The Price We Pay

The Price We Pay PDF Author: Marty Makary
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1635574129
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
New York Times bestseller Business Book of the Year--Association of Business Journalists From the New York Times bestselling author comes an eye-opening, urgent look at America's broken health care system--and the people who are saving it--now with a new Afterword by the author. "A must-read for every American." --Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief, FORBES One in five Americans now has medical debt in collections and rising health care costs today threaten every small business in America. Dr. Makary, one of the nation's leading health care experts, travels across America and details why health care has become a bubble. Drawing from on-the-ground stories, his research, and his own experience, The Price We Pay paints a vivid picture of the business of medicine and its elusive money games in need of a serious shake-up. Dr. Makary shows how so much of health care spending goes to things that have nothing to do with health and what you can do about it. Dr. Makary challenges the medical establishment to remember medicine's noble heritage of caring for people when they are vulnerable. The Price We Pay offers a road map for everyday Americans and business leaders to get a better deal on their health care, and profiles the disruptors who are innovating medical care. The movement to restore medicine to its mission, Makary argues, is alive and well--a mission that can rebuild the public trust and save our country from the crushing cost of health care.

Care Without Coverage

Care Without Coverage PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309083435
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
Many Americans believe that people who lack health insurance somehow get the care they really need. Care Without Coverage examines the real consequences for adults who lack health insurance. The study presents findings in the areas of prevention and screening, cancer, chronic illness, hospital-based care, and general health status. The committee looked at the consequences of being uninsured for people suffering from cancer, diabetes, HIV infection and AIDS, heart and kidney disease, mental illness, traumatic injuries, and heart attacks. It focused on the roughly 30 million-one in seven-working-age Americans without health insurance. This group does not include the population over 65 that is covered by Medicare or the nearly 10 million children who are uninsured in this country. The main findings of the report are that working-age Americans without health insurance are more likely to receive too little medical care and receive it too late; be sicker and die sooner; and receive poorer care when they are in the hospital, even for acute situations like a motor vehicle crash.

Coverage Matters

Coverage Matters PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309076099
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
Roughly 40 million Americans have no health insurance, private or public, and the number has grown steadily over the past 25 years. Who are these children, women, and men, and why do they lack coverage for essential health care services? How does the system of insurance coverage in the U.S. operate, and where does it fail? The first of six Institute of Medicine reports that will examine in detail the consequences of having a large uninsured population, Coverage Matters: Insurance and Health Care, explores the myths and realities of who is uninsured, identifies social, economic, and policy factors that contribute to the situation, and describes the likelihood faced by members of various population groups of being uninsured. It serves as a guide to a broad range of issues related to the lack of insurance coverage in America and provides background data of use to policy makers and health services researchers.

The Healthcare Imperative

The Healthcare Imperative PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309144337
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 852

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Book Description
The United States has the highest per capita spending on health care of any industrialized nation but continually lags behind other nations in health care outcomes including life expectancy and infant mortality. National health expenditures are projected to exceed $2.5 trillion in 2009. Given healthcare's direct impact on the economy, there is a critical need to control health care spending. According to The Health Imperative: Lowering Costs and Improving Outcomes, the costs of health care have strained the federal budget, and negatively affected state governments, the private sector and individuals. Healthcare expenditures have restricted the ability of state and local governments to fund other priorities and have contributed to slowing growth in wages and jobs in the private sector. Moreover, the number of uninsured has risen from 45.7 million in 2007 to 46.3 million in 2008. The Health Imperative: Lowering Costs and Improving Outcomes identifies a number of factors driving expenditure growth including scientific uncertainty, perverse economic and practice incentives, system fragmentation, lack of patient involvement, and under-investment in population health. Experts discussed key levers for catalyzing transformation of the delivery system. A few included streamlined health insurance regulation, administrative simplification and clarification and quality and consistency in treatment. The book is an excellent guide for policymakers at all levels of government, as well as private sector healthcare workers.

For-Profit Enterprise in Health Care

For-Profit Enterprise in Health Care PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309036437
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 580

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Book Description
"[This book is] the most authoritative assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of recent trends toward the commercialization of health care," says Robert Pear of The New York Times. This major study by the Institute of Medicine examines virtually all aspects of for-profit health care in the United States, including the quality and availability of health care, the cost of medical care, access to financial capital, implications for education and research, and the fiduciary role of the physician. In addition to the report, the book contains 15 papers by experts in the field of for-profit health care covering a broad range of topicsâ€"from trends in the growth of major investor-owned hospital companies to the ethical issues in for-profit health care. "The report makes a lasting contribution to the health policy literature." â€"Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law.

