And they told you that wouldn't happen!
"Health aid urged for low-wage workers; Advocates say wait until 2014 is unfair" by Kay Lazar, Globe Staff | June 20, 2010
Thousands of uninsured Massachusetts workers in low-wage jobs are ineligible for state-subsidized health coverage, but they will qualify for these low-cost plans under the new national health care overhaul — in 2014.
Now, some consumer advocates, arguing that the wait is unfair and a black eye for the state, want the Patrick administration and legislators to launch a program to cover at least part of this group. Administration officials, already facing huge budget deficits, say the state can’t afford the tens of millions of dollars it would cost to subsidize additional workers’ insurance.
But they can make tens of millions of dollars in interest payments to banks as well has taxpayer-funded checks sent to Hollywood -- to name a couple of state-sanctioned robberies as they can't cover your health bill.
The state’s landmark 2006 health insurance law was a model for the national legislation passed in March and has reduced the percentage of uninsured to under 4 percent of adults. But it did little for full-time workers whose employer offers health insurance they cannot afford. The law bars them from getting lower-priced coverage through the state, even if their pay is below levels that would otherwise make them eligible for state assistance....
But wars, banks, corporations, Israel, etc, all fully funded.
Related: Emergency room visits grow in Mass.
Think the two are related?
Let me call the doctor right now:
"A new practice: The doctor will see you today; Patients pleased with quick care" by Catherine Arnst, Kaiser Health News | July 14, 2010
I had to look at it twice.
Related: The Boston Globe's Ghostwriters
Yeah, it truly is a CORPORATE MOUTHPIECE posing as a newspaper!
WORCESTER — Dr. Dennis M. Dimitri, a family physician, runs a pretty unusual office. Few appointments are accepted in advance. Instead, patients call in the morning and are assigned a time slot later that day. Some patients walk in without calling ahead.
The outcome of this lack of advance planning? No one has to spend weeks trying to wrangle an appointment, and once patients arrive, they rarely wait more than a few minutes for the doctor.
That might seem mind-boggling to those who have cooled their heels for 30 minutes, or an hour, in their doctor’s reception room — after waiting weeks to get the appointment in the first place. It takes an average of 63 days in the Boston area to get an appointment with a family physician, according to a 2009 survey by physician recruiters Merritt Hawkins & Associates, and 20 days on average for the nation as a whole.
And the MSM criticizes the Canadians?
This is supposed to be the best AmeriKa has to offer?
Once in the door, patients around the country typically wait 20 minutes or more to see the doctor, the American Medical Association found.
One reason you avoid going if at all possible.
Those national waiting times are likely to become even longer when the health care overhaul extends insurance coverage to another 32 million people over the next several years. To help deal with this looming crisis, some health care specialists are urging doctors to discard their appointment books and, like Dimitri, move to mostly same-day visits, otherwise known as open-access scheduling....
The system works because of several simple factors. It reduces the number of patients who don’t show up for their appointments or who call in with an emergency and plead to be squeezed into an already full schedule. Both numbers can be high in a traditional practice, so doctors regularly overbook and then fall further and further behind.
Yeah, SOMEHOW it is ALWAYS YOUR FAULT no matter what it is, America!
Wherever fault the fault lies it is NOT the government's or industry in my newspaper!
Also, doctors using open access usually see patients at consistent 15-minute increments, rather than the more common 10-minute intervals. Not all appointments take the full 15 minutes, so the doctor has flexibility if one patient needs more time or there are emergencies.
Advocates say quality of care can also improve because patients’ problems are addressed immediately rather than weeks later. If a follow-up appointment is required, patients are told when to call and office staffers place reminder calls or e-mails to make sure the patient follows through.
The open access concept was developed 20 years ago in California by Dr. Mark Murray.
So what has taken so long?
“We had a huge access problem, with patients waiting forever to get an appointment and then waiting much too long in the office,’’ said Murray, who worked at a large managed care organization and hospital network. He started talking to industrial engineers and realized that the same process that keeps factories running in sync with their supplies can work for a medical practice.
Please, I am SICK of MEDICINE being a BU$INE$$!!
“You do today’s work today,’’ he said. Murray, who started his own consulting firm to promote the concept....
Oh, $o HE i$ MAKING a BUCK OFF THI$, huh?
A Globe and Kaiser COLLABORATION, huh?
I just canceled the appointment.
Also see: Worldwide Waiting Room
That's a joke, right?
