Two weeks ago, I committed to offering my solutions for healing our healthcare system. My first post dealt with healing the health insurance industry. Like it or not, their problems dominate; we fix their problem's first.
Today, I talk about hospitals. Let's create a system to insure they remain financially solvent.
First off, who am I, right?
Well, I’m just a consumer of our healthcare system, right?
And, I’m not alone here. There are hundreds of millions of consumers, just like me.
We've consumed it, experienced it, suffered under it. We have street creds. We're survivors.
That experience, that intensive study, ...makes us experts. We survived, for the most part, right? (Ok. We had no choice.) That means in many cases, we’re more knowledgeable and savvy, creative and innovative, certainly persistent than...many hospitals, it seems.
I can’t find the total number of U.S. hospitals that have either closed or entered bankruptcy in 2008 and 2007. I’m sure that number is online, somewhere. But after 4-5 searches with the terms related to hospital bankruptcy, I found only these numbers, hospital closings and hospital bankruptcies for New Jersey.
The New Jersey Hospital Association:
- reports 5 hospitals closed in 2007
- 5 filed for bankruptcy in 2007.
- 5 more hospitals closed in 2008. No word on bankruptcy filings for 2008.
- Half of the state’s 74 hospitals are losing money.
New Jersey’s not alone in this challenge. But their numbers are the only ones I could find.
My point here is that if..hospitals and their talented leaders cannot survive in our current healthcare system...how can we, its consumer, expect to enter its doors and survive, financially or otherwise? (Still, we do...)
We do, they do, together we do. That’s because we, hospitals and consumers share a few things in common:
- We both have smart, dedicated, persistent, leaders;
- The cost of our healthcare, that provided and that received, is forcing us into bankruptcy.
Almost 50% of all personal bankruptcies arise from the impact of a healthcare crisis. Either the health insurance coverage was missing, there was no health insurance, or the costs were so catastrophic that even a fully insured person walks away with bills not covered. Or they surrender under the seemingly constant assault of insurers disputing the costs and coverage...throwing up our hands and saying ok, you win, I’ll pay.
I'm willing to bet that almost 50% of all hospital bankruptcies arise from the same catastrophic healthcare crises they're mandated, ethically and financially, to care for.
My thinking is that if two people are flailing wildly to stay afloat...and that flailing is making them both sink...one should yell to the other and say hey, you’re drowning me...if you stop flailing away...I can stop fending you off...and we’ll both survive.
Here’s my thoughts on how hospitals and consumers, them and us at this point, can help each other stay afloat:
* Let’s talk. Let’s get to know each other.
- Why do consumers not pay their bills?
- What bills, services, can a hospital forego?
- What other community resources are available?
- Are there expenses not associated with delivering care to a consumer?
- Do we have to turn to the hospital for every healthcare need?
* Preventative care.
- What can consumers do to avoid needing a hospital?
- Maybe hospitals can invest in clinics providing cost-effective preventative care. Walmart can, why can’t more hospitals?
* Hospital Ratings, Online
Let’s get the performance ratings for every hospital online. Consumers can vote with their feet. And hospitals can brag. Free markets work well when consumers have the data to vote with their feet, their health and their family’s health...and their wallets.
* Consumer Ratings, Online.
Being fair, do we put consumer hospital payment records online? If we did what would the outcome be? Would hospitals choose to not offer services? Could the consumer then have a forum to explain why they can’t pay these charges? The insurer wore them down, they’re in dispute, they couldn’t afford health insurance, an accident and the responsible party’s not insured...the hospital overcharged?
* Prices, online.
Along with hospital ratings online, let’s post their charges, publicly online.
* Insure everyone.
At the end of the day, bottomline, all kidding and conversations and listeningand social media aside too, it comes down to money.
The NJ Hospital Association says to insure everyone.
I don’t know how hospitals can be expected, mandated, to deliver care to everyone who walks in their door and many, most if not all, heroically honor the law and the ethics with this mandate... Thank you. ...without also offering a means for them to be compensated.
But, all we did was offshore the burden to ...them.
And, insurers remain to hold the money, our money as premium payers, and erect the wall over which hospitals and patients throw their claims, their beggings, their pleadings.
The above solutions are more than moving deck chairs on the Titanic. They’re life rafts, temporary, until The Carpathia arrives in the form of universal health insurance. And then the money’s available.
But we're in this together. We'll sink or swim, together, until The Carpathia, the money and a system to deliver arrives. By talking, we'll create a system that can handle the money when it arrives. But it better hurry. It's getting cold out here.
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