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Insurers rely on doctors whose judgments have been criticized by courts

propublica.org

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Re: Insurers rely on doctors whose judgments have been criticized by courts

#71

Post by foivoh »

foivoh wrote: post #41
bgnn wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not an American, but it seems to me that the reason is purely ideological. They like a small state, especially the federal government. This would give too much power to the government. The idea of federal government providing care for citizens is not acceptable to people. Now, weird thing is this doesn't work for the military somehow.

We don’t have a small state. It intentionally meddles in everything from mail delivery to medical care, to make them worse for the masses and better for the agents of the state. Those agents really just being normal self selecting biology like everywhere else. Functional illiteracy where people can only understand life through a job and paying bills is a carefully crafted propaganda. America been at the forefront of…

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Re: Insurers rely on doctors whose judgments have been criticized by courts

#72

Post by ceejayoz »

ernst_klim wrote: post #58
Ylpertnodi wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several functioning examples in Europe, 'they' could take a look at.

Like where? UK system is collapsing under underfunding and misallocation, German system is crumbling under terrible lack of personell with raising (already high) costs with lowering quality and increasing waiting times (up to infinite where mamologs and psychiatrists simply take no new patients in many cities). Basically in all thirst world countries trend is negative unless and experience is frustrating unless you a…

> UK system is collapsing under underfunding and misallocation

Fifteen years with the "let's privatize everything!" party will do that, yes.

Re: Insurers rely on doctors whose judgments have been criticized by courts

#73

Post by ashoeafoot »

asdf6969 wrote: post #30
azalemeth wrote: post #15

I'm not American and grew up (and work) in Western Europe. Everyone is born, and, at some point, will get sick and die. Why does each of these cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars? I've heard American doctors at conferences describing their system as "the worst imaginable". Every American I know hates their system. It costs a lot more, has worse outcomes and shovels money and privilege towards the rich. Why…

> Why don't you change it? There is no general “you” with agency. The few people who have the ability to change it have no incentive to do that.

80% majority in a democracy can not change whatever they want? Or.. the ideology people inhalate is so strong ,it hacks democracy itself?

Re: Insurers rely on doctors whose judgments have been criticized by courts

#74

Post by ceejayoz »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #60
ShinyNewFeature wrote: post #31

In many jurisdictions in the US, there is a requirement for the casino and lottery operators to pay a certain percentage (typically 90+%) back as winnings. Do health insurance companies have to follow similar requirements? If so, individual cases of insurances denying insurance would be bad, but would indicate that the overall system is still working reasonably well.

The tragedy at the heart of this "hate health insurance companies" is that they aren't even very profitable businesses. Their margins are actually below average, and pretty poor investments compared to things like tech and finance.

Walmart has low margins, too. Still a very profitable business, because the raw revenue numbers are so huge. The same applies to health insurance.

Re: Insurers rely on doctors whose judgments have been criticized by courts

#75

Post by fetzu »

radlad wrote: post #68
derektank wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can negotiate all you want but ultimately the productivity improvements have to come from providers (hospitals, pharmaceutical companies) if you want to lower costs. There are ways to make insurers better agents (one simple step would be to make their customers the actual patients, rather than the employers of patients) but I'm not sure how much power they actually have to keep costs low

A huge amount of physician / provider time (cost) is dedicated to insurer billing, coding, and documentation.

That’s correct. And I still baffles me that no substantial improvements have been made in that problem space. My grocery shop has a LLM powered Robo-assistant, and doctors are still copy-pasting (or even worse, re-inputting them by hand) text between various pieces of software on a daily basis.

I understand regulation plays a good role in that, but I can’t believe that it is the only reason..

Re: Insurers rely on doctors whose judgments have been criticized by courts

#76

Post by clcaev »

SoftTalker wrote: post #26
franktankbank wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oddly, it's not currently considered to be. Odd indeed. Is it some semantic thing? Denying care is the purest form of not practicing medicine?

Denying care is the default state. It's the basis of the Hippocratic Oath, "First, do no harm." I.e. the determination of whether a treatment is beneficial is made by comparing it to doing nothing.

In these cases, a clinician has already decided that care is needed. It is a third party, who is not responsible for providing care, that is making the final determination. This has little to do with the Hippocratic Oath.

Re: Insurers rely on doctors whose judgments have been criticized by courts

#78

Post by ashoeafoot »

School-Cotton wrote: post #53
brookst wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only hope for reform in the US is to position it as furthering the transfer of wealth to the ultra-rich. Then, you might get some traction. But it’s hard to frame a legitimately good policy in these terms.

It’s a nice soundbite, but not really accurate to describe US economic history as a process of wealth transfer to the ultra-rich. Everyone has gotten wealthier over time, it’s just that the wealth of the rich has increased even faster than everyone else’s.

? it was 40 years during the height of the cold war. This statement doesn't hold true before and after

Re: Insurers rely on doctors whose judgments have been criticized by courts

#79

Post by ashoeafoot »

School-Cotton wrote: post #56
Ylpertnodi wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several functioning examples in Europe, 'they' could take a look at.

Who is “they”, exactly? What specific group of people do you think is in charge of the system and should do this?

We, the people ?
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