This healthcare thread is amazing, I want to meet you all.
I analyzed hospital price lists so you didn't have to
231–240 of 403 posts
Re: I analyzed hospital price lists so you didn't have to
#232Wrote Hacking Healthcare for O'Reilly, created ClearHealth/HealthCloud open source EMR, managed health systems for 15+ years, blah, blah, blah. It is very good there is are the transparency regulations. It is worth briefly explaining some of the reasons why many facitilities are having a hard time complying. There are some bad actors, absolutely true. However "Hanlons Razor" -- never attribute to malice that which is…
When modernizing processes becomes too hard, it is almost always a sign for the processes being way too complex and needing a complete overhaul.
US healthcare billing certainly could benefit from a massive simplification, and the reason of the success of neobanks/fintech is the same: they always started from green fields and didn't have to fight internal politics battles to change a data entry mask.
Re: I analyzed hospital price lists so you didn't have to
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just got billed $5000 for a routine echocardiogram at Stanford, and in the process of fighting it. My insurance is supposed to cover preventative care 100% (not even a copay). They billed $18000 total (yes, for a 1-hour ultrasound) and insurance is leaving me to pay $5000. This is about the 6th time this has happened. It's always 15+ e-mails back and forth, then threatening lawyers, then they back off. I'm wonderin…
I'm from Germany and just recently got a preventative coloscopie. I'm not 50 years old yet, so I had to pay for it myself. A magical experience, since it's the first time I ever saw a medical bill in my life. It was two pages long. Everything from taking blood to the medication and doctor was listed there, but the price at the end was only 200€. I thought it was a joke and expected a lot more.
Imagine the fact it would be cheaper to take a plane trip to Germany, also account for lost hourly work cost that takes out of your work schedule, and still be cheaper than doing it locally.
Re: I analyzed hospital price lists so you didn't have to
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the solution to most social ills in America is to simply not be poor American healthcare works well if you have money and better than anywhere else in the world if you have money and a chronic condition. If you get in an accident, however, particularly while away from your posh neighbourhood, you’re getting the same overworked, hyper-indebted surgeon as the homeless man. (If you’re a billionaire or head of state, t…
Disagree. A friend who had dual citizenship moved from Canada to the US because Medicaid covered her kids rare disease drug but Canada didn’t. Medicaid is actually very good coverage.
With rare diseases this is always the case. Here in NW Europe we have the same issue with some one in a million diseases. The main issue is the insane prices charged by the companies to recouperate in a few years time to appease shareholders instead of several decades, which results in the cold truth it is not worth the effort looking at the grand scheme of things.
Re: I analyzed hospital price lists so you didn't have to
#235I live in England so I don't have to either.
Re: I analyzed hospital price lists so you didn't have to
#236I did it for the UK. It didn’t take long :-)
Re: I analyzed hospital price lists so you didn't have to
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are multiple free DICOM readers, but each imaging device manufacturer has its own interpretation of what a "DICOM" file is, so there are a lot of quirks.
I've worked with DICOM files from at least 10 different sources. I was able to eventually parse/view all of them. I seem to remember trying almost as many open source libraries in the process, however. That's one of the many problems in healthcare - even the standards have competing standards.
All standards have competing standards unless actual interop happens.
Re: I analyzed hospital price lists so you didn't have to
#238Wrote Hacking Healthcare for O'Reilly, created ClearHealth/HealthCloud open source EMR, managed health systems for 15+ years, blah, blah, blah. It is very good there is are the transparency regulations. It is worth briefly explaining some of the reasons why many facitilities are having a hard time complying. There are some bad actors, absolutely true. However "Hanlons Razor" -- never attribute to malice that which is…
Interesting, thank you. One remark:
> Modernization is hard, time consuming and very expensive. These regulations are a good driver for all that, but it takes time. Having been in some of these boardrooms there is not typically a cartel of evil executives figuring out how to screw patients. A lot of the time it is a group of relatively normal people trying to hold up a technological and business process house of cards with chewing gum, paper clips and hope.
It bears questioning how, in ”the richest country on Earth”, something as important as a hospital ends up held together with spit and twine.
Inside this richest country, the richest individuals and companies have been capturing ever-larger shares of GDP. Perhaps instead of growing private fortunes, this money could have gone towards modernising these regulated industries?
Re: I analyzed hospital price lists so you didn't have to
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes! My salary is twice the local average and still worry a medical event could wipeout my life savings.
There are annual out of pocket maximums. Mine is something like $7000 last I checked. Its a lot of money, but not an amount that would bankrupt most people.
I always wonder about those. Are they real? Or will insurance companies find exclusions or ways to mark things as out of network and the maximums don't apply?
Re: I analyzed hospital price lists so you didn't have to
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Everyone is deathly afraid of making too many changes too fast because when those systems break the money stops flowing and a health system will literally go insolvent. Isn't this the desired outcome, that such organizations go broke? And let their assets, employees and customers go to some other organization that isn't saddled with technical debt?
The code looks like this: ``` I X?1.N1"H" S X=X 3600,%H=$H,@("X=$P(%H,"","",2)"_Y_X),%=$S(X 2-1 I @("%I(1)*100+%I(2)"_$E("> I mean, I can see why reimplementing could be scary even with org churn.
What language is it?