Insurance Billing & Tort Reform: Link to the core issue.

The complaint that tort claims are the cause of spiralling health care costs is one of the biggest scams in decades.  I really encourage people to delve into this issue full throttle ahead so you get the cealr picture of what is driving the cost craziness.

It is insurance billing silly.

If the facts here are trustworthy then at $83,000 a year, an an average of 1.5 million doctors alone, not including other insurance billing providers, the extrapolated cost is something like $8,300,000,000 each year in add-on indirect costs to your health care.

Perhaps more members of CONgress should pay attention to real facts and not silly nonsense.

Health insurance paperwork costs doctors big money

By Andrew Doughman, Orlando Sentinel

August 4, 2011

Health insurance costs aren't just a patient concern. Dealing with health insurance paperwork costs American doctors an average of nearly $83,000 per year.

That's the cost of the time and labor it takes for physicians' employees to correspond with various insurance plans about claims, coverage and billing for patient care and prescription drugs.

The study, published Wednesday in the journal Health Affairs, found that Canadian physicians spend about a fourth as much as their American counterparts to complete their necessary paperwork.

Researchers surveyed physicians in Ontario, who said health insurance paperwork costs them an average of $22,205 a year.

In terms of time, paperwork takes an average of nearly 21 hours per week for American physicians versus slightly more than 2 hours per week on average for Canadian physicians.

"The major difference between the United States and Ontario is that non-physician staff members in the United States spend large amounts of time obtaining prior authorizations and on billing," wrote Dante Morra, an assistant professor from the University of Toronto.

American physicians must interact with many different insurers, which have different rules and methods for filing claims. They also must spend time obtaining authorization for certain medical procedures, which, the authors said, can ultimately save money and prevent doctors from giving inappropriate care.

The researchers from Cornell University and the University of Toronto concluded that American physicians and insurance companies could interact "much more efficiently" if claims were filed electronically rather than via mail or fax.

If American physicians had administrative costs that matched those of the Ontario doctors, physicians could save as much as $27.6 billion a year.

Canada has a single-payer health system, which means physicians are filing only one type of paperwork.

The study's authors also noted that these costs have to be weighed against positive factors such as competition between insurance providers and choices provided to consumers under the U.S. health system.

The researchers conducted their survey by pulling together data from several previous surveys and surveying 216 physicians in Ontario.

adoughman@tribune.com or 407-650-6333

Copyright © 2011, Orlando Sentinel

Selections from Natural Health News

Natural Health News: Cutting out the insurer

Aug 03, 2011

For those who don't get it or refuse to consider it, thrid party billing is more damaging to health care than tort reform: it is the root problem. By Doug Trapp, amednews staff. Aug. 1, 2011. ...

Patient Rights Under Attack Again

Feb 06, 2011

If you talk to people in the corporate world they say that tort reform is a movement to bring fairness and predictability to a legal system that they consider nothing short of a form of legalized extortion. ... So you believe tort ...

Natural Health News: REAL ISSUES AND TORT REFORM

Jun 18, 2007

If you talk to people in the corporate world they say that tort reform is a movement to bring fairness and predictability to a legal system that they consider nothing short of a form of legalized extortion. ...

Natural Health News: So you believe tort reform is necessary to ...

Sep 26, 2006

Tort reform is always the battle cry of those who want to put profits above health and human need. At no time have I ever received a reply when I asked hospital administrators (I used to be one) and government officials ...

Cutting out the insurer

While I am not a fan of the AMA in its current structure, I do think that the idea of eliminating Big Insurance is something whose time has come many years ago, but now AMA is noticing.  It is certainly long overdue.

This has been around in some parts of the country for a dozen or more years.  Doctors and patients like it.

For those who don't get it or refuse to consider it, thrid party billing is more damaging to health care than tort reform: it is the root problem.

By Doug Trapp, amednews staff. Aug. 1, 2011.

A small but enthusiastic minority of primary care physicians believe they have found a practice model that can save money, improve patients' long-term health and drastically reduce administrative hassles: direct primary care.

Direct primary care practices are an offshoot of the retainer care model, which provides unlimited or less-restricted access to physicians for a set fee. Under direct primary care, patients pay a monthly fee -- sometimes less than $100 -- for unlimited access to a range of primary care services, possibly as complex as minor surgeries and x-rays. Patients at these practices are encouraged to have basic health insurance to pay for specialist and hospital care, otherwise uninsured patients pay out of pocket for care outside the practice.  read more

Selection from Natural Health News

http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2011/03/insurance-fraud-big-phrma.html

http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2007/10/doctors-checking-out-early.html

http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2008/11/doctors-to-quit.html

Patient Rights Under Attack Again

UPDATE: 6/28/11 

This argument is taking a new disguise in hopes no one will notice.  

