A Few Notes on Health Care

There's nothing like a trip to the ER to focus the mind on health care.

The July issue of Consumer Reports has two very interesting articles in it.

One, "Overdose of debt: lenders push risky credit for everything from cancer care to botox," is on a disturbing tend:

Yet credit cards and finance lines that can reach exorbitant interest rates are being pitched to consumers seeking medical care, either directly or through their medical professionals.

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Doctors thus are given a financial incentive to have patients stretch out payments at double-digit interest rates from the start.

This just can't be good.

The other article, "Too much treatment: Aggressive medical care can lead to more pain with no gain," is on a comparison between regions with a high density of medical treatment options and others that don't:

Other Dartmouth research has found that patients with serious conditions who are treated in regions that provide the most aggressive medical care—more tests and procedures, more specialists, and more days in the hospital—don't live longer or enjoy a better quality of life than those who receive more conservative treatment.

Patients treated most aggressively are at increased risk of infections and medical errors that come from uncoordinated care, such as doctors prescribing drugs that duplicate or interact with other drugs. They also tend to receive poorer care, spend a lot more money for co-payments, and are the least satisfied with their health care, the Dartmouth researchers found.

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Few Americans are aware of the dangers of this type of unneeded testing and overreliance on specialists. Instead, many fear that their health problems will be neglected or inadequately treated. But for people with good private health insurance or Medicare, the perils of overtreatment are real.

Standard protocols should help balance this out.

(Two notes: 1) The full second article is not available online but you can get a good summary and 2) our ER trip did involve standard protocol and did not involve any financial pressures.)