Best Care at Lower Cost

Best Care at Lower Cost PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309282810
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 437

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Book Description
America's health care system has become too complex and costly to continue business as usual. Best Care at Lower Cost explains that inefficiencies, an overwhelming amount of data, and other economic and quality barriers hinder progress in improving health and threaten the nation's economic stability and global competitiveness. According to this report, the knowledge and tools exist to put the health system on the right course to achieve continuous improvement and better quality care at a lower cost. The costs of the system's current inefficiency underscore the urgent need for a systemwide transformation. About 30 percent of health spending in 2009-roughly $750 billion-was wasted on unnecessary services, excessive administrative costs, fraud, and other problems. Moreover, inefficiencies cause needless suffering. By one estimate, roughly 75,000 deaths might have been averted in 2005 if every state had delivered care at the quality level of the best performing state. This report states that the way health care providers currently train, practice, and learn new information cannot keep pace with the flood of research discoveries and technological advances. About 75 million Americans have more than one chronic condition, requiring coordination among multiple specialists and therapies, which can increase the potential for miscommunication, misdiagnosis, potentially conflicting interventions, and dangerous drug interactions. Best Care at Lower Cost emphasizes that a better use of data is a critical element of a continuously improving health system, such as mobile technologies and electronic health records that offer significant potential to capture and share health data better. In order for this to occur, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, IT developers, and standard-setting organizations should ensure that these systems are robust and interoperable. Clinicians and care organizations should fully adopt these technologies, and patients should be encouraged to use tools, such as personal health information portals, to actively engage in their care. This book is a call to action that will guide health care providers; administrators; caregivers; policy makers; health professionals; federal, state, and local government agencies; private and public health organizations; and educational institutions.

The Problem of Rising Health Care Costs

The Problem of Rising Health Care Costs PDF Author: Council on Wage and Price Stability (U.S.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Inflation (Finance)
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description


Rising Health Care Costs

Rising Health Care Costs PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Government publications
Languages : en
Pages : 116

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Book Description


Get What's Yours

Get What's Yours PDF Author: Laurence J. Kotlikoff
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476772290
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Learn the secrets to maximizing your Social Security benefits and earn up to thousands of dollars more each year with expert advice that you can't get anywhere else. Want to know how to navigate the forbidding maze of Social Security and emerge with the highest possible benefits? You could try reading all 2,728 rules of the Social Security system (and the thousands of explanations of these rules), but Kotlikoff, Moeller, and Solman explain Social Security benefits in an easy to understand and user-friendly style. What you don't know can seriously hurt you: wrong decisions about which Social Security benefits to apply for cost some individual retirees tens of thousands of dollars in lost income every year. How many retirees or those nearing retirement know about such Social Security options as file and suspend (apply for benefits and then don't take them)? Or start stop start (start benefits, stop them, then re-start them)? Or-just as important-when and how to use these techniques? Get What's Yours covers the most frequent benefit scenarios faced by married retired couples, by divorced retirees, by widows and widowers, among others. It explains what to do if you're a retired parent of dependent children, disabled, or an eligible beneficiary who continues to work, and how to plan wisely before retirement. It addresses the tax consequences of your choices, as well as the financial implications for other investments. Many personal finance books briefly address Social Security, but none offers the thorough, authoritative, yet conversational analysis found here. You've paid all your working life for these benefits. Now, get what's yours.

Health-Care Utilization as a Proxy in Disability Determination

Health-Care Utilization as a Proxy in Disability Determination PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 030946921X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
The Social Security Administration (SSA) administers two programs that provide benefits based on disability: the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. This report analyzes health care utilizations as they relate to impairment severity and SSA's definition of disability. Health Care Utilization as a Proxy in Disability Determination identifies types of utilizations that might be good proxies for "listing-level" severity; that is, what represents an impairment, or combination of impairments, that are severe enough to prevent a person from doing any gainful activity, regardless of age, education, or work experience.

Understanding Value Based Healthcare

Understanding Value Based Healthcare PDF Author: Vineet Arora
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
ISBN: 007181700X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
Provide outstanding healthcare while keeping within budget with this comprehensive, engagingly written guide Understanding Value-Based Healthcare is a succinct, interestingly written primer on the core issues involved in maximizing the efficacy and outcomes of medical care when cost is a factor in the decision-making process. Written by internationally recognized experts on cost- and value-based healthcare, this timely book delivers practical and clinically focused guidance on one of the most debated topics in medicine and medicine administration today. Understanding Value-Based Healthcare is divided into three sections: Section 1 Introduction to Value in Healthcare lays the groundwork for understanding this complex topic. Coverage includes the current state of healthcare costs and waste in the USA, the challenges of understanding healthcare pricing, ethics of cost-conscious care, and more. Section 2 Causes of Waste covers important issues such as variation in resource utilization, the role of technology diffusion, lost opportunities to deliver value, and barriers to providing high-value care. Section 3 Solutions and Tools discusses teaching cost awareness and evidence-based medicine, the role of patients, high-value medication prescribing, screening and prevention, incentives, and implementing value-based initiatives. The authors include valuable case studies within each chapter to demonstrate how the material relates to real-world situations faced by clinicians on a daily basis. .