Remember, tort reform does not make health care more affordable or safer.

Last evening's HBO program about the efforts of the US Chamber of Commerce and their false flag effort to make you believe that tort reform will control health care costs was certainly eye opening, even for those who have been aware of the fraud for years.  This includes how a corrupt effort involving buying elections cost Justice Oliver Diaz his seat on the Mississippi bench.

 Big Insurance Profits
 Tort Reform and Corporate Greed
 Tort Reform Myth 
 Corporate Agenda to Destroy Civil Justice System 
 'Doctors Flee' Myth
 Karl Rove
 Karl Rove 2


In Attempt to Limit Patients’ Rights, Republicans Trot Out Tired - and False - Arguments About Medical Liability 

Statement of Christine Hines, Consumer and Civil Justice Counsel, Public Citizen

It’s telling that before the membership of the House Judiciary Committee for the 112th Congress was even finalized, incoming chair Lamar Smith (R-Texas) scheduled a hearing on medical liability. The new House leadership apparently can’t wait to get started in pushing forward draconian measures to limit patients’ rights. It is heeding its party’s talking points without noticing the facts.
Today’s hearing, creatively called “Medical Liability Reform - Cutting Costs, Spurring Investment, Creating Jobs,” will undoubtedly dig up the same old arguments trotted out in years past to support policies that would absolve negligent medical providers of responsibility for actions that injure or kill their patients.
Despite the fact that malpractice litigation and payments are at historic lows, according to the federal government’s National Practitioner Data Bank, proponents of limiting patients’ rights continue to incorrectly blame ideas like “runaway jury awards” and “defensive medicine” for the nation’s escalating health care costs.
Of all people, Chairman Smith should know that liability limits do not curb health care costs. For example, yesterday in a FoxNews.com editorial, Chairman Smith claimed that malpractice liability limits in Texas have been a success and that they reduced health care premiums in his home state. However, according to official U.S. Census Bureau data, the state’s uninsured rate and health insurance costs have more than doubled since the state’s liability reforms took effect in 2003. Further, closing the courthouse doors to patients in Texas has not alleviated expensive medical tests. The cost of diagnostic testing in Texas (measured by per patient Medicare reimbursements) has grown 50 percent faster than the national average. Texas’ liability system is clearly not the solution for the country, much less Texas.
Bailing out negligent doctors and limiting individual patients’ rights will neither save us money nor protect patients from harm.
###
Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.citizen.org.

Selections from Natural Health News -

Natural Health News: HIPAA: Privacy Still at Risk

Sep 22, 2010

But since that law doesnot require consent before health information is shared for most purposes (including treatment, payment, and health-care operations), the modifications will fail to truly protect health privacy rights. ... Rather than tinkering around the edges modifying the weak HIPAA privacy rule (as required by the stimulus law), it's time to call on Congress to change the law to ensure that patient consent is required before personal health information is shared ...

Health Links

Feb 09, 2009

HIPAA Facts *** HIPAA Patient Rights Information CODEX Alliance for Natural Health Diet and Lifestyle. American Health Freedom Doctor-Patient Confidentiality Relationship in Jeopardy. The economic stimulus bill, as currently written, ...

Surviving Mesothelioma

Mar 10, 2009

A chapter about patient's rights is included, which I cannot stress enough how important this is in today's mainstream medical venue. Reading each page in each chapter is uplifting, as well as providing good information. ...

REAL ISSUES AND TORT REFORM

Jun 16, 2007

If you talk to people in the corporate world they say that tort reform is a movement to bring fairness and predictability to a legal system that they consider nothing short of a form of legalized extortion. ...

So you believe tort reform is necessary to keep hea...

Sep 26, 2006

Tort reform is always the battle cry of those who want to put profits above health and human need. At no time have I ever received a reply when I asked hospital administrators (I used to be one) and government officials about the impact ...

Mixed Messages

Jul 15, 2007

It is really not tort reform that is needed but if you might dare to suggest the problems lie elsewhere than with trial attorneys, you might find yourself out of a job. I have a lot of answers, based on the fact that I have saved a ...

Doctors Checking Out Early

Oct 26, 2007

Tort reform was a gift from the Congress to the heavy betters (sharks)on the side of the industry, freely plying their trade. Maybe you know that as "payola" if you are at least a Baby Boomer, or a better description known as buying ...