United Healthcare CEO shot to death in front of NYC investor meeting

[summit]

I'll also tell you that the insurance companies play fuck fuck games constantly changing what "magic words" people like Trackhead have to put in their charts to get paid for obviously necessary shit. The words that would have gotten reimbursed last year are new this year and so you have to go out and get people to chart differently.

Here's a simple example:
"Pt moved to ICU after MAP dropped to 50 post op and Hgb to 7.1 corresponded to need for 2 units of PRBC, pt stabilized after brief pressors."

In laymans: "the blood pressure dropped too low after surgery and the lab test showed the patients red blood cells were low, so we gave the patient a blood transfusion and moved them to a higher level of care including drugs to raise their blood pressure."

That equates to $0 and the ICU level care and transfusion will not be reimbursed because the doc didn't say the magic words: "hemmorhagic shock d/t post op blood loss anemia"

Fuck fuck games. Medicare plays that game too.

[MultiVerse]

And on the provider side people get bills for an “IV push” which can result in an $800 charge each time a nurse provides an intravenous medication. Those games often come at the expense of patients

[Trackhead]

Insurance companies control everything….end of fucking story.

We, as patients and providers have no other illusions.

Zero debate.

[MultiVerse]

Nonsense. Hospitals have enormous power

[Trackhead]

Nonsense. Hospitals have enormous power

You don’t work in healthcare do you?

If hospitals had enormous power, they wouldn’t be losing money, handover fist and constantly renegotiating contracts with third-party payers.

What about outpatient clinics, private clinics, outpatient surgical centers, in the endless other small businesses, engaged in healthcare without the negotiating power of perhaps a large hospital chain.

[MultiVerse]

It's a two tier system. 40-percent of hospitals lose money while the rest are pulling away from the pack. Hospitals that deliver care more efficiently also pay higher wages to doctors and nurses making it even harder for poorer performing hospitals to compete.

Around 60-percent of hospitals are also tax-exempt nonprofit entities. But very little of the tax benefits derived from nonprofit status goes towards charity care. Instead they tend to charge patients high facilities fees to cover administrative and operational expenses. So instead of expanding provider capacity, these well-intentioned top heavy bloated hospitals become qualified as “poorer” facilities which provides additional government subsidies

[summit]

Hospitals that deliver care more efficiently also pay higher wages to doctors and nurses making it even harder for poorer performing hospitals to compete.

BWHAHAAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHH AHHHAHAHHAHHAHH

Maybe to contract specialists, but not employed healthcare workers whether MD, NP, PA, RN, etc etc et.

HCA, the largest hospital corp in existence, has some of the lowest pay out there and they are for-profit and boy do they profit!

[Trackhead]

Oh gotta love me some HCA trash talk! Universally despised.

[MultiVerse]

Systems like Cleveland Clinic, Ascension and CommonSpirit Health have increased salaries and benefits in recent years due to growing revenues from providing more efficient care. The median hospital operating margin is now over 5-percent, so mathematically speaking, if the worst performers are losing money then the best performers are doing much better

One of the big mistakes of Obamacare was making it harder for physicians to own and run hospitals. The thinking was it's like having the fox guard the hen house. Whereas physician-led Cleveland Clinic is one of the best run profitable healthcare systems in the country

HCA, the largest hospital corp in existence, has some of the lowest pay out there and they are for-profit and boy do they profit!

Right, referring back to the previous page, they have enormous market power because of perverse incentives in federal policy leading to market consolidation and ineffective spending.

[summit]

CommonSpirit Health have increased salaries and benefits in recent years due to growing revenues from providing more efficient care.

That's a nice fairy tale.

[MultiVerse]

Well, this is the fairy tale thread where hospital groups only care about patients and nothing else

[Buzzworthy]

Nonsense. Hospitals have enormous power

What??!?

My god you do love to just talk out your ass.

[MultiVerse]

You'd have to be either willfully ignorant or clueless not to see it. Many concrete documented sources have been provided throughout this thread. Do you actually believe hospitals don't engage in wasteful ineffective spending? Seriously, that's not a hill you want to try and defend

[Buzzworthy]

I just went through it with my sibling. Insurance is king and ultimately makes the decisions.

