•Reduces preventable readmissions. The current health care system does not place enough emphasis on improving quality of care. For example, nearly 20 percent of Medicare patients who are discharged from the hospital end up being readmitted within 30 days.22 For Iowa, that’s 29,100 readmissions each year which could potentially be prevented with improved care coordination.23 Health insurance reform will invest in innovations in primary care and will provide financial incentives to hospitals to better coordinate care at discharge to avoid preventable readmissions.
•Lessens Paperwork. Physicians spend on average about 140 hours and $68,000 a year just dealing with health insurance bureaucracy.24 For the 7,704 physicians in Iowa, this adds up to 1.1 million hours and $523 million in costs.25 By simplifying and standardizing paperwork and computerizing medical records, doctors will be able to focus on caring for their patients instead of dealing with bureaucracy.
You know, the government could have made jobs by providing people to do that for Doctors. Do you like the idea of having your medical records on a system that is vunerable to attack by hackers, virus', worms and trojans? Do you also like the idea of having the government know what your medical health is? This gives them the incentive to decide what you pay and what they pay. It could go either way, where you pay a small amount and they pay a large amount, or vice versa.
•Incentivizes primary care. Roughly 3,300 doctors in Iowa practice primary care and would qualify for a new 5 to 10 percent payment bonus under health insurance reform.26
Yes, and this seems to be partly to the fact that they (the doctors) know they will be taking on more medicaid carrier patients. Reimbursement rates for medicaid is at what percent now ? What was it before 2, 3, 4 years ago?
•Invests in the health primary care. Approximately 247,000 people, or 8 percent of Iowa’s population, cannot access a primary care provider due to shortages in their communities.27 Health insurance reform will expand and improve programs to increase the number of health care providers, including doctors, nurses, and dentists, especially in rural and other underserved areas.
A lot of people I know can't get health care due to one simple thing. Iowa is not like New York, we are spread out, with 20, 40, 60 miles between cities and towns. So the gas alone, on a limited income, is one of the reasons why they cannot get to the care. The major hospitals surrounding where I live is roughly 2 to 5 hours drive. We do have a hospital and we do have a clinic where I live, but the most serious medical cases get flown to the mother hospital in Sioux Falls, SD, two hours away. I don't understand how they cannot see that it is not only the medical aspect to pay for, it's also for the fuel that the Amulances use, and the fuel for the helicopter, among other things. You got a medical bill, along with the bill for ambulance care and helicopter rides and who knows what else. Those are not covered under medicaid as far as I know.
Two, How are they going to get more doctors, and nurses? Noone gets assigned the job of life. People choose to go into the field. There is a shortage of doctors and nurses, how is it possible to spread out?
Fun times ahead for spectators