Summer employment opportunities still open for Astroturf movement

[OldGreyEagle]

In Radiology terms, an "abdomen" X-ray goes from the diaphragm to the symphysis pubis. In CT terms, an Abdomen scan goes from the diaphragm to the top of the pelvis. A pelvis CT goes from the top of the pelvis to the symphysis pubis. Confused/ I have done for 25 years and I still look it up routinely. BTW, Medicare pays the same for the Pelvis as it did for the Abdomen

[evmori]

My wife works at a hospital and her job is to make sure the there are authorizations from the insurance companies for all these tests! The stories she tells about how anal the insurance companies have become! It seems there intent is to put so much red tape in place that you will just toss up your hands and give up then they won't have to pay! It seems they have lost focus of their purpose!

 

I'd bet, scoutldr, that your test were paid for by whatever your insurance company sent!

[BrentAllen]

Hey Gern,

You sure you want to move to Canada?

 

Thousands of surgeries may be cut in Metro Vancouver due to government underfunding, leaked paper

http://www.vancouversun.com/story_print.html?id=1878506&sponsor

 

Overhauling health-care system tops agenda at annual meeting of Canada's doctors

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jbjzPEY0Y3bvRD335rGu_Z3KXoQw

 

"We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize," Doing said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

 

His thoughts on the issue are already clear. Ouellet has been saying since his return that "a health-care revolution has passed us by," that it's possible to make wait lists disappear while maintaining universal coverage and "that competition should be welcomed, not feared."

 

In other words, Ouellet believes there could be a role for private health-care delivery within the public system.

 

"(Canadians) have to understand that the system that we have right now - if it keeps on going without change - is not sustainable," said Doig.

[GernBlansten]

Brent,

at least their reform is starting from a point way beyond our current system.

Heck, with global warming, it might become habitable in the winter soon anyways.

[OldGreyEagle]

I learned something about Insurance companies sorta second hand. My son had quite a few surgeries growing up; we often claimed half of Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) was built based on his bills. Once when he was in for an extended time, about 5 weeks, we got used to the routine of him getting a new room mate. He was in the bed by the window so they could bring the new ones in.

 

He had been by himself for a few days when the level of activity increased by a bunch. They were bringing in a new patient, the boy was about 11-12 years old, he was the star pitcher of his baseball team and they were in the playoffs. He was pitching in a game, threw the ball and broke his arm. It was determined at the local hospital to be a pathological fracture, he had bone cancer and the motion of throwing the ball snapped his arm. The boy was brought to CHOP, was in surgery as they prepped the room having his right arm amputated above the fracture about mid humerus. (Upper arm). His parents were waiting in the room, obviously distraught. In walks the registration clerk. They had been taken the parents to the boys room and would register them there. The clerk got the demographics, and Insurance information and asked if they had insurance for prosthetics as the boy would need one and the Insurance Company would have to approve it and the clerk wanted to get the approval process underway as soon as possible, as she said you know how Insurance Companies are. The mother exploded. Now remember, there is only a thin curtain between me and this discussion, I may as well have been sitting next to them, well, I was. I wonder what HIPPA would say about this practice? Anyway, Turns out she was the Executive Secretary to the CEO of Highmark Blue Shield in Philadelphia and she told the clerk in no uncertain terms that if people understood their insurance, if they knew what they were and were not paying for, the world would be better. She went on for 10 minutes, which is a very long time, about how people want to pay as little as possible for insurance but then they want everything and a bag of doughnuts paid for when they are in the hospital.

 

Make sure you know what your insurance covers and what it doesnt.

 

Then again, Insurance Companies dont help themselves out PR wise much either, I am not defending them, just offering a point of view.

 

[gwd-scouter]

It certainly has been an interesting debate. My only question right now is why, if we truly provide the best health care in the world and people from other countries (those that have "government controlled healthcare") are rushing to ours, did the World Health Organization rank the United States 37th in the world in health care systems (2000). In a country with such a wonderful health care system, why do our citizens have a lower life expectancy than those in countries that have single payer or some other form of universal health care?

 

Would love to find the answer.

[eisely]

I treat anything coming out of the United Nations with a great deal of skepticism. That said, there is at least a partial explanation for the difference.

 

Life expectancy at birth is exactly that. It is my understanding that the statistics are biased in part because we in the US take extreme measures to help preemies who might not be born alive in other countries. To enter the statistical data base one must be born alive and counted as having been born. If we are more aggressive in early delivery of babies who might not otherwise be borne alive, and more of those babies dies after they have been counted as a live birth, it is going to pull your statistics down. Think Octomom. It is likely that neither she nor many of her babies would have survived a natural child birth.

 

I saw somewhere recently that our seniors do have markedly longer life spans than seniors in other countries praised as having superior government run systems.

 

If anybody has better more complete data, it would be interesting to see real numbers.

[gwd-scouter]

Going to have to look more closely at the numbers, but the US infant mortality rate isn't very good either.

