Related: Sicko
So what's the problem?
"Patients to get a look at physicians' notes; Beth Israel study tests online access" by Liz Kowalczyk, Globe Staff | June 19, 2009
Even in Massachusetts, which has been a national leader in developing electronic medical records, many doctors say they are uncomfortable with the idea of sharing their notes. Of course, patients have a legal right to obtain their paper records, which usually include notes, but they often have to wait months to get copies and must pay a fee. Online access would be easy and immediate....
I don't want my records out there for the world to see so some tech company can make $$$ of the health bill!
And WHY do I have to PAY for MY OWN RECORDS, huh?
Dr. Lawrence Garber, medical director for informatics at Fallon Clinic in Worcester:
“I might write ‘Don’t forget to ask them about their visit to Spain.’ A certain magic happens at the next visit. The patient thinks, ‘How great, this doctor cares about me enough to ask about my trip.’ ’’
Pulling back the curtain, he said, might destroy that magic....
I got news for you, doc: it's already gone. We ain't idiots.
Of course, the EMRs are for OUR BENEFIT, right, 'murkns?
"Doctor builds Web care system; Clinics to feature e-mail, videochats with providers" by Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff | June 21, 2009
NEW YORK - Dr. Jay Parkinson talks about what ails the US healthcare system - skyrocketing costs, excessive use, bureaucracy - and why the cure is not the universal insurance, but rather “disruptive technology.’’
Which he will be benefiting from financially?
He means technology that jolts systems into making dramatic progress or the Facebook-style software he is developing for Hello Health, a national franchise of clinics he is building where patients can e-mail, text, or videochat with doctors over a secure website.
“We have in-person relationships with patients in our neighborhood, and we communicate the way we all communicate nowadays,’’ he says. Fast Company magazine has hailed the 33-year-old Parkinson as “The Doctor of the Future’’ because he aims to bring to medicine the kind of easy relationship to technology that most doctors have not yet embraced.....
Despite the lost magic, I'd rather go to the office.
I guess there is still something magical about a doctor's visit, hmmm?
The simplicity and visual appeal of demonstrations of the Hello Health software platform have made him a celebrity in the health technology world. Whether Hello Health will be able to live up to the hype remains in question....
I thought this was about US and OUR HEALTH, not SOME DOCTOR making DOLLARS?
Parkinson, who was trained as a pediatrician but no longer practices because he is working full time on developing the company, and Nat Findlay, the firm’s Canadian cofounder, are both optimistic about their chances.
Pfffft!
The Hello Health website, to be launched this summer, will give patients access to a secure website where they can exchange messages with their doctor in a blog-style format. Specialists could eventually join the conversation (imagine your family doctor meeting with your neurologist, and you get a written record of what everyone said.)
You already can get your records, you deceptive little s*** -- for a FEE!
In an early version, patients can pay bills, schedule appointments, or view medical records and lab results in a couple of clicks. At the Williamsburg practice, a quick visit with a doctor, in person or online, costs $100; more complex visits cost $200.
SCREW THAT! I'm not going to see that looter!
Simple e-mailed questions are covered under the $35 per month membership fee. Hello Health does not accept insurance, though patients who are insured can send the bills to their insurance company for reimbursement.
Why? So they can deny it?
Or so they can pump up this guy's profits with wasted $$$$?
He doesn't accept insurance!
Most insurers will not pay doctors for answering simple questions from patients by e-mail; reimbursement usually depends on an in-person office visit. Less than 20 percent of doctors e-mail their patients, and even fewer talk with them on Skype, said Steven Waldren, director of the Center for Health Information Technology of the American Academy of Family Physicians. “Right now, in most of the current insurance plans, all I can do is see you in the office. . . . That’s the only way to get reimbursed,’’ Waldren said.
I'm sorta sick o the agenda-pushing horse s*** at this point, readers. Sorry.
Medicare and some insurance companies have begun to provide incentives for using technology to improving quality, he said, but it is not anywhere near the same money as an office visit. Hello Health has invented “a financial model that allows them to step outside those constraints and experiment and innovate,’’ Waldren said.
