Posted on 01/06/2014 6:16:12 PM PST by lightman
South-central Pennsylvania has been clobbered by a nasty cold, flu, or combination thereof for all of this brief new year. So much so that the state is listed as "widespread" on the flu map published by the Weather Channel.
I get that.
What I don't get is why it took my adult son nearly twelve hours to obtain a Z-pack. He did the responsible thing by calling his primary physician (a truly unmercenary practitioner, who works solo and sees many of the poor who others shun) early this morning...around 10 AM.
The overworked physicians office--I did say this flu thing was widespread--did not have time to call the pharmacy until nearly 6 PM. That's eight hours. The pharmacy was running nearly three hours behind on filling new scrips--again, because of the widespread flu.
So now we are 11 hours past the initial call to the PCP, with another hour to go, according to the information from the pharmacy.
Now you may be wondering, how is this the fault of Øbamacare?
Simple.
Øbamacare does NOTHING to address the medical billing system.
The medical billing system (to any insurance, be it Medicare, Medicaid, or private insurance) provides NO financial incentive to physicians for issuing prescriptions or renewals by phone, nor for phone consultations, nor for email communication.
To borrow a phrase from the legal profession, the only "billable hours" are for office visits and hospital visits. Period.
No incentive for delivering health care through any technology.
And certainly no incentive for doing so in a timely manner.
The market has failed.
And so has Øbummercare.
I know that’s true for Medicaid; is it definitely true for Medicare as well?
I wonder if there will be some work arounds. If a doctor is contracted with Medicare and needs to maintain the contract (to maintain hospital privileges, to take Medicaid or participate in a network to get commercial contracts), an intermediary could contract with the doctor who would provide the service to the Medicare patient as an employee of the intermediary. The intermediary would charge an extra percentage for the service.
But my guess is that this practice will be prohibited if it hasn’t been already.
Take 10,000iu of Vitamin D3 each day, for the next 3 days...then when you are well...which will likely be soon...go get your Vitamin D3 levels checked.....do some research...you’ll know why I say this.
Over the counter in Mexico. Different dosing schedule (3 capsules rather than 6) but same medication.
Over the counter, don’t even need an Rx.
Drive south. Stop at the first farmacia south of the border, ask for Z-packs.
When people say the opposite, Like, oh I don’t have to worry about it, Ill be dead, I get hot.
Young people are footing the bill for Medicare, Medicaid, SS, and now they cannot have medical care, or pay ten thousand per year, premiums, and deductibles, or no care pay a fine, while college tuition has soared past inflation, to meet no workforce participation, forget! unemployment cooked numbers.
They cannot get married, can’t start families, and they’re not supposed to practice birth control, and they shouldn’t, but the Catholic Church could address this from the hierarchy instead of pushing for immigration and lecturing on economics, ThIS is a real problem people will find when it bites them.
But only those looking for sainthood will spen the time of day taking care of an elderly mother who dumped them into daycare when they cried all day for the mothers, or the absentee or philandering father, and forget it if there’s an abortion to be learned of of a sibling.
This is a force that will come around. And they will not like this regime, nor anyone who exhibits an attitude of, you kids owe me, and deal with my debt after I’m dead.
Old peple, older people and aunts and uncles, neighbors have much to do to quit whining and realize they have an opportunity to fix this problem looming on the horizon for these kids. They will not be kind to us if we don’t do our jobs and try a whole lot harder.
We will NOT be seen as the greatest generation or any part of it. That is our choice.
But to loathe them is a huge mistake.
It should be voting age 21, draft age 21, volunteer service 18, and quit blaming these victims of Viet Nam era politics for not knowing how to vote.
Baby Boomers grow UP
Eeeet’s puddy far.
There is also a 47% chance that Zithromax will not touch the bug. Z-paks have been handed out so much they are becoming worthless. The military rates them as 87% ineffective worldwide.
Yeah. TJ’s about 500 miles for me. Still worth a trip if I have a long enough shopping list...
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-105publ33/html/PLAW-105publ33.htm
Section 4507, (b) (3)
A less obtuse reference: http://www.cchfreedom.org/cchf.php/308
You’re pretty much stuck with leaving the country for cash care as the only other option.
