Overtreated By Shannon Brownlee Sparknotes

After years of schooling and hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, doctors aren’t even able to work on their own terms. “Consumers allegedly have a “right” to what health care providers provide, a “right” to say what will be provided, when, and at what price” (Salsman 2012). Consumers shouldn’t have a “right” to what is provided to them or how much it costs. The government controls pricing and controls who can receive care and what kind. It’s not right that those who are actually working in the medical profession that they have lost control of their businesses.

The aim of the ACA is to provide affordable health care to all Americans, but it still leaves some issues unaddressed that will impact the access to health care. Covino (n.d.), “Though the intentions of the legislation are good, the Affordable Care Act does little to improve the actual health care delivery system” (para.1, page 2). According to the American Medical Association, we are facing an increasing Physician shortage. As of 2010 we faced a shortfall of 13,700 physicians, the estimate is that number will increase to 62,900 by 2015, 91,500 by 2020, and 130,600 by 2025 (Krupa, n.d.), with primary care taking the largest impact. Health Care coverage will be of no benefit if there are no doctors to treat the patients. An example of this occurred in 2002 when Thailand’s’ “30 Bhat Scheme” added (CNN n.d.) “14 million people to the country’s health care system, resulting in long waits and subpar service” (Your health is covered, but who is going to treat you?) Several factors contribute to the physician shortage. Many physicians are reaching the age of retirement, the Association of American Medical Colleges estimates nearly 15 million physicians will be eligible for Medicare in the coming years (CNN n.d.). The increasing cost of malpractice insurance also deters many from pursuing a career in medicine, and is forcing some doctors to retire. Also contributing to the physician shortage is a lack of spots in residency programs. “In 2011, more than 7,000 were left

T.R. Reid uses cost, quality, and choice to fully evaluate healthcare systems all around the world. As an American citizen, I have always thought our system was unfair. The poor suffer more than the rich for going to see a doctor for the same reason. In chapter one of The healing of America, T.R. Reid comments on how many Americans have also started to notice that the American healthcare system is not as great as we once thought. Not only is it unfair, but it is also expensive and unsuccessful (9). By looking at all the other countries’ healthcare systems, Reid would then be able to better pinpoint how America can better its health care system by taking portions of those health systems.

It also tells about the different classes of doctors. It also shares how they believed people got ill.

Quality health care is an issue in America for everyone, despite our numerous tests and advances in technology. In his article, “Overkill,” Atul Gawande argues against a common assumption that our healthcare system is the best because of these medical advances. In fact, Gawande claims that our health care provides much unnecessary care that often causes harm and that costs a lot . He follows that claim by redefining “low-value care” as “no-value care” and provides considerable scientific data along with his own experience with his own patients to support his claim. He also states logical reasons by referring to expert authorities who critique our health care by viewing it from an economic perspective: like talking about information asymmetry where a doctor is more informed than the patient, thus the doctor has more power over the patient. All of these emphases strongly defend his controversial claim. But what stands out most is how Gawande uses several stories showing vastly different outcomes, depending on how informed the patient and doctor are including offering non invasive treatments. We need to explore how his unusual storytelling strategy exposes how surgeons and patients should care more about quality than the mere quantity of tests and what alternatives are available to change the unnecessary over testing and over-diagnosis which prevent good health care.

Mckinlay and Marceau break down some of their reasons for why U.S. health care system has become on corporatized and profit-driven rather than a service for the people into two categories: intrinsic and extrinsic. One extrinsic factor discussed they discussed was the “bureaucratization of doctoring” which involves the increasing number of physicians working for big businesses rather than maintaining their own private practice. With this came the fact that many doctors were unintentionally treating medical care as if it were some GM factory in which patients were churned out and doctors were rewarded for not quality of care but how many patients they were able to see, diagnose etc. I’ve had my own experience with this when at an appointment, my own gynecologist was lamenting about the fact that she sometimes wishes she were a nurse because she never actually gets to garner relationships with her patients. She