Hello Health is targeting the small group of patients in the $2.5 trillion-a-year US healthcare industry who pay most of their bills in cash or by credit card, mostly those without insurance or with high-deductible plans.
Preying on the f***i.... !!!!
But Congress, as part of a massive health overhaul, is strongly considering a mandate that everyone have insurance. Parkinson says it doesn’t matter. The national shortage of primary care doctors is getting worse, because doctors are not paid enough and have too little time with patients. If everyone has to have insurance, waiting rooms will get more crowded, as they have in Massachusetts, he reasons. Thus, many people will be willing to pay up front for the convenience of being able to videochat or get a question answered by e-mail or just to get an appointment in a reasonable amount of time.
You know what is sick in this country? The "health care" INDUSTRY!
But even many of Hello Health’s admirers wonder about its prospects if a national health insurance program is adopted. Dr. Paul Heinzelmann, a primary care doctor from Boston, has closely watched the company’s development over the last year. He likes the technology and loves the focus on creating a better experience for primary care patients and doctors and is seriously considering using the Hello Health software platform in his part-time housecall practice. But he questions the business model.
“When health insurance is mandated, it’s more difficult to see how Hello Health can create a scalable model of healthcare and actually keep a doctor employed full time,’’ he said....
All that agenda-pushing print for nothing?
"Health data rights declaration gets push" by Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff | June 23, 2009
WASHINGTON - More than 30 bloggers from the medical, technology, and patient advocacy worlds are rallying to support patients’ right to obtain copies of their computerized health records from their doctors in the electronic format.
The Declaration of Health Data Rights - arriving just in time for Independence Day - says that patients should have the right to obtain “a complete copy of their individual health data, without delay, at minimal or no cost,’’ in computerized form, if it exists.
Federal law already entitles patients to easy, inexpensive access to their health records in whatever format they exist, said Deven McGraw, director of the Health Privacy Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology. Too often, she said, patients, doctors, and hospitals are not aware of the law.
We are now.
As more doctors and hospitals adopt electronic medical records systems with the $19 billion in subsidies Congress approved as part of the stimulus package, patients and their doctors need to have a clearer understanding of that right, McGraw said....
I TOLD YOU that the "stimulus" was STOLEN!
Some doctors worry that a patient asking for his or her records may be contemplating switching doctors or suing, and patients often feel too embarrassed to ask for information they have a right to see.
One of the bloggers participating in the rally....
How come he gets air time and I don't?
--more--"And when there is a boodle of loot to be had....
"Lawmakers push electronic medical files
Companies that make it easier for doctors to write prescriptions electronically would be eligible for a tax break under a bill being considered on Beacon Hill.
This f***ing state is going broke and yet they are dealing out more TAX BREAKS after RAISING OUR?
Also see: Public Loot For Private Projects
Massachusetts lawmakers have been pushing hospitals, doctors, and insurers to make the switch to electronic medical records-keeping. They say it could save millions in paperwork at a time when the state is trying to reign in healthcare costs. The bill, sponsored by Representative Peter J. Koutoujian, would give companies a tax break on the cost of the technology. The Waltham Democrat is also backing a bill giving tax breaks for sponsoring employee wellness programs. Both bills are scheduled to be discussed at a State House hearing Wednesday (AP)."
I'm going to need that health care after all the anal raping!
And LOOK who is making out on the deal:
"State helping to shape US efforts to digitize health records for all" by Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist | July 12, 2009
On the job this time is a posse of Massachusetts-based doctors, professors, entrepreneurs, and information technology experts from local hospitals and insurers, armed with $20 billion of stimulus money.
Pffft!
And local companies like Westborough-based eClinicalWorks Inc. and athenahealth Inc. of Watertown, which sell software and services to maintain electronic records, will be likely beneficiaries of that spending.
Cha-ching!
I'll bet YOU are feeling sick now, 'eh, American taxpayers?
“Massachusetts is like the Silicon Valley of healthcare information technology,’’ says Paul Egerman, who began writing medical records software in the early 1970s, after he took a job at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Then why is everything so f***ed up here?
