Healthcare costs rise as doctors implement Obama's electronic billing system

[FrancSevin]

Remember when you went to a government office and the clerk did all the paperwork? Remember when they went to computers and now you do it for them. Well, that is what has happened here.

Typical efficiency proceedure of gopvernment, Create a form for the proles to fill out. Digital or paper, it is a PIA.

I don't really care if Obama didi t, Bush did it or Thomas Jefferson did it. The last office visit to my doctor was very dissappointing.

Seems his medical group has now gone completely to digital record. And the burden of data entry is effeciently laid on the doctor. So, instead of his attenton to my medical situation, his attention was focused on enterig the data of our visit. The visit lasted almost twice as long and my care, our interactive discusion of my care, was greatly diminished.

It isn't that he did not keep records. It is that he must now keep them in the form parameters of the new Health care laws.

My doctor admitted that his patient load per day must go down because of all the things he now must record. How much of this is for billing, and how much of it is for medical archives, I don't really know. All I know is my visit to his clinic was much more "clinical" and much less useful, than it used to be.

So far however, my cost for a complete physical, blood work and a flu shot was the same as last year. But then I paid him cash. Oh yeah, I had to sign three forms because I paid cash.

Odd, GWB's version was in effect in 2005. So, if it isn't Obamacare, how come I am just now having to deal with it?

 

[Doc]

I can imagine how that might work.
Working with computers as you list every item you might do when a patient visits or has a particular procedure you have to associate a cost with each item. While many items were most likely lumped into one fee prior to this, now that each item is in the computer the computer then tallies all the services and charges accordingly. What before was all lumped together for one price, now is billed with all the incidentals and that most likely adds up to more than the price which used to cover the entire visit or procedure.

 

[mak2]

Dang, this system is so inefficient something must be done.

OK doc, yea there used to be a lot of freebies in healthcare.

I can imagine how that might work.
Working with computers as you list every item you might do when a patient visits or has a particular procedure you have to associate a cost with each item. While many items were most likely lumped into one fee prior to this, now that each item is in the computer the computer then tallies all the services and charges accordingly. What before was all lumped together for one price, now is billed with all the incidentals and that most likely adds up to more than the price which used to cover the entire visit or procedure.

 

[Doc]

Dang, this system is so inefficient something must be done.

OK doc, yea there used to be a lot of freebies in healthcare.

Read it again mak, I never said a word about freebies.
If you price a service one way to cover an entire procedure and then break it down into all it's parts and decide to price them individually, nothing in the process is 'free'. but one way or the other will be more expensive.

Much like buying a single soda or a 12 pack of soda. Each soda is cheaper by the 12 pack. Nothing however is free. Obama's plan has made it easier for doctors offices to charge individually for each item (aka service) since each has to be listed on the patients record that way. While it is a more comprehensive view of what all happened in that visit if the doctor was making money charging the package price does it really cost him more now to do those same procedures?

 

[mak2]

Yea doc I read it, you two win. I give.

Read it again mak, I never said a word about freebies.
If you price a service one way to cover an entire procedure and then break it down into all it's parts and decide price them individually, nothing in the process is 'free'. but one way or the other will be more expensive.

Much like buying a single soda or a 12 pack of soda. Each soda is cheaper by the 12 pack. Nothing however is free. Obama's plan has made it easier for doctors offices to charge individually for each item (aka service) since each has to be listed on the patients record that way. While it is a more comprehensive view of what all happened in that visit if the doctor was making money charging the package price does it really cost him more now to do those same procedures?