Thanks Neeka and everyone. Got back finally this afternoon from the newest "life throws a curve adventure"....This one struck me out of the blue, except looking back on the previous 10 days, things were happening, but I had blamed them on something else, including the heat outside.....
I did have an interesting thing happen while there....some of you remember that I had mentioned to you some of the hospital events that happened in Dec, that shouldn't have happened, and that I had voiced my complaints and observation to the very top of the organization.
This time the CEO and one other Department head paid me a visit and stayed to chat for 20-25 minutes. He was aware of my thoughts, and honored them....I really was stunned he visited, and stayed as long as they did. One thing I wanted to tell everyone that the hospital folks do hear our comments! I said to him a few thoughts this time:
1) We in the US have the very best health care in the world! And that the Hospital where I was really is one of the best in the country!!! BUT, that they, as Health Management teams need to be much more vocal about that, IMO.
2) I mentioned that currently as I see it while our actual care is very good as a rule, the costs are very high, and the insurance costs are very high.
3) I said that again IMO, the entire industry, and most certainly the CEO's should team together and explain at various Town Hall events around the country some of the advances in medicine, and some of the things that we all can do to help lower the cost.
4) For instance, I noted that we keep hearing the term "45-47 Million people don't have health insurance.
My questions are several.....
a) WHY NOT? and
b) What is Medicaid for if not to help those who can't afford care???
c) How many of the numbers with no insurance are illegally in the US?
d) For those of us who do have it, how much of our insurance premium cost and the actual service cost do WE have to pay for those who don't avail themselves of insurance?
e) If the medical malpractice insurance was eliminated and taken to arbitration, how much would our insurance premiums and care be then?
One thing further that I know we all feel, and I had the opportunity to voice was that the Government is the ONLY voice out here now, but if we citizens don't get on the phone and pens in hand and let our comments become known, we will only have to blame ourselves.
I'm very happy to be back and while it was quite serious, managed to avoid surgery.... Looks like all of you have had lots to say in the past 7 days.....you all are better than most of the TV media, and that's for sure! |
