Category Archives: Health Care

If Air Travel Worked Like Health Care

This would be funnier if it were not true. The video was apparently produced to dramatize this piece in National Journal Magazine. Then again, the air travel industry should not go unscathed here, so for your amusement, the TSA Theme by the Bar and Grill Singers, a group of Texas attorneys whose works include “The Jury [...]

Information Transfer Fail

While the dentist was looking over my x-rays, he saw something he would like checked out by a specialist. He used words like “sometimes they..” and “might be…” when describing the issue he saw. I get a referral. The information on the referral slip is the name of the referring dentist (which I can’t read), [...]

Health Insurance Overprocessing Muda

If I had a category for “What are they thinking?” I would probably tag this post with it. Patient has an eye exam that is covered by her health insurance. The doctor’s office bills the insurance company. The insurance company disallows $29.32 in charges because they are above a contractual amount. The insurance company sends [...]

Looking at the wrong stuff: America’s Best Hospitals: The 2009-10 Honor Roll

This news piece, America’s Best Hospitals: The 2009-10 Honor Roll, originally got my attention because I hoped someone might be actually be paying attention to the things that make a real difference in our national debate about health care. Unfortunately, it looks like more of the same. This survey looks at things like technical capability [...]

Paying the Bills vs. Dealing with the Costs

House Dems want to tax the rich for health care – Yahoo! News The health care debate in the USA is increasingly focused on how to pay (meaning who will pay) to operate a dysfunctional system with costs out of control. I fully acknowledge that in government circles, this is about the only thing they [...]