injured woman pleads "dont call an ambulance"
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Irish Exit
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About $850/person is the starting price for most ambulance calls. The volunteer service only really bills for on the job and car accidents when they think insurance might pay out. Otherwise they don't really pursue it. They are the ones you hope come anyway when you call 911 because they have mad skills, and are well-trained and equiped and staffed and are usually met on scene if not beaten to the scene by the fire department first repsonders. Top notch folks. If they send either of the 2 for profit services, you are getting billed and they will sue your ass in a heartbeat and they just show up eventually when they think it is an easy call or the volunteers are unavailable. A ride-share service would likely get there as quickly and have about the same level of training as those folks.
A whirly bird ride to the nearest Level 1 trauma center will set you back between $7,500 and $10K so you really don't want to get on one of those if at all possible.
A whirly bird ride to the nearest Level 1 trauma center will set you back between $7,500 and $10K so you really don't want to get on one of those if at all possible.
Irish Exit
Verified User
If you never bill them, a lot of people will call 911 for the free ride to the ER plus getting to jump ahead of the waiting room line to come in by transport. Was told it used to be a big problem in our area until the for-profits got added into the mix and started suing these people when they didn't pay up.
Mason Michaels
Verified User
"Capitalism is like a dead herring in the moonlight,it shines but it stinks" .
Universal medical care is way over due. it is amazing that Repubs and the medical system has taught us we don't need it. And we buy that,. How can we be so stupid.? A huge chunk of the money comes from ending the the VA. We wont pay for medical at work. All that finances medical care.
My 7-minute helicopter trip to a Level 1 trauma center in 2003 was $5,600. I had had a ruptured brain aneurysm and brain bleed, so it was necessary. Fortunately the health care system back then wasn't as jacked up as it is now, and my insurance paid for everything (including the $100K+ 3-week hospital stay) except for a $250 co-pay. I hate to think what that would cost now since that type of insurance plan is no longer available except to the very wealthy.
Irish Exit
Verified User
The billed charges for me gramps' AAA about 10 years ago was over $500K (I think $587K or therebouts). He was in hospital for 5 weeks. IIRC, medicare paid Duke around $90K (don't recall what they paid the other providers) and his out of pockets were less than $4K. They wouldn't airlift him though as Duke said the vibration alone would blow out his aorta. The ground transport was around $1400 and he had to pay $200 of that out of pocket. His ruptured as soon as they opened him up. If it had happened any sooner, he would have bled out in a matter of a couple minutes.
Wow, that's incredible -- both the cost and the fact that he escaped death by a hair. Is he still with us?
Irish Exit
Verified User
Nope. It was a bit of a weird story but basically they found it originally by accident when a ultrasound tech randomly placed the wand right over it when they were pulling their chair up to test somewhere else and spotted it out of the corner of their eye as they were getting prepared. They originally did an EVAR repair, but the stent dislodged and moved closer up to his heart a few years after which caused the massive aneurysm that ruptured on the table. Part of the reason he stayed in so long was he had some major sundowning after the big emergency surgery. When I took him there for gallstones a couple years later since our hospital surgery wouldn't touch him after the EVAR, this hot young surgical resident came in and said, "I'm not here to see you at all, but I couldn't resist coming in just to meet you. You are a legendary patient around here. Everybody knows your story."
Anyway, he died of a late diagnosed cancer about 4 years or so ago.
Loving91390
Verified User
Ya .... Thanks Obama !!
My condolences. You come from good stock! Happy 4th to you and yours.
Irish Exit
Verified User
Oh no need. He was a tough old bird and was ready to go. More like stubborn stock. I always say he lived the last 10 years off pure spite
Anyway, the John Ross renegade injun part of my DNA has never made the 4th something most folks in my family gets emotionally invested in. It is a far more melancholy thing if you think too much about the history of it. I relate to blacks who refuse to celebrate the 4th in that sense (plus it sucks when it is in the middle of the week) but Happy 4th of July to you.
We don't need it. At least I don't need it. I pay nothing for my premiums, very little for my family, and my out of pocket max/year is $1000. Since I don't give a fuck about you and whether or not you have it, that's where it ends with my concern.
My insurance is much like that now and I'm not in the "very wealthy" group.
