Still More Good News

Dr. Terry Reisner, a family practice physician from Idaho, will begin his practice in Powell on July 1. Dr. Reisner also has special training in geriatrics and thus will be a welcome addition to PVHC (especially to those of us who are no longer spring chickens).

The hirings of Dr. Cordero, Dr. Smith, Ms. Keeler, and Dr. Reisner mean that PVHC now has a full complement of physicians! Everybody say, "Woo Hoo" - twice.

Posted by Kathy

More Good News

PVHC's recruitment efforts are paying off. In addition to Dr. Cordero (see below), two more medical professionals will be arriving in Powell soon. As you may have seen recently in The Powell Tribune, Dr. Paul Smith, a general surgeon currently practicing in Idaho, will be replacing the retiring Dr. Nick Morris. Dr. Smith will be arriving very soon, we hope in mid-April.

In addition, Jana Keeler, a physician assistant who grew up right here in Powell, has accepted a part-time position caring for patients at the ExpressCare clinic. She is graduating from school in May, so she should be with us about the middle of June.

This is all good news. Everybody say, "Woo Hoo."

Posted by Kathy

Good News

As you may have seen in The Powell Tribune, PVHC is getting a new family practice physician, Dr. Valerie Cordero. Dr. Cordero comes to us from Washington (state), but she has roots in Wyoming. This should be good news for the folks who wish for more women physicians, as well as for those who have had to wait up to six weeks to get an appointment with a PVHC doctor. (See posting from October 25 below.)

Dr. Cordero is expected to arrive in June, but, until then, we have a temporary physician, Dr. Doede Donaugh, with whom you can make appointments as of March 3. Dr. Donaugh's patients may then be transferred directly to Dr. Cordero when she arrives.

And, as you may have seen in today's Tribune, PVHC is hoping to recruit more new physicians, including a general surgeon to replace the retiring Dr. Morris, a specialist in internal medicine, another family practice doc, and a part-time doc for the Express Care Clinic. Some of these searches are near to yielding results, so perhaps there will be more good news soon.

Posted by Kathy

A Question

I was wondering something. Who does ultrasounds of overies? Would it be my regular doctor who performs it or would it have to be someone else? I was just curious. I would appreciate some feedback. Thanks so much!

Posted by Anonymous

Palliative Care

If you're coping with a serious illness or caring for someone who is, you might want to check out the new website of The Center to Advance Palliative Care at www.getpalliativecare.org. Palliative care helps sufferers of serious illnesses to cope with the symptoms of the disease, as well as with the pain and stress that they cause. The website is user-friendly for both patients and medical professionals.

Posted by Kathy

Is Anybody There?

This blog has been up and running for about four months. We have tried to introduce topics that would generate discussion, such as, on the national level, the various candidates' plans for healthcare reform and, on the local level, the timeliness of getting an appointment with a PVHC doctor. The response has been, shall we say, underwhelming. Only seven people (including myself) have posted topics or comments, and only three have voted in the polls.

Perhaps this lack of interest is because everything in health care is going fine. (While I might believe this in regard to local issues, I have a very hard time believing it to be true on a national level.) Perhaps everyone is just too busy. Perhaps no one is visiting the PVHC website. Or maybe we are asking the wrong questions. What do YOU want to talk about? In the words of the wonderful song from the musical 1776: Is anybody there? Does anybody care?

Posted by Kathy

More on Candidates' Health Care Plans

Now for the Democratic side. Of the eight Democratic presidential candidates, the six who are ahead in the polls have similar health care plans. (The other two, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, favor a universal, single-payer plan that Kucinich calls "Medicare for All.") In regard to health insurance, the six top Democrats would allow people to keep the insurance plan they have if they like it. Alternatively, one could switch to a newly-created public or private plan. Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, and Chris Dodd all liken this plan to the currently-existing Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (the plan that currently covers members of Congress as well as other federal employees). FEHBP is a sort of "marketplace" of health insurance plans from which one can choose. Barack Obama and John Edwards are proposing similar "marketplaces"; the only difference is that they don't specifically compare them to FEHBP. To help consumers pay for insurance, Obama and Dodd propose federal subsidies for people whose incomes are low but not low enough for Medicaid or CHIP (the Children's Health Insurance Program). Clinton, Edwards, and Richardson suggest tax credits for the same group, and Clinton adds retirees to this list as well.