Escape Fire is a documentary that examines the United States healthcare system and its rising costs which have been predicted to reach $4.2 trillion annually within ten years. Americans spend over $8,000 per capita on expenses associated with healthcare while other countries spend an estimated $3,000 and achieve better health outcomes. Nearly 75% of U.S. healthcare dollars are spent on the treatment of chronic diseases which include heart disease and diabetes rather than on disease prevention. In addition, U.S. healthcare involves a fee-for-service payment design in which the hospital and physician received a payment each time a procedure is performed. Even physicians with the best of intentions are issued incentives to order more medical tests, see more patients, and perform more medical procedures while it may not be their choice to practice in this scenario. Hospitals are encouraged to keep hospital beds full, use high-tech equipment, and perform more surgical procedures. Primary care physicians spend less than 15 minutes per patient and receive very little compensation for providing education for disease prevention, nutrition counseling, or discussing mind/body and exercise interventions. Experts in this documentary agree that medical care in the U.S. has become a profit-driven “disease-care system” instead of a healthcare system that emphasizes optimum patient care. Escape Fire identified many problems that exist in the U.S. healthcare system and

In McAllen, home to the United States’ highest healthcare costs, many citizens do not consume nutritious food and do not follow preventive medicine. However, this does not explain the high healthcare costs because El Paso, a city with public health measures similar to those of McAllen, spends about half as much. The high cost of healthcare in McAllen, despite the advanced technology used in hospitals, does not suggest that it offers superior services. The fact of the matter is that there is overutilization of medicine in McAllen, and thus Medicare spends exorbitant amounts of money per capita. Upon investigating the reason behind this, author Atul Gawande claims that the high costs in McAllen are attributed to doctors who see patients as a source of profit. Although doctors like this exist in many parts of the country such as in El Paso, a majority of McAllen’s doctors seem to be driven by profit maximization rather than the needs of the patient. As a result, they order more tests and perform procedures even when they are not essential. Rather than focusing on patient education and prevention strategies, a large percentage of McAllen’s doctors focus on medical procedures. That is, healthcare in McAllen is primarily based on the biomedical model, and avoids the holistic approach.

Lol, no! I hate Laurie McCarty because she didn't gave me any valid explanation for this drastic, overnight change in Narcisse's behavior. It doesn't make any psychological sense, and I don't mean about him snitching the throne from Catherine, but the way he treats Lola. Unless of course he smacked his pretty little head, and suffered from partial amnesia forgetting everything that Catherine has done to him. Or maybe he was poisoned like Henry, with this strange substance, unknown to a modern medicine that turns people into sex addicts. And who knows, maybe in the end it will turn out that Lola was evil genius, a mastermind behind all this. Elizabeth's confidant, working as English spy for all this time. Wouldn't it be

Health care expenses in the United States rose from $1,106 per person in 1980 ($255 billion overall) to $6,280 per person in 2004 ($1.9 trillion overall) (Stanton, 2006). As the cost of health care is increasing dramatically, the need for sound financial stewardship from physician has become even more important to manage the health of the population. The physician, as a subject matter expert plays an important role in making medical decisions that are in the best interest of the patient. This decision may or may not result in the wise utilization of healthcare resources. Consider the following quote,

The palpable symptoms of our “sick health care system” are described almost daily in popular print and broadcast media. Almost one of every six Americans have no health insurance, health care spending is escalating rapidly, administrative costs are excessive, and medical errors (including overuse and underuse of medications and procedures) are rampant. Less frequently discussed, but of fundamental importance, are systemic problems in the financing of health care and in the organization and delivery of care.

Every year, the United States spends eight times as much money on unnecessary health-care costs as the Pentagon spent for each year of its operations in Iraq. About 30 cents of every dollar spent on healthcare in the United States is wasted in some fashion. The massive annual waste is the takeaway from a new report by the Institute of Medicine, which estimates that the country loses some $750 billion annually to medical fraud, inefficiencies, and other siphons in the health-care system.

After researching online about wasted recourses in health care in United states I was in shock. According to the Institute of Medicine, about 30 percent of U.S. health care spending (about $750 billion) was wasted in 2009 on unnecessary services, excessive administrative costs, fraud and other problems (Shalby & Rolfes, 2012).

Judi Brownell is a Professor of Management and Organizational Behavior at the University of Cornell. Brownell has conducted research project on listening behavior and global hospitality leaders. Brownell conducted this research because she believed that women have had a problem of being viewed as credible. Brownell has noticed that there are a large amount of women working in the hospitality field. Having so many women in the field can make it very difficult for those women to get the same opportunities as their male colleagues. Brownell believes that people if women change how they communicate and their non-verbal behavior then this can improve how people perceive and their view of credibility towards them.

In this section, I will be explaining why the American health care system’s exorbitant spending does not result in the expected quality of care.