Comments on: Doctor? Doctor? Are you there, Doctor?

By: Andrew Hardin

Andrew Hardin — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 13:40:00 +0000

One of the best stop gap measures, that will at least buy us some time, is to encourage greater use of Physician Assistants and Nurse Practitioners. The training time for these professions is significantly shorter, and could expand the pool of medical providers rather rapidly. Not every sniffle someone has needs an actual MD, and adding more of these roles will create a triage process to maximize the effective use of the MD’s time to those patients who cannot be handled by a lower level of care.

By: JLM

JLM — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 23:51:00 +0000

In reply to Tom Bakalis.

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Right, you are, Tom.

The biggest missed opportunity was tort reform. Tx had it enacted and it has worked as advertised.

BRC
.

By: Tom Bakalis

Tom Bakalis — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 22:56:00 +0000

In reply to JLM. The other issue is that due to the fear of malpractice lawsuits doctors are practicing defensive medicine. Primary care physicians send patients to specialists and for more tests than really necessary in order to cover their bases in case of a lawsuit. This contributes to the rising cost of care in a significant way. Simpler diagnosis did exist in days past. I don't think video medicine or even a return to simpler diagnosis can occur until doctors feel less at risk.

By: William Mougayar

William Mougayar — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 22:41:00 +0000

In reply to JLM. Yes, that will cut down costs. Also, a number of healthcare related startups are working on ways to tackle early self-diagnosis and self-monitoring.

By: JLM

JLM — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 20:14:00 +0000

In reply to William Mougayar.

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We need prescribing senior nurses and primary care providers who can deliver diagnosis — simple diagnosis — via video. We need a splash of video medicine.

BRC
.

By: pointsnfigures

pointsnfigures — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 20:01:00 +0000

We need commoditized tech to redeploy doctors. For example, we can build machines to replace anesthesiologists and many radiologists. We can use predictive analytics to diagnose things before they happen using electronic data. But, Obamacare or any other health care program isn’t encouraging that.

By: William Mougayar

William Mougayar — Sat, 09 Nov 2013 17:37:00 +0000

Another factor when discussing doctors is the ratio of specialists vs. general practioners/family doctors. I don’t recall the exact numbers, but I think the US has a large % of Specialists, and US patients tend to see a specialist a lot faster than otherwise.

As you well know, specialist care costs a lot more. So, part of curbing healthcare costs is to have the right balance of GP/Specialists and encourage more preventative, earlier type of care which is cheaper, and to not always run to the specialist.