Egerman went on to start one company, IDX Systems Corp., that was bought by General Electric for $1.2 billion, and another, eScription Inc., that was acquired by Nuance Communications Inc. last year for $363 million. He is now a volunteer adviser to David Blumenthal, the national coordinator for health information technology - and a former Harvard professor and Mass. General physician.
How did people and companies from Massachusetts become so influential in the roll-out of electronic medical records, or EMRs?
****************
Massachusetts won influence because Harvard economist David Cutler was the primary architect of candidate Barack Obama’s healthcare plan. “Cutler sort of dreamed up the idea of spending $50 billion or so on healthcare IT as part of Obama’s platform, when Obama wasn’t likely to win,’’ says David Williams, a consultant at MedPharma Partners in Boston. “That number became the basis for the dollars in the stimulus bill.’’
How's it feel to be LOOTED, American taxpayers? Better get to a doctor then.
The opportunity in creating electronic medical records for all is huge.
Yeah, about $20 BILLION worth of 'opportunity."
Imagine going to an emergency room while on vacation and granting the doctors there immediate access to your whole medical history (perhaps preventing them from spending thousands of dollars to duplicate tests you’ve already had).
I don't have to "imagine!" I can just go to CUBA!
The INSULTS are making ME sick, readers!
Of course, keeping these new records secure will pose a challenge, but medical errors and conflicting prescriptions would be reduced. And for the system as a whole, another big advantage is being able to look at how healthcare is practiced nationally - and determine whether there are more efficient (and possibly cheaper) ways to treat diabetes, for instance....
So WHO is going to MAKE $$$ off THAT, huh?
And on second thought, let's scrap the EMRs then!
Companies that sell services and software for EMRs have had to figure out how to generate revenues without the stimulus - though they agree it can’t hurt their business.
So the "stimulus" is NOT CREATING JOBS AFTER ALL!!!
It is being WASTED because NO JOBS are going to COME OUT of this!
It's all GOVERNMENT SPENDING and then DONE!!!!
Oh, America, it BREAKS MY HEART that you have been SO LOOTED!!!!!
EClinicalWorks software is already used by about 25,000 doctors, and the company brought in $100 million in revenue last year. The company is hiring about twice as quickly - roughly 200 people in 2009, mainly in areas like training and customer support - as it would be without the stimulus, according to Girish Navani, eClinicalWorks chief executive.
Then WTF did they "need" the TAX LOOT FOR?!!!!
The company also announced a surprising deal earlier this year to distribute its software to doctors in part through Sam’s Club, the discount retailer. A package of the software and Dell computers to run it starts at $25,000. “All of a sudden, doctors are talking about EMRs, and Barack Obama is giving them, essentially, a 20 percent-off sale price for the next four years,’’ says Jonathan Bush, chief executive of athenahealth.
Sigh. I'm getting sick on muh breakfast, world.
Athenahealth’s business today mainly involves helping doctors manage their billing and other back-office functions, but about 1,000 physician practices are using the publicly traded company’s EMR offering.
So when is HEALTH CARE going to be about HEALTH and NOT BUSINESS, hanh?
One concern about the deployment of EMRs is that the incentives might not prove appealing enough to most doctors, since they’ll still have to pay the up-front costs of the technology, and spend time learning it. And some worry that entering data into a patient’s record - rather than just writing on a paper chart - will slow them down.
They only one getting took in this country is YOU, taxpayers!!
Even if the Massachusetts brain trust can help Obama reach his goal of an EMR for every American, it may not have that much of a short-term impact on the country’s overall healthcare spending....
Translation; the SHITS LIED when they sid it would save us all this $$$!
In that way, it’s not too different from NASA’s voyages to the moon: the benefits have played out over decades....
Hmmmmmm: Fly Me To the Moon
“The big picture,’’ says Navani, “is truly transforming healthcare, rather than just spending a lot of money and not getting to our goal.’’
But if we can't get there, stuffing our pockets will make us healthy!
Related: Why Obama Wants A Health Care Bill This Year