As far as a helicopter ride to anywhere, I also have a supplemental policy for that. It costs me $65/year and it cover my entire family.
For those that won't pay, it is free for them. It costs the rest of us.
Fentoine Lum
Verified User
Surely you jest, ours is the bestest ever, why, it is american after all.
New York, N.Y., October 8, 2015 — The U.S. spent more per person on health care than 12 other high-income nations in 2013, while seeing the lowest life expectancy and some of the worst health outcomes among this group, according to a Commonwealth Fund report out today. The analysis shows that in the U.S., which spent an average of $9,086 per person annually, life expectancy was 78.8 years. Switzerland, the second-highest-spending country, spent $6,325 per person and had a life expectancy of 82.9 years. Mortality rates for cancer were among the lowest in the U.S., but rates of chronic conditions, obesity, and infant mortality were higher than those abroad.
“Time and again, we see evidence that the amount of money we spend on health care in this country is not gaining us comparable health benefits,” said Commonwealth Fund President David Blumenthal, M.D. “We have to look at the root causes of this disconnect and invest our health care dollars in ways that will allow us to live longer while enjoying better health and greater productivity.”
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/pub...spends-more-on-health-care-than-other-nations
U.S. Healthcare Ranked Dead Last Compared To 10 Other Countries
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danmun...-compared-to-10-other-countries/#486bbd6f576f
Major Findings
• Quality: The indicators of quality were grouped into four categories: effective care, safe care, coordinated care, and patient-centered care. Compared with the other 10 countries, the U.S. fares best on provision and receipt of preventive and patient-centered care. While there has been some improvement in recent years, lower scores on safe and coordinated care pull the overall U.S. quality score down. Continued adoption of health information technology should enhance the ability of U.S. physicians to identify, monitor, and coordinate care for their patients, particularly those with chronic conditions.
• Access: Not surprisingly—given the absence of universal coverage—people in the U.S. go without needed health care because of cost more often than people do in the other countries. Americans were the most likely to say they had access problems related to cost. Patients in the U.S. have rapid access to specialized health care services; however, they are less likely to report rapid access to primary care than people in leading countries in the study. In other countries, like Canada, patients have little to no financial burden, but experience wait times for such specialized services. There is a frequent misperception that trade-offs between universal coverage and timely access to specialized services are inevitable; however, the Netherlands, U.K., and Germany provide universal coverage with low out-of-pocket costs while maintaining quick access to specialty services.
• Efficiency: On indicators of efficiency, the U.S. ranks last among the 11 countries, with the U.K. and Sweden ranking first and second, respectively. The U.S. has poor performance on measures of national health expenditures and administrative costs as well as on measures of administrative hassles, avoidable emergency room use, and duplicative medical testing. Sicker survey respondents in the U.K. and France are less likely to visit the emergency room for a condition that could have been treated by a regular doctor, had one been available.
• Equity: The U.S. ranks a clear last on measures of equity. Americans with below-average incomes were much more likely than their counterparts in other countries to report not visiting a physician when sick; not getting a recommended test, treatment, or follow-up care; or not filling a prescription or skipping doses when needed because of costs. On each of these indicators, one-third or more lower-income adults in the U.S. said they went without needed care because of costs in the past year.
• Healthy lives: The U.S. ranks last overall with poor scores on all three indicators of healthy lives—mortality amenable to medical care, infant mortality, and healthy life expectancy at age 60. The U.S. and U.K. had much higher death rates in 2007 from conditions amenable to medical care than some of the other countries, e.g., rates 25 percent to 50 percent higher than Australia and Sweden. Overall, France, Sweden, and Switzerland rank highest on healthy lives.
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2014/jun/mirror-mirror
No other advanced country even comes close to the United States in annual spending on health care, but plenty of those other countries see much better outcomes in their citizens' actual health overall.
A new Commonwealth Fund report released Thursday underscored that point — yet again — with an analysis that ranks 13 high-income nations on their overall health spending, use of medical services, prices and health outcomes.
The study data, which is from 2013, predates the full implementation of Obamacare, which took place in 2014. Obamacare is designed to increase health coverage for Americans and stem the rise in health-care costs.
The findings indicate that despite spending well in excess of the rate of any other of those countries in 2013, the United States achieved worse outcomes when it comes to rates of chronic conditions, obesity and infant mortality.
