Physicians today face an onslaught of administrative hassles that steal our time with our patients as well as our families. These burdens are major sources of frustration and burnout, especially when they hinder delivery of the best patient care we can provide.
For 30 years, hospitals, insurers and other healthcare providers have sought ways to track patient outcomes to better determine which medical procedures are most effective and which physicians need to show improvement or be weeded out.
Kara Gardeen knew there would be blood, cramps and grief. Her doctor had confirmed the worst: The baby she and her husband had hoped to welcome to their family had not survived. Gardeen was about nine weeks pregnant. Now, she needed to find time to take the pills that would allow the miscarriage to conclude more quickly, instead of possibly waiting days or even weeks for the miscarriage to happen naturally.
A new federal ban on surprise medical bills gives the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau a path to limit how much medical debt is posted to consumer credit reports. The CFPB recently announced that it was looking into whether uncollected medical bills should be included on credit reports at all. Such debts are often inaccurate and not always representative of a person’s creditworthiness, the consumer watchdog said.
The Colorado Supreme Court will this week consider hospital billing practices after a woman who expected to pay $1,337 for surgery at St. Anthony North Health Campus was billed $303,709. The case pits attorneys for patient Lisa French against Centura Health, which operates the nonprofit hospital in Westminster. The dispute centers on a contract French signed in which she agreed to pay “all charges of the hospital” for her care.
Fourth quarter reports for insurance providers in the U.S. spotlight UnitedHealth Group as the most profitable payer of 2021—at $17.3 billion, more than double the profit of the next closest competitor, and owning almost half of the total profit of six major insurers.
