accounts for one third (33%) of our healthcare costs. Compare this with just less than 2% in Canada.Just as a quick comparison, In Canada the average annual cost to provide healthcare is about $6600 CDN per person. In the US that number is close to $11,000 US per person. What do we get for that added cost? In the US we get a life expectancy 3 years shorter than in Canada. In the US we have a system where the 3rd leading cause of death is “Medical Error”. You get people that don’t go see a primary physician because they don’t want to incur the cost (or can’t afford it) and instead use the hospital emergency room as their doctor which has a twofold impact. The first is to drive the costs of healthcare even higher and the second effect is to put themselves at risk for not having their illness diagnosed when it may have been easily treatable if detected by a family doctor. Everyone I know in Canada has their family doctor that they go to when they are not feeling well and that leads to early detection and treatment of health issues.But you say, Canada has long waits for medical treatments. In the 42 years of living in Canada I have never personally encountered or personally know of a case where urgent medical treatment was not provided in a timely manner. By saying urgent medical treatment I mean both emergency treatment as well as timely treatments for illnesses. This is both emergencies resulting from cuts, bone breaks, vehicle accidents etc. as well as health issues that needed to be dealt with in a very timely manner like the time my daughter was diagnosed with cancer, or when my mother-in-law was diagnosed with leukemia or my mother was diagnosed with an enlarged heart. I can honestly say that any of the times that people I know of, either within our family or our circle of friends, were in need of medical treatments it was always provided in a timely manner resulting in positive outcomes. In cases where elective or non-life threatening procedures were needed, like my brother-in-law’s knee replacement or his hip replacement, or my sister-in-law’s rotator cuff repair or my sister’s gallbladder surgery, these conditions were managed until they were able to have them surgically resolved. They were also monitored to ensure that their conditions did not worsen to the point of becoming critical.Finally, I really don’t understand this bizarre system in the US where you are one paycheck away from not having healthcare coverage.SOCIAL AND MORAL IMPERATIVEIn a country that regards itself as a shining beacon of liberty and prosperity; where we believe we are the most free; where we claim to be companionate; but when it comes to healthcare we are so collectively selfish. Discussions around adopting a single payer system like Canada’s or for that matter any system other single priced system like what is available in all other developed countries people scream socialized healthcare is evil. The discussions devolve to the expression of ‘why should I pay for someone else’s healthcare that’s why I buy my healthcare insurance”. If that is the attitude then you really don’t understand insurance. This attitude continues even though you realize we could reduce our healthcare costs by 30% off the top by getting rid of this for profit system. By the way the total healthcare expenditure in the US in 2017 was somewhere north of $3 Trillion so 30% is somewhere in the order of $1 Trillion. The other argument is the wait times and ‘death panels’. Which is total bogus. My take on these discussions is simply that it is a case of spite.As for ‘death panels’; As a human being I regard even the thought of ‘medical death panels’ as evil. No one should have the right to decide who should live and who should die when people are faced with life threatening illnesses and there are treatments available. But wait you say, there are no death panels in the US. Well let me tell you about a friend of ours. Barb is a widower in her late 50s. My wife met Barb when they worked together and they became friends. Of course like everyone else in the US who is working for an employer who offers medical benefits, she signed up for and paid for health coverage. Over time Barb started to not feel well and went to the doctor. She was diagnosed with cancer. She started into a regime of radiation and chemotherapy. This took her away from her work so she used up all her sick time and vacation time. Once that happened her employer informed her that she no longer had a job. So now she has cancer, no job, no income and no health insurance. She cannot get insurance because she has cancer and she can’t get Medicaid without first ‘spending down’ all her savings including her retirement savings that her husband left for her. She is in the process of doing that but fears this will not be enough and even when she gets to the point of qualifying for Medicaid she will need to find a doctor who will accept Medicaid payments. To me this looks like a death sentence handed down by her employer and the insurance company. There is no reason on earth that this woman (or anyone like her) should be facing this situation other than for the greed of the US privatized healthcare industry.References:United Health Group 2017 Annual Report and Form 10K: https://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/investors/annual-reports.htmlCurrent quarterly financials for United Health Group from NYSE: https://www.nyse.com/quote/XNYS:UNHBilling and insurance-related administrative costs in United States’ health care: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4283267/Do we really spend a third of health care dollars on billing and bureaucracy? https://www.politifact.com/oregon/statements/2012/may/11/jennifer-williamson/do-we-really-spend-nearly-third-health-care-dollar/