The last post, Horses, was also posted on Sermo, a forum for physicians and was well received. But those who commented mainly responded to their relationship with animals, so I am wondering how many noticed my final point, which was my main reason for posting it. This post expands on what I was trying to point out.
How to Rehabilitate the System
- Don’t get mad.
- Don’t complain.
- Don’t try to predict the future. (It is impossible.)
- Don’t try to become a politician. (It isn’t in you.)
- Choose the one thing (goal) that would improve the system more than anything else: Healthcare Savings Accounts.
- Talk to your patients. Talk to everyone you meet. Tell them how HSAs will help them: Save money. Have full access to care without having to get approval from an insurance company. They can keep their money if they don’t get sick. Tell them how they can start one, even without a government subsidy. When everyone wants one, politicians will want to give them subsidies to get votes.
- Don’t talk about how this change will help doctors. It will actually not help some doctors who have large capital investments in equipment for procedures that are largely paid for by insurance companies. We have to face that.
- When everyone wants a HSA—choose the one thing (goal) that would improve the system more than anything else: Rational Management of Medical Errors.
- Talk to your patients. Talk to everyone you meet. Tell them how Rational Management of Medical Errors will help them: Receive prompt, adequate compensation if they are injured by an accident during the process of their health care. Improve transparency so that the causes of errors can be investigated quickly and adequately, so that the causes can be eliminated and errors reduced, to the point that health care becomes as safe as travel on an airline. Today we must acknowledge that it is no safer than riding in your car, or maybe a motorcycle.
- 10. Don’t talk about how it will lower doctors’ liability insurance premiums, end malpractice suits, or that it will eliminate windfall awards that motive frivolous suits. It is OK to say it will lower the total cost of health care.
- 11. When everyone wants Rational Management of Medical Errors—choose the one thing (goal) that would improve the system more than anything else: You choose the next One Thing. We have enough to work on for a while, but when we actually get to step 11, go back and repeat steps 1 thorough 8, over and over and over until the system is prefect. Don’t ask politicians for help and don’t try to beat them at their own game. They will ask us, to let them help us, when we have used the one talent that we have, which they do not have: to retain the confidence of our patients and to communicate with them.
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