In 2006, the United States Census reported that 46 million Americans have no health insurance
, which includes 9 million children who are lacking. The sad truth is that over 18,000 people will die each year because they are uninsured. Even with all of this, United States health care spending is an astounding $2 trillion each year, or roughly $6,700 per person. The nation continues to spend significantly more on health care than any other countries in the world.
Yet Americans are still lacking proper health care and the funds to pay associated bills. The surprising fact of the matter is – three-quarters of all bankruptcies
in the nation, half of which are caused by medical bills, are people who do have health insurance coverage.
So what is being done about it? During Bill Clinton’s presidency, he promised to do something about rising health care costs in the nation. The reform, which appeared good at first, soon ran aground due to the combination of factors – the unwillingness of other politicians to confront the insurance and other lobbies; and the general distraction of the nation with the war, economy, and global terrorism.
There are four times as many health care lobbyists in Washington as there are members of Congress, but medical costs continue to rise rapidly. Health care is nonetheless forced back into political prominence. The problems associated with the crisis and high healthcare costs include the problem of increasingly rapid unraveling of employer-based health insurance; the plight of Medicaid Doctors ; and the ever-continuous problem of the federal government’s solvency.
Even with all these problems, there is light at the end of the tunnel. The United States does now know more about the economics of healthcare than it did during Clinton’s presidency when he tried and failed to remake the system. There is an increasing body of evidence on what works and what does not work in healthcare, and information on making dramatic improvements in the nation for healthcare is available.
In regards to today’s physicians, there are viable solutions to the healthcare crisis as well. These solutions include the following:
1. Physicians need to educate themselves by learning the “business” of medicine with “niche” marketing and “niche” medical practices before it is too late.
2. Physicians need to think “outside the box” and become more entrepreneurial and less dependent on private and government subsidized insurance plans (i.e. Medicare, Medicaid Doctors.)
3. Physicians need to learn how to decrease their overhead and increase their profit potential. A medical practice is no different than any other business, the cost of doing business goes up and reimbursement goes down and competition increases.
4. Physicians need to treat a medical practice like a business and accept cash!
BY Hippocrates Publishing
www.HippocratesPublishing.com
Maintaining Medical Records In New York And Professional Misconduct Of Physicians
Maintaining medical records is one of the most important functions of a modern medical practice. Properly maintained records ensure smooth operations
of the practice and significantly decrease malpractice liability or probability of a misconduct accusation. This article discusses various issues related to proper medical record maintenance by New York healthcare practitioners and potential consequences of failure to do so.
New York Education Law 6530(32) requires that all New York practicing physicians and other healthcare professionals maintain detailed records for each and single patient. Maintaining proper medical records is a professional responsibility of a New York doctor or another practitioner. Very basically, each patient’s record must accurately reflect the evaluation and treatment of the patient. There are two types of information that a medical record
may contain. First, it is the actual patient information. Second, it is additional information that could not be released with the rest of the medical record. That includes some types of the physician’s personal notes and observations, information confidentially disclosed to the physician on condition that it would not be disclosed to anyone including the patient, information that relates to prior treatments by another practitioner if the patient is able to request this information from the other physician, and certain information subject to NY Mental Hygiene Law that relates to some types of mental health treatments. Maintenance and disclosure of New York Psychiatric medical records is separately controlled by the New York Mental Health Law section 33. New York Medicaid Doctors and hospitals are additionally subject to specific requirements of medical record keeping which are quite extensive.
New York demands that medical records be maintained for at least six years and in some cases even longer.
Failure to maintain adequate medical records opens the door to a variety of consequences including refusal of an insurance carrier to defend malpractice claims, professional misconduct investigation and discipline, and criminal prosecution. A practitioner who has failed to maintain medical records properly and who submits insurance claims may be charged with insurance fraud and other crimes and violations. Insurance fraud may occur in many ways, but it is mostly defined by submitting false claims, billing for services not performed or for performing unnecessary treatment. Poorly maintained medical record that does not account for the evaluation and treatment of the patient or absent record is the red flag that would suggest some wrongdoing and trigger further investigation into the medical practice. Obviously, insurance fraud is a criminal act as well as professional misconduct.
Under New York law, any New York health care professional found guilty of violating the medical record maintenance and disclosure rules may be fined up to $2,000 per each violation. If such violation is “willful”, the practitioner may be found guilty of a misdemeanor, which is a separate professional misconduct in its own right. There are numerous instances of professional discipline taken against New York healthcare practitioners’ licenses for “failure to maintain accurate medical records” and fraudulent activities associated with it.
One way to prevent medical record related problems in New York is to consult an experienced New York medical or professional license defense or health law attorney or visit one of the seminars given by insurance carriers. Any medical practice should implement permanent record keeping and release procedures.
Charles Myrick /ACIRX Offers Great Rx Assistance Info
The overall economics of most Americans is in such a dire with the high cost of gas, huge unemployment,as well as the crumbling condition of Medicare and Medicaid Doctors. It is also a time where corporation presidents overwhelming self greed made them forget… the little people who they were intrusted to look out for. So it is with a very pleasant surprise to come across a small Georgia company president Charles Myrick of ACIRX, that is determined to help the people of the world instead of just standing by looking.
It started out as a question in November 2004, that later turned out to be a plea.” Is there anything that can help my people with their medications?” This was a question from a director over 13 mostly rural counties in Georgia. A service, entertainment and shopping online site were first enhanced at 2 SPEND LESS where people could come to one site for assistance. American Consultants Rx Inc. (ACIRX) was also born as a community service project of American Consultants Inc., an agency that brokers in insurance and services across the country. It consisted of a discount prescription card program that would be donated free of charge to the heads of non-profit organizations, doctors, hospitals, churches, and even the public, and networked with over fifty thousand chain pharmacies across the U.S.
The company donated initially over 2.7 million ACIRX discount prescription cards free of charge that saved people up to 40% off of drugs and 60% off of generic drugs. One card would take care of a family and there was no expiration period. Directors of non-profit organizations, doctors, social workers, state and federal agencies, churches, etc. began ordering these cards. When ACIRX reached twenty five million orders, their only sponsor basically quit, it was too much.
ACIRX recently released up to 20 million cards before Christmas and distributed them to many organizations leaders . ACIRX also made the card available at ACIRX org . Just click on the card button and print the free ACIRX discount card that will be honored at over 50,000 chain pharmacies. Organizations who have not received the cards can also register their groups online to be on the list to receive the next batch of donated cards. The president of ACIRX , Charles Myrick promised not to quit on the many groups and their people. The project is not a cure all, but it is something… HOPE.
BY Gabby Laine
