All Things Transcription

Wow, the things you find when you read the news. I found this article on some physicians that have taken matters into their own hands with great results. I think this is a great idea. Just think of the ramifications of a system like this. Why this might even result in doctors who actually listen to their patients because they have time to. It might reduce the number of medications that patients, especially the elderly, are prescribed. It definitely will reduce the cost of processing claims. Although high prices are mentioned, some doctors are charging a reasonable amount per month. It is much less than what most people pay for insurance.

Follow up:

I was a little shocked at the amount of money spent in a year on insurance claims processing. $210 billion is a right smart amount of money, as folks around here say. This is actually something that I had never considered contributing that much to health care costs. It isn’t a job I would really care to do but there certainly must be a lot of people doing it.

The description of this “retainer system” sounds very much like the relationship my family has with our physician. Even though we don’t pay a monthly fee, he keeps his costs as low as he can and when you have to visit the office he takes the time to listen to what’s wrong. Guess what? All his patients love him! I know I do.

Wouldn’t it be nice to know that you didn’t have to load your aging parent with early stage Alzheimer’s disease into the car and cause them stress and confusion? Instead, the physician on retainer would come to the house to see them. House calls can be a wonderful thing for patients like these. Their daily schedule, so important to an Alzheimer’s patient, goes right on before and after the visit as smoothly as usual.

Perhaps we would even be able to get in to see the doctor while we were still actually ill. We might even be able to solve the problem in a much simpler way then if we had waited for a couple of weeks to be seen. Hey, we might even be able to start flu medications when they would actually work. Wouldn’t that be a great thing? I think so.

Of course there would still be people who would be unable to pay the retainer fee. That leaves the question open about how to deal with that situation. Perhaps if the doctors weren’t overwhelmed with patients they would be able to help out more within their communities and help to solve this problem. The solution surely won’t come from the insurance companies.