Health Care Needs More than a Band Aid

With all my recent health problems (thumb surgery, eye infections and knee surgery), I've had the displeasure of experiencing the broken health care system firsthand. Not only are there blatant inefficiencies, inconsistencies and just plain stupidity, the convoluted information or lack thereof is completely appalling. If our country is supposed to be powerful and smart, why are so many other countries doing this health care thing so much better than us? In an effort to express my frustration, here are my suggestions for improving the system:

1) Screw Privacy, Embrace Technology: I understand people's paranoia about having their medical information and history on the web but we already have our tax information (electronic filing), finances (mint), opinions (yelp), thoughts and feelings (blogs), work history (linkedin), memories and relationships (facebook) online. Our medical history should be added to that list without hesitation. I should not have to start from scratch with every new doctor I see -- filling out the same forms and answering the same questions as many times before. And I don't remember what year I took which test and had which immunization. Am I really expected to remember everything when I can hardly keep everyone's birthdays straight? Plus I'm young so I can only imagine how much harder it is for those older than me who have a longer history to remember. If I can do an automatic search online for every other aspect of my life, why can't I do the same for my medical history?

2) Standard rate cards: I've been to the physical therapist 20 times since my knee surgery in December yet insurance claims letters show varying prices for each visit: $260, $295 or $320. Unusual since every time I get the same drill -- a warm up, some exercises and then ice. What is to distinguish a $320 visit from a $260? The PT's mood? How much effort I've exerted? Am I being charged by the minute and don't know it? I needed a teeth cleaning a few months ago and called 3 different dentists, each offering a different cost for a standard cleaning. Is the difference in cost reflective of their quality? I chose the cheapest dentist but it felt like the same quality as my expensive dentist in SF. I don't get it. Media offers standard rate cards, and spas and salons have some standard prices on display. Health care should be required to display and stick to consistent prices just like everyone else.

3) Logical Insurance in English: Deductible. Out-of-Pocket Maximum. What's the difference? I still don't understand. I know I should only be spending X amount out of my own funds before insurance is supposed to cover the rest. Its a seemingly simple process yet why are all insurance documents an indecipherable mess? For example, I've read my schools 27-page policy outline at least a dozen times yet I still call my insurance every time I need to get a straight answer because insurance policy writers were not trained in the value of simple English and brevity. Insurance companies might be able to save some money in needless customer service calls if they just translated their documents for the everyday person to understand.

4) Timeliness: Everyone's time is valuable. I understand when appointments run late and I have to wait awhile but if I am penalized for being 15 minutes late to an appointment, so should a doctor. Especially when the time I spend waiting for the doctor exceeds the time spent with the actual doctor. And not only do I wait at the office, I also wait for the bills. They don't arrive until 3 months later because some mysterious paper-pushing process happens behind the scenes that apparently takes 3 months to sort out. (I will be done with a quarter of school before I receive all my bills from December.) By that time, I've forgotten what happened at the appointment and have to review my own documents to see what I'm being charged for. I think insurance banks on the fact that many people forget and just pay the bill without a second thought. Inefficiencies have brought our medical providers great wealth but their time shouldn't be any more valuable than ours.

5) Go paperless: I embrace the green movement and make every effort to go paperless. So when someone at a doctors office or at my insurance carrier says they can't receive or send information by email and I must fax or mail something, I am still shocked. There are many senior citizens who come online and I know the people on the phone know what email is. Yet somehow, someway, medical offices are still not set up for it? Seriously? Under what rock has their office been living? I suppose its the same one that takes 3 months to send out a bill.

I wish we could start from scratch. There are only so many band aids you can use to hold together a broken system. Every hour (and there are many) that I spend sorting through medical bills and calling insurance makes me angry. And the most upsetting part is that I'm not the worst of it.