Surviving USA Medicine

[Polish_Silver]

This is not only a financial challenge. A large number are killed each year by "medical mistakes" and prescription drugs, though some of that is the fault of the drug takers.


As a start for what is wrong consider this advice from consumer reports on keeping bills under control:

Insurers negotiate prices with individual hospitals, medical practices, laboratories and other providers. Insurers often can bargain down prices more successfully with some providers than others. If you have not met your deductible, going to a lower-cost provider can save you hundreds or occasionally thousands of dollars.


Do not waste your time calling up the provider to ask the price. Providers can participate with dozens of plans and may have no way of knowing what yours pays them before you file the claim.

But the insurance company will know. Many health plans now enable members to look up some prices online. You must register at your insurer's website to use this service. If the health care procedure or service you are looking for is not listed on the website, call the insurer directly. Be aware, though, that some hospitals and doctors do not allow insurance companies to disclose their fees to plan members in advance.

I challenge anybody to find another industry, including financial services, which has such a byzantine price discovery process.

I love that. Some hospitals do not allow the insurance company to tell consumers what the price will be. Has Obama care fixed anything?

[Slimprofits]

Re: Surviving USA Medicine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iatrogenesis

[Polish_Silver]

great word!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iatrogenesis

There should be a word for financial ruin caused by professional financial advice !

[Slimprofits]

Re: great word!

There should be a word for financial ruin caused by professional financial advice !

Simply adopt this one. financial or economic Iatrogenics. And the people that engage it are charlatans.

[Slimprofits]

Re: Surviving USA Medicine

John Hughlings Jackson, a British neurologist in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: "It takes 50 years to get a wrong idea out of medicine, and 100 years a right one into medicine." ... Max Plank codified this in a maxim: "New scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." source: http://www.fool.com/investing/genera...ink-diffe.aspx

[lektrode]

Re: Surviving USA Medicine

and dont forget the ole standby:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

[Slimprofits]

Re: Surviving USA Medicine

and dont forget the ole standby: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

excellent!

[lektrode]

Re: Surviving USA Medicine

excellent!

thanyou, thanyouvermush...

[flintlock]

Re: Surviving USA Medicine

I challenge anybody to find another industry, including financial services, which has such a byzantine price discovery process.

That's the problem in a nutshell. Without pricing knowledge, we lose a lot of the advantages of the Capitalist system and keep most of the negative aspects.