In addition, Edwards, Obama, and Clinton include a public, government-run insurance plan as one of a consumer's choices. This plan would essentially be Kucinich's "Medicare for All," except that it would be only one of several choices, rather than THE plan that Kucinich favors. The new plans, both private and public, would be non-discriminatory, insuring everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions, medical history, age, or occupation. And Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Richardson, and Biden all favor expanding the Medicaid and CHIP programs.

All six top Democrats claim that their plans could be financed by cost savings. They say that much money would be saved by making the health care insurance system more efficient and reducing bureaucracy. Specifically, this involves steps like creating one, standard, uniform claim form and "placing cost controls on insurance companies so they spend at least 85% of their revenue on direct health care rather than administration." (The quotation is from Richardson. If you're interested in the details of the Democrats' cost-saving plans, check out Richardson's description on his website. It's the clearest.) All of them also favor investing in preventive health care services as a means of reducing costs.

All of the major candidates would require businesses to pay for part of their employees' health insurance, but all also offer assistance. Clinton proposes a tax credit for small businesses. Similarly, Richardson says that business contributions to employees' health care would be determined on a sliding scale according to the size of the business. Dodd also says, "If a person or business is unable to pay for insurance, the government will subsidize their premium share on a sliding scale based on income." Obama and Biden offer to establish a federal reinsurance pool that would reimburse employers for a portion of catastrophic medical costs since these constitute a very high percentage of health care spending. Edwards says that businesses that choose to use the new "marketplace" approach would have to make only single contributions as they do now to Social Security and Medicare.

In addition to reducing costs, the Democrats seem genuinely interested in the quality of medical care. Obama, Edwards, Richardson, and Biden all want to create an independent institute to research the most effective methods of providing health care and to report their results to the public. Obama and Biden even say they would require all publicly funded health insurance plans (Medicare, FEHBP, a new public plan) to pay for "proven disease management programs," by which they mean ways of dealing with chronic conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure. Edwards goes even further, suggesting that insurers should pay higher rates for better care (though how that would work is not entirely clear.) Obama and Biden seem the most interested in increasing the number of health care professionals. Biden promises significant funding for nursing education. Obama promises to "strengthen antitrust laws to prevent insurers from overcharging physicians for their malpractice insurance." And both promise to expand funding for public health agencies.

To deal with the high cost of prescription drugs, Obama supports allowing Americans to buy drugs from other developed countries as long as they are proven safe and their cost is lower than in the U.S. He, Richardson, and Biden also support removing the restriction that keeps the government from negotiating drug prices for people in Medicare Part D. Obama speculates that such direct negotiation could save the government as much as $30 billion which could then be used to fund other aspects of his health care plan. And Richardson would like to see Medicare offer a direct prescription drug benefit, instead of using the current complicated system.

Finally, a few more comments on Richardson's health care plan are warranted since his is the most detailed and some of his ideas are interesting. For instance, currently, young adults are not covered by their parents' health insurance after they reach 18 years old unless they are students. Richardson (and Obama) would raise the age to 25. Second, Richardson would create a system through which veterans could receive health care in their own communities at government expense in cases where VA facilities are inaccessible. Third, Richardson would limit interest rates on credit cards when they are used for medical expenses. And fourth, Richardson would create what he calls "health care bonds," an investment vehicle the proceeds of which would be used to help hospitals and doctors to upgrade their health information systems.

So what do you think? The Democrats are certainly promising to do more to reform our health care system than the Republicans. Are the Democrats' plans too ambitious? Not ambitious enough? Weigh in.

Posted by Kathy