Summary of Marty Makary, MD's The Price We Pay

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 A growing trend in the United States is doctors doing unnecessary vascular procedures on unsuspecting patients. These procedures include ballooning, stenting, and even lasering harmless plaques in leg arteries.
#2 The event reminded me that health screening can be a powerful tool to detect disease and prevent tragedy, but it can also be a business model to recruit patients for treatments they don’t need.
#3 The practice of doing unnecessary procedures on leg vessels is widespread in the medical community. I had become aware of this through conversations I’d had with my friend Jim Black, the chief of vascular surgery at Hopkins.
#4 Doctors are very good at nudging patients, and they know the words that will get their attention. For example, if an orthopedic surgeon is helping a patient decide between a knee replacement and a nonsurgical option, he may mention the joint is bone on bone.

Sujets

• Business
• Health
• Economics
• Insurance
• Employabilité, métiers et formations

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 31 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822525221
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Marty Makary and MD's The Price We Pay
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

A growing trend in the United States is doctors doing unnecessary vascular procedures on unsuspecting patients. These procedures include ballooning, stenting, and even lasering harmless plaques in leg arteries.

#2

The event reminded me that health screening can be a powerful tool to detect disease and prevent tragedy, but it can also be a business model to recruit patients for treatments they don’t need.

#3

The practice of doing unnecessary procedures on leg vessels is widespread in the medical community. I had become aware of this through conversations I’d had with my friend Jim Black, the chief of vascular surgery at Hopkins.

#4

Doctors are very good at nudging patients, and they know the words that will get their attention. For example, if an orthopedic surgeon is helping a patient decide between a knee replacement and a nonsurgical option, he may mention the joint is bone on bone.

#5

The ankle-brachial index test is a factory-style test that picks out potential patients for surgery. The doctor must document that the patient has a diagnosis of claudication to ensure that everything will be covered by insurance.

#6

I went to church fairs and found that many were offering community screening for leg circulation, even though there was no scientific consensus that people should not be screened this way.

#7

I would visit local churches that were hosting health fairs, and would document the predatory nature of the procedures. I would then present my findings to the pastors, and they would be flabbergasted.

#8

I spoke to more pastors in minority communities around the country, and found that many were being targeted by the medical industry for unnecessary tests.

#9

I began to see how the modern-day business model has even ventured into price gouging and predatory billing.

#10

The way the hospital haggled with Henri’s family reminded me of Egypt’s famous Khan el-Khalili bazaar, the largest open-air market in the world. The bazaar makes the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade look like a Presbyterian prayer group.

#11

The same markup and discount game is seen in medicine, where patients are charged full price unless their insurance carrier doesn’t have a contract with the hospital.

#12

I asked my research team to find out how much medical bills were being marked up, and they found some markups to be 23 times higher than what is paid by Medicare.

#13

Health care leaders have been meeting secretly for years to discuss ways to lower infection rates and hospital readmissions, which account for less than 1 percent of health care costs. Meanwhile, they continue to play the game of markups and discounts.

#14

The game of hospital pricing is difficult to understand for patients. It makes it nearly impossible for patients to know in advance what they will pay, but it enables insurance companies to have an agreed-upon discount rate on hospital bills.

#15

Markups are so high in the medical industry that they are embarrassing for doctors and hospitals. It’s only natural that the good people working at America’s hospitals would react to questions by answering That’s to compensate for charity care.

#16

The Amish, who have a large community near my childhood hometown in Pennsylvania, believe in paying their bills in full. They believe that the medical quality and prices at American hospitals are not good, and that they can get better care and prices in Mexico.

#17

A surprise bill is when a patient is billed for costs that were not covered by insurance. They are common, and they seem to violate a heritage of honest doctoring.

#18

The game is absurd. Think of the problem of being out-of-network. The recommended solution is to join the network. The game proposes a solution that exists only because it created the problem in the first place.

#19

The Birx family, friends of mine, were also victims of the medical bill game. Ron went to the Washington Hospital Center for a small skin growth on his finger. Months later, he got smacked with a $10,000 bill. It included an $87 charge for blankets.

#20

Half of metastatic breast cancer patients report being pursued by a collection agency for their medical bills. The game is out of control, and that’s another reason health care costs so much.

#21

The game explains many health care trends. It explains why hospitals are on a buying spree, snapping up private practices and other hospitals. It explains insurance company mergers.

#22

Making real prices public would bring much-needed competition to the $3. 5 trillion health care market. Right now, medical centers compete on the level of better parking and NFL game day billboards rather than on quality and value.

#23

Some companies are disrupting the status quo by allowing their employees to choose where they get their medical care. This is a example of proxy buyers empowered with price information.

#24

The Surgery Center of Oklahoma is one of the many examples of how doctors are changing the game for the better by being more transparent with their pricing.