One of the biggest issues facing the U.S. in 2013 is what to do about the public health care system. In the current system doctors are paid on a per visit, per procedure basis, rewarding doctors that see more patients and those that perform more expensive procedures. The problem with this system is that if doctors are making money based on how many patients they see and say they need to see a patient every six minutes, the doctor is not able to spend enough time with patients in order to adequately diagnose and educate them on proper care for a certain condition or preventative measures that could help them avoid further progression of their health problems. Also because doctors are paid on a per procedure basis, they are encouraged to perform more dangerous procedures on patients that don’t need them. This is a huge issue when one realizes that hospital error/illness is the third leading cause of death in the United States. So how can we fix the care portion of the health care system so that both doctors and patients benefit?
One solution would be to pay doctors on a salary basis, with the possibility of promotions and pay raises based on patient satisfaction and their effectiveness as a health care professional. By making it so that doctors are paid on a salary basis there is no longer this need to see as many patients as humanly possible in a small window of time. Instead doctors can spend more personalized time with each of their patients, providing thorough care that will ultimately result in better health for the patient in question. This will also decrease the amount of unnecessary procedures that take place because there will no longer be a financial incentive/pressure to take this path. Instead doctors will be able to look at the patient’s situation and come up with a solution that is the least invasive and most effective for them. This will then decrease the amount of medical errors and deaths that occur because of unnecessary surgeries. The main problem with the health care system is the way that it pays those involved. We need to create a new system that focuses on quality instead of quantity. If more patients are provided with better care and educated on disease prevention methods, it is likely that more patients will remain healthy and health care costs will decrease as a result.
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Read this and hack! 
One other major issue that I hate about the medical system is the amount of waiting time for every visit. No matter what time you go, or how long in advance you set up an appointment your going to have to wait. I guess that’s why we have “waiting” rooms.
Seinfeld does a good job of portraying this:
What do you mean by “public” here? Medicare? I am just not as familiar with the term in our US context…
I waited 45 minutes yesterday in an exam room to be told that they were looking for the Radiologist to read the MRI. This is a week after we had delivered the MRI so the radiologist could look at it.
:X
I agree! Love this sentence, “..pay doctors on a salary basis, with the possibility of promotions and pay raises based on patient satisfaction and their effectiveness as a health care professional.” As you said, this will give doctors incentive to pay close attention to each and every patient, since patient satisfaction will determine their salary/promotions. I was going to mention something in the comment on ObamaCare and why I am completely opposed to a majority of it, but I don’t want to spark any controversy with the class haha.
I read an article once, I can find if you need it, about the differences in health care costs in the US. Fascinating. The source was partly this important ongoing study:
>a href=”http://www.dartmouthatlas.org/keyissues/issue.aspx?con=1338″>Dartmouth Health Atlas
Atul Gawande wrote about it- he is a GREAT writer and an MD. Here is link to a blog post about it. I can get you original if you want….
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2009/06/atul-gawande-the-cost-conundrum-redux.html
I know lots of MDs who would agree…
What is the relevance of the Escape Fire movie?
One solution is called “captation.” I think the idea is a Doctor or Health system gets paid X/patient. They get to keep X-costs. Hence, they are incentivized to maximize HEALTH and not treat disease.