One rare bright spot for the U.S., however, is that its mortality rate for cancer is among the lowest out of the 13 countries, and that cancer rates fell faster between 1995 and 2007 than in other countries.
"Time and again, we see evidence that the amount of money we spend on health care in this country is not gaining us comparable health benefits," said Dr. David Blumenthal, president of the Commonwealth Fund. "We have to look at the root causes of this disconnect and invest our health-care dollars in ways that will allow us to live longer while enjoying better health and greater productivity."
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/08/us-health-care-spending-is-high-results-arenot-so-good.html
Ranking 37th — Measuring the Performance of the U.S. Health Care System
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0910064#t=article
Health Care Outcomes in States Influenced by Coverage, Disparities
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-st...-in-states-influenced-by-coverage-disparities
One explanation for the health disadvantage of the United States relative to other high-income countries might be deficiencies in health services. Although the United States is renowned for its leadership in biomedical research, its cutting-edge medical technology, and its hospitals and specialists, problems with ensuring Americans’ access to the system and providing quality care have been a long-standing concern of policy makers and the public (Berwick et al., 2008; Brook, 2011b; Fineberg, 2012). Higher mortality rates from diseases, and even from transportation-related injuries and homicides, may be traceable in part to failings in the health care system.
The United States stands out from many other countries in not offering universal health insurance coverage. In 2010, 50 million people (16 percent of the U.S. population) were uninsured (DeNavas-Walt et al., 2011). Access to health care services, particularly in rural and frontier communities or disadvantaged urban centers, is often limited. The United States has a relatively weak foundation for primary care and a shortage of family physicians (American Academy of Family Physicians, 2009; Grumbach et al., 2009; Macinko et al., 2007; Sandy et al., 2009). Many Americans rely on emergency departments for acute, chronic, and even preventive care (Institute of Medicine, 2007a; Schoen et al., 2009b, 2011). Cost sharing is common in the United States, and high out-of-pocket expenses make health care services, pharmaceuticals, and medical supplies increasingly unaffordable (Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance System, 2011; Karaca-Mandic et al., 2012). In 2011, one-third of American households reported problems paying medical bills (Cohen et al., 2012), a problem that seems to have worsened in recent years (Himmelstein et al., 2009). Health insurance premiums are consuming an increasing proportion of U.S. household income (Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance System, 2011).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK154484/
Once again, U.S. has most expensive, least effective health care system in survey
A report released Monday by a respected think tank ranks the United States dead last in the quality of its health-care system when compared with 10 other western, industrialized nations, the same spot it occupied in four previous studies by the same organization. Not only did the U.S. fail to move up between 2004 and 2014 -- as other nations did with concerted effort and significant reforms -- it also has maintained this dubious distinction while spending far more per capita ($8,508) on health care than Norway ($5,669), which has the second most expensive system.
"Although the U.S. spends more on health care than any other country and has the highest proportion of specialist physicians, survey findings indicate that from the patients’ perspective, and based on outcome indicators, the performance of American health care is severely lacking," the Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based foundation that promotes improved health care, concluded in its extensive analysis. The charts in this post are from the report.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...care-system-in-survey/?utm_term=.3bea55276072
US healthcare system ranks 50th out of 55 countries for efficiency
http://www.beckershospitalreview.co...-50th-out-of-55-countries-for-efficiency.html
The U.S. healthcare system notched another dubious honor in a new comparison of its quality to the systems of 10 other developed countries: its rank was dead last.
The new study by the Commonwealth Fund ranks the U.S. against seven wealthy European countries and Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It's a follow-up of previous surveys published in 2010, 2007, 2006 and 2004, in all of which the U.S. also ranked last.
Although the U.S. ranked in the middle of the pack on measures of effectiveness, safety and coordination of care, it ranked dead last on access and cost, by a sufficient margin to rank dead last overall. The breakdowns are in the chart above.
Conservative pundits hastened to explain away these results after the report was published. See Aaron Carroll for a gloss on the "zombie arguments" put forth against the clear evidence that the U.S. system falls short.
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-the-us-healthcare-system-20140617-column.html
U.S. Health Care Ranked Worst in the Developed World
http://time.com/2888403/u-s-health-care-ranked-worst-in-the-developed-world/
Fentoine Lum
Verified User