[BrentAllen]

gwd,

I believe the ranking system takes into account soldier deaths. How many does the US have compared to, say, France? Or Switzerland? Or Norway? Ever hear of the Norwegian Army being deployed to any foreign countries? We also have much more crime than countries like Norway. Our inner cities have very high crime and murder rates.

[GernBlansten]

And Brent,

Our gun laws are far more relaxed than say, France, Switzerland, Or Norway.

[eisely]

Speaking of life expectancies, the government just released some new data with some explanations.

 

By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer Mike Stobbe, Ap Medical Writer Wed Aug 19, 5:57 pm ET

 

ATLANTA U.S. life expectancy has risen to a new high, now standing at nearly 78 years, the government reported Wednesday. The increase is due mainly to falling death rates in almost all the leading causes of death. The average life expectancy for babies born in 2007 is nearly three months greater than for children born in 2006.

 

The new U.S. data is a preliminary report based on about 90 percent of the death certificates collected in 2007. It comes from the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

Life expectancy is the period a child born in 2007 is expected to live, assuming mortality trends stay constant. U.S. life expectancy has grown nearly one and a half years in the past decade, and is now at an all-time-high.

 

Last year, the CDC said U.S. life expectancy had inched above 78 years. But the CDC recently changed how it calculates life expectancy, which caused a small shrink in estimates to below 78.

 

The United States continues to lag behind about 30 other countries in estimated life span. Japan has the longest life expectancy 83 years for children born in 2007, according to the World Health Organization.

 

The CDC report found that the number of deaths and the overall death rate dropped from 2006 to about 760 deaths per 100,000 people from about 776. The death rate has been falling for eight straight years, and is half of what it was 60 years ago.

 

Heart disease and cancer together are the cause of nearly half of U.S. fatalities. The death rate from heart disease dropped nearly 5 percent in 2007, and the cancer death rate fell nearly 2 percent, according to the report.

 

The HIV death rate dropped 10 percent, the biggest one-year decline in 10 years.

 

"It was kind of a surprise to see it go down so much" and it's unclear if it will be a one-year fluke or not, said Bob Anderson, chief of the agency's mortality statistics branch.

 

The diabetes death rate fell about 4 percent, allowing Alzheimer's disease to surpass diabetes to become the sixth leading cause of death. Alzheimer's has been climbing the death chart in recent years, though that may be partly because declines in other causes are enabling more people to live long enough to die from Alzheimer's, Anderson said.

 

The nation's infant mortality rate rose slightly in 2007, to 6.77 infant deaths per 1,000 births, but the rise was not statistically significant. It has been at about the same level for several years.

 

That's not a shock, some experts said. Medical care improvements can improve infant survival, but they also mean that some troubled pregnancies now make it to infancy before death, said Paul Terry, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Atlanta's Emory University.

 

Another recent CDC report containing early data for 2008 counted 2.45 million deaths last year. That's an increase of more than 29,000 deaths from the 2.42 million deaths in 2007.

 

CDC data sometimes changes as more records come in and researchers eliminate duplicate reports. But it's likely an increase will hold up because of the growing number of elderly, experts said.

[BrentAllen]

Yes, Gern, we have more freedom than those other countries.

 

"Live Free or Die"

 

More news from Canada:

 

Canadians visit U.S. to get care

Deal lets many go to Michigan hospitals

 

"Dany Mercado, a leukemia patient from Kitchener, Ontario, is cancer-free after getting a bone marrow transplant at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit.

 

Told by Canadian doctors in 2007 he couldn't have the procedure there, Mercado's family and doctor appealed to Ontario health officials, who agreed to let him have the transplant in Detroit in January 2008.

 

Canada, for example, has waiting times for bariatric procedures to combat obesity that can stretch to more than five years, according to a June report in the Canadian Journal of Surgery."

 

Canadians better hope we don't get a government-run plan, or their back-up plan across the border will cease to exist. They'll have to get in line behind the rest of us.

 

[scoutldr]

"Canadians better hope we don't get a government-run plan, or their back-up plan across the border will cease to exist. They'll have to get in line behind the rest of us."

 

No...they won't be allowed in the line at all. That's what I was told when I recently traveled to Canada. "Do not go to the Doctor, you will NOT be seen. If you need to go to the ER, you will have to pay IN FULL, in cash, in advance."

 

[eisely]

Yes it is likely that the Canadians who come to the US for care they cannot get in Canada will have to get in the back of the line behind all others, including the illegal aliens who likely will be eligible for Obamacare.

 

Oh, the humanity!(This message has been edited by eisely)

[GernBlansten]

Brent,

That's a horrible story. Do you have any more details?

Why was his care denied in Canada? Did he go before a death panel and they decided to kill him?

Do all Canadians who have Leukemia get denied care?

If he came to America to get treatment, did he pay out of pocket or was he like all the illegal aliens who get free health care by us because we can't turn them away? Did I pay for his treatment?

 

If he did pay out of pocket, he couldn't find a doctor in Canada who could perform the bone marrow transplant on a private pay, of course, assuming the Canadian government denied he had cancer?

 

Is America the only country left that can still do bone marrow transplants?

 

So many questions. But a good story to scare Americans to never consider the Canadian system. Golf clap.