My wife works for a hospital and has now for 18 years straight. But please, tell me more.

You don’t know everything there is to know.

Your employer must absolutely hate you with how much waking time you spend here arguing with everyone under the sun just so you can appear right and smart.

Who are you trying to impress? Because we aren’t it, it’s not that big of a deal.

Have some fucking humility. It’s ok to be wrong. That’s how we learn to better ourselves.

When is the last time you got out on skis or a snowboard?

[MultiVerse]

The terms and benefits of insurance vary widely. You yourself said UHC would have covered the transplant but COBRA didn't. Some plans don't pay for transplants at all. So the question is, did the COBRA plan deny because they're king or did they deny because the procedure wasn't covered?

Regardless, you have my condolences. My wife sees transplant patients everyday. Each patient requires 4-5 hours of evaluation just to determine whether they're a candidate before insurance even gets involved. The entire process is excruciating for everyone

[Buzzworthy]

Your response shows you didn’t actually listen to what I wrote. I figured as much.

[MultiVerse]

I responded to the part that had to do with this thread even though you're not entitled to anything at all. And certainly not anything more than that

[Buzzworthy]

I responded to the part that had to do with this thread. You're not entitled to anything. Certainly not anything more than that

My god you’re exhausting.

[Buzzworthy]

And say what you mean and hit enter. Your constant editing is also exhausting.

[MultiVerse]

I'm sorry you're experiencing a mental health/midlife crisis. Dealing with your sister's crisis on top of everything else must be hard

[Buzzworthy]

I'm sorry you're experiencing a mental health/midlife crisis. Dealing with your sister's crisis on top of everything else must be hard

Being a human must be hard.
You sure do like to bring this up a lot.
You seem incredibly insincere because you only do this when I’m arguing with you.

[Trackhead]

I don’t think multiverse is entirely wrong. Hospital corporations are not saints by any stretch. HCA is really good and chopping all ancillary services and staff to be “more efficient” and then giving the CEO a 20 million/yr raise the next year. I worked there then, and saw it. Criminal shit.

[MultiVerse]

Being a human must be hard.
You sure do like to bring this up a lot.
You seem incredibly insincere because you only do this when I’m arguing with you.

This is the only time I've ever mentioned it, ever. I've never posted in your thread, ever. And I disagree that you're arguing with me. You're trying to pick a fight, that's true. But you are not actually making or responding to any substantive arguments

I don’t think multiverse is entirely wrong. Hospital corporations are not saints by any stretch. HCA is really good and chopping all ancillary services and staff to be “more efficient” and then giving the CEO a 20 million/yr raise the next year. I worked there then, and saw it. Criminal shit.

For what it's worth, and there needs to be a better term, health care efficiency in economic terms is defined as better outcomes. So for example, even though cardiovascular care is expensive, in terms of positive benefits to people it's incredibly efficient because we've gotten so good at extending peoples lives. That's worth trillions of dollars to the American people

[summit]

Hospital megacorps are indeed devils, only being sainlty compared to UHC. The non-profit label of many is a joke.

A real problem is that the ACA spurred the growth of the hospital mega-corps.

It was specifically written that way.

The crafters believed that practicioners as contractors, single provider practices, small practices, standalone hospitals, and small systems were bad and a drag. They didn't even want physician owned hospitals and specificalyl banned it with some carvouts for existing ones.

They believed healthcare M&A and employment of practicioners would lead to economies of scale and agile systems. Because MBAs making 8 figures know best!

They were wrong.

And even wrote a mea culpa.

[Buzzworthy]

This is the only time I've ever mentioned it, ever. I've never posted in your thread, ever. And I disagree that you're arguing with me. You're trying to pick a fight, that's true. But you are not actually making or responding to any substantive arguments

Bullshit dude. You have.
But it doesn’t matter because you’re just another internet warrior here. Not a fan. You just cunt the board up trying to constantly be right.
You are only here to argue so to that go right ahead. I’m not reading your fucking garbage any longer.

You’re that guy everyone in the company can’t stand because you always argue about everything.