Insight, analysis & opinion from Joe Paduda

May
26

US healthcare quality is poor because…

Consumers don’t care.

Yesterday we dove into the disconnect between patient satisfaction (my nurse was sooo nice and my room…wow!) and quality of care (how likely was I to die).

Today, we focus on how this affects our healthcare. Or, as the researchers put it;

In an era of management by satisfaction survey, how does hospital competition shape the kind of medical services offered to patients? 

Leaving out the coefficients, standardized deviations, null estimates and other researchers’ esoterica, we find:

Local competition among hospitals leads to higher patient satisfaction, but lower medical quality. 

Yep, because we consumers value quiet rooms and nice nurses more than surviving an operation, health care facilities seem to focus more on quietness and niceness than on, you know, patients actually surviving.

And that’s because hospitals are competing desperately for private-pay patients, the ones insured by employers that pay three times more than Medicare. As the authors put it;

as a business strategy, investing in hospitality and hotel amenities offers a much higher return than medical quality. 

this research speaks to broad concerns about the unintended consequences of marketization…Hospitals have traditionally been conceived as an essential service to a community, but are becoming more like products in a consumer marketplace.

Those working in hospitals are increasingly expected to focus on the pursuit of customer satisfaction.

The day-to-day institutional question is shifting from “will this improve patient health?” to “will this raise satisfaction scores?” 

What does this mean for you?

Depends… life > comfort?


May
25

Patient satisfaction ≠ Quality of care

Health care quality is a huge issue in the US; despite claims that we have the best healthcare in the world, reality is far different.

Why?  I’d argue its because healthcare consumer behavior drives our for-profit system.

What makes patients happy is completely unrelated to the actual quality of medical care they receive – or how likely they are to die.

Research article is here.

the horizontal axis indicates hospital performance by deciles for each category…note patient satisfaction doesn’t vary by hospital mortality and varies just a little by medical quality, but varies a LOT by nurse communication.

The effect of nurse communication on patient satisfaction is four times larger than the effect of the hospital’s mortality rate. Yup, as long as the nurse smiles, is responsive and nice, we’re satisfied. Never mind if we’re a lot more likely to die.

Another oft-measured factor, the quietness of the rooms, has a 40% larger effect on patient satisfaction than medical quality.

This is because hospitals provide two separate and distinct kinds of services  – the technical delivery of medical care and “room and board-related” services. Patients are much better at observing and rating the “hospitality” part of their hospital stay than the medical care they get.

To quote the authors;

Hospitality is the fast track to customer satisfaction in medicine. 

What does this mean for you?

Customer satisfaction is the fast track to profits… not to good medical care.


May
23

Work comp drugs – Three things

Workers’ comp news…

After a long and litigious delay, myMatrixx has been awarded the contract to manage pharmacy benefits for the Coal and Energy programs run by the Federal Department of Labor’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP). Details of the case – which involved a protest by rival PBM Optum – are here.

That’s the good news (the Feds should have had a PBM managing these programs years ago).

Now, the bad news.

The press continues to dive into the audit of the other OWCP program – the one that provides workers’ comp to all Federal employees (FECA). [audit report is free for download here]

The latest is from Leslie Small of AIS Health. [available at no cost via free trial subscription].

From Ms. Small’s piece:

  • “OWCP has been doing a poor job of both controlling the FECA programs spending on prescription drugs and implementing its own policies to ensure that prescriptions are being appropriately dispensed, said the OIG report.”
  • OWCP published a bulletin in 2011 that forbid reimbursement for fast-acting fentanyl prescriptions unless claimants had been diagnosed with a certain type of cancer…during the audit period…98.7% of the fast-acting fentanyl scripts that OWCP [and taxpayers] paid for “went to claimants without evidence of one of hte eligible cancer diagnoses” 
  • Even more troubling – if that’s possible – OWCP did not institute controls to mitigate opioid usage until the end of 2016, years after many commercial insurers, third-rate administrators, and large employees had done so…”

Here’s hoping this much-needed attention results in even-more-needed improvements.(my opinion only)

Drug costs in California are getting well deserved attention again; CWCI’s research identified 9 drugs – 3 each opioids, dermatologicals and antidepressants – that account for a significant percentage of total drug spend. CWCI members can get the full report at no cost; it’s $18 for others.

Briefly, branded anti-depressants, tapentadol/Nucynta, and the three anti-depressants make up a small percentage of scripts but a big percentage of dollars.

Of course, in the vast majority of cases the dermos are just BS drugs that should never be allowed…

What does this mean for you?

Don’t sleep on pharmacy...sure costs are down, but it still has a major influence on recovery, RTW, and claim closure.


May
22

Wildly off-topic…F-16s

Russian general when he learned about F-16s heading to Ukraine…

Вот чёрт!!

From Phillips O’Brien…

Its impossible to exaggerate the intensity with which Ukrainians from all walks of life, from the top of the state and military to civil society, were focussed on getting F-16s for the Ukrainian Air Force.

Why F-16s are critical…

  • Ukraine’s Air Force is woefully behind the times, their main fighter – the Mig-29 – has been around for 40 years and is beyond obsolete. 
  • Getting spare parts for the UAF’s Migs is getting harder and harder.
  • F-16s are very, very capable – military-speak for they can do lots of things well.
    • shoot down other planes
    • support ground operations
    • launch missiles to hit targets hundreds of miles away
    • shoot down incoming rockets and missiles
  • Unlike the Mig-29, F-16s have constantly upgraded
  • Unlike many other planes, they are relatively simple to maintain and there is a huge stockpile of spare parts

The net is there is no other single airplane that fits the bill as well as the F-16.

Okay, it’s gonna take a very long time to train Ukrainian pilots on the F-16…

Well, no.

An internal US Air Force document indicates Ukrainian pilots  – with almost no training – could execute complicated maneuvers albeit it in an F-16 simulator. Multiple sources indicate Ukrainian pilots can be flying the F-16s in combat a few months.

And…

It’s unlikely the F-16s will have much of an impact on the already-started/upcoming Ukrainian offensive, but they will play a major role in Ukraine’s likely long war.

What does this mean for you?

More good news for Ukraine, and bad days for Russian butchers.


May
18

WCRI’s new leader speaks

One of my favorite people in workers’ comp is now heading up WCRI…I connected with Ramona Tanabe who was named President and CEO. making her the third leader of this august institution.

here’s our conversation…