Fine. They can start by spending time with them. If they volunteer to teach or so, or body the neighbors when they’re sick, drop off a meal and hang around a minute and say hello and find out what goes on, ask coworkers or waitresses what is going on with their kids, visit family on holidays and smile and say hello to a niece and find out her major, and see what the issues are
No need to get involved, just put the remote down pu on som pants and go out and visit. turn down the volume on the game and ask some basic questions, the information will flow at one point
And then see what we are dumping on tense kids
What to do about it will become apparent
Not whining nor saying uh it’s not my problem will start
We are so quick to complain that kids bury their noses in their phones, but we can do what we expect of them. Put it down and talk. They are starved for attention. They crave honesty they loathe hypocrisy the cherish their privacy and value our attention and concern and wisdom. But theyare not a different species
They dont prevent it from occurring. They just ensure it will be a resistant infection when you get it.
Plodding my way through the legislation, it appeared that they covered potential work-arounds pretty well. I’ve been wondering whether a group practice might have a “doctor of record” to do the Medicare billing with the other physicians doing the actual treatment. From the looks of it, the DOR would have to avoid any payment to the other physicians, which sort of eliminates the rationale.
I guess you could have two doctors, a Medicare doctor and a non-Medicare doctor, but that raises some continuity of care issues.
Saw a story the other day on an Indian physician’s group that’s looking to build a large heart surgery facility in the Cayman Islands. I doubt they’re expecting the majority of their patients to be from Cuba.
Obamacare sucks but physicians really should actually see a patient before diagnosing them and prescribing antibiotics. Phoning in scripts leads to misdiagnosing and antibiotic resistant bacteria. 12 hrs is bad but it isn’t the end of the world.
I can't counsel a young man or woman to go to college, more often than not. They'd be far better off learning a trade, be it as an electrician, a plumber, an auto technician, whatever. My generation winked at the cosmetology school bunch, but now, if they are any good, they are going to be more likely to be making money if they pursued their trade than the ones who went to college and got a degree in advanced tiddleywinks. It makes no sense to incur 80-120,000 dollars in debt for a degree to qualify for a job that will pay 30K, or one where the hiring rate is similar to the number of HS basketball players who go on to the NBA. Better to have a lawn mowing/snow removal service and make a living.
Enterprising youth can be mentored, guided around pitfalls, and some of the seemingly slothful (who are only lost, who just can't see how to get from point 'a' to point 'b') can be motivated.
If an older generation wants the younger one to pick up the tab, as many of us have done for the generations which preceded us, we'd best better get our cheeks in gear and make sure the young have the skills to be successful, whether that takes a lawnmower, rake, and weedeater, or a PhD. Not everyone is cut out for college, anyway, and the glut of 4-year degrees in useless nonsense has devalued the hard science, mathematics, and engineering degrees out there.
We were all robbed in the '60s by the two paycheck family concept, which became prevalent enough to drive inflation to the point where few could afford to live on only one paycheck. Suckered, plain and simple.
My family doesn't do "day care". The kids are left with relatives while mom and dad work, and the grandparents, uncles, and aunts have some input into the development of the children in the family. We look out for our own, and frequently, their friends as well.
I'm not sure where America got suckered into thinking of each generation as a distinct and separate entity, except that it damages family continuity where the concept is accepted, and leaves people open to the same scams, generation after generation. Interaction between the (Great) grandparents and the newest group of kids provides the wisdom of the elders on tap for the youngest, and all in between. All benefit. In the end, it is up to all individuals how they handle their own family affairs, but it is foolish to deride those who led the way or who just need some leadership.
That may seem archaic to some, but it works. Besides, human nature stays much the same, only the fixtures and trimmings change.
It doesn’t sound like the issue is reimbursement, it sounds like the pharmacy is 3 hours behind in filling prescriptions. In that case, you can 1) go to a different pharmacy with your prescription (unless of course it is e-scribed, then the original pharmacy will have to process the prescription but not fill it in order for it to be transferred, or 2) the patient can pay cash and bill the insurance company later to receive the reimbursement (if any). It sounds like, in this instance, the pharmacy was dealing with fill demand, not reimbursement issues.
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