Posts Tagged ‘patient’

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Franken Bill Presupposes Doctors and Patients are Stupid

October 23rd, 2009

@PharmaGuy and I exchanged several tweets yesterday afternoon debating the merits of the Senate bill introduced by the junior Senator from Minnesota, Al Franken.  The title of the bill is the “Protecting Americans from Drug Marketing Act” the purpose of which is to deny the tax deduction for advertising and promotional expenses for prescription pharmaceuticals.

Reasons I’ve heard over the years why pharma direct to consumer advertising is bad:

  • Misleads patients into thinking that you can have intimate relations while soaking in separate bath tubs on the beach (sorry, that’s just my confusion)
  • Causes patients to spontaneously come up with symptoms and trick them into believing that there is something their doctors can do about them to make their lives better (no, still me)

You know you scoffed at restless leg syndrome until they found the gene

  • Ok, please leave some comments telling me why Americans are too stupid to risk being subjected to advertising on pharmaceutical products as opposed to any others and why physicians are too tired from explaining that antibiotics can’t cure a cold to resist writing a prescription for anything and everything a patient mentions during their 15 minute visit.  Here’s a start from Public Citizen http://www.citizen.org/publications/release.cfm?ID=7402

But the bill goes on to define advertising and promoting as “includ[ing] direct to consumer advertising in any media and any activity [emphasis mine] designed to promote the use of a prescription pharmaceutical directed to providers or others who may make decisions about the use of prescription pharmaceuticals (including the provision of product samples, free trials, and starter kits).”

So not only are patients not to be trusted, but physicians, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and a host of healthcare professionals are also apparently unable to discern risks and benefits and decode pharmaceutical advertising and promotional activities.  Things that may arguably fall under this definition:

  • Sales rep and medical science liaison salaries (isn’t everything they do for the purpose of directly or indirectly promoting the use of the products – so longto those tens of thousands of jobs

(For that matter so long to all the positions in PR and advertising that support pharma — Obama didn’t REALLY want jobs created this year anyways)

  • Medication adherence programs (they promote the use of pharmaceutical products)
  • Patient Assistance hotlines and programs like TogetherRxAccess (ok, maybe you can still have them, you just can’t advertise and let patients know that they are there)
  • Patient or physician education programs raising awareness of a disease  (learning about diabetes may encourage people to actually take the treatments)

Now negation of the tax deduction is not the same as outlawing the practice, but it is close when you consider the pressure for profits from Wall Street and the realities of running a business. Please leave this type of regulation to FDA which has the expertise, if funds are properly appropriated, to craft reasonable remedies in the Risk Communication Committee and DDMAC.

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Posted in Doctor-Patient Interactions, Healthcare Reform

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What Should A Patient Sound Like?

October 20th, 2009

I started the DCPatient blog 6 weeks ago, unsure of the reaction I would receive for my opinions on what patients would like to see from the healthcare system.  Overwhelmingly, the reactions have been very positive and thoughtful with dozens of comments on this blog, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

One repeated criticism has been that I am “too educated” or write at “too high a level for the average patient” or that my postings were “not what they expected from a patient’s blog”.  Interesting.  What should a patient sound like? Write like? Blog about? My Harvard degree did not spare me from becoming ill.  My Georgetown law degree barely enables me to navigate insurance coverage.

While I understand the point that for most Americans issues of literacy, health literacy, numeracy, language and culture, time challenges, and family obligations serve as real barriers for understanding, engaging, and optimally accessing the healthcare system, my education does not make me any less of a patient than the next person in the waiting room.  What it does do, I feel, is obligate me to pick up the mantle for other patients and push, prod, and advocate for changes in healthcare that serve us all.  Regina Hertzlinger, Phd, of Harvard Business School, would call me a marginal consumer.

Last week something remarkable happened, I emerged from the desert to find that there were many others like me.  ePatientDave kindly introduced me to the Society for Participatory Medicine and a host of professional patient provocateurs  just as educated, annoyed, and activated as I hope to be.  Please check them out.

Trisha Torrey, Every Patient’s Advocate

Survive the Journey

Six Until Me

EPatient Connections 2009 Conference

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Posted in Doctor-Patient Interactions, General

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From Health Insurance to Health Plan – A Patient’s View

October 13th, 2009

It has been interesting for me to watch the transformation of the term health insurer to health plan.  Having been insured since in my mother’s womb, I have never been notified that any of my health insurance companies has a plan for my health.  For a health insurance company to be termed a PLAN, in my mind, I would like to see:

1. Prompting and  reimbursing me and my physicians to establish my baseline health metrics and specific health goal(s)

Enrolling in a plan as a new subscriber, a milestone birthday, or just the turn of the calendar could provide the incentive to create a personal plan for my health.  Am I hypertensive? Am I diabetic?  Do I want to lose weight this year, train for a marathon or have a baby?

2. Providing quality and cost assessment information so that I could select the best physicians for my circumstances

See post  A Patient’s Quest for Quality in Healthcare.

3. Facilitating information exchange between my team of physicians

I have a primary care physician, gastroenterologist, transplant hepatologist, gynecologist, reproductive endocrinologist, dermatologist, and from time to time an oncologist, across 4 different practices and medical centers. I would pay anything to have them talk to each other.  Even to have them reliably and regularly share data and view one unified chart and come to a common assessment and plan for my treatment would relieve me of the huge burden of coordination, and no doubt reduce cost, waste, and error.

4. Suggesting, creating networks and reimbursing or providing discounts to complementary services to augment my health such as acupuncture, nutrition counseling, gym membership

90% of what I do to maintain and improve my health happens outside of a doctor’s office.  Health insurer’s buying power and breadth can support my access and use of complementary wellness services to optimize medical treatments and prevent others.

5. Proactively sending me lab results, medication refill and appointment scheduling reminders

Health insurers could add real value by leveraging technology to facilitate my adherence to my treatment plan in the midst of a busy life.

6. Helping me track my progress against an integrated care plan that I create with my team of physicians and complementary providers

Whether building on success or highlighting areas for early intervention, an integrated health plan dashboard with alerts could encourage my focus and active pursuit of health.

Under increased scrutiny in this era of healthcare reform, health insurance companies need to decide and describe how they add value to the healthcare system.   Their access to aggregate data on their members can fuel the integration of care across physicians, hospitals, and pharmacies for patients and support empowered consumer behavior.

Further reading:

The Patient-Centered Care Collaborative

Optum Health, subsidiary of United Health Group

Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center

Google Health

Microsoft HealthVault

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Posted in Doctor-Patient Interactions, Healthcare Reform, Wellness

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What We Can Learn About Health Reform from GE’s Robert Galvin MD

September 30th, 2009

As members of Congress continue the arduous work of cobbling together healthcare reform legislation patients and consumers should hope that they are listening to the likes of Dr. Robert Galvin, Chief Medical Officer at General Electric.  I have to admit that after speaking with Dr. Galvin for some time last week about his career in clinical practice and his 15 years in the corporate setting researching, piloting, and sharing best practices in healthcare delivery and financing, I am now a huge fan. http://www.health.mil/dhb/members/20080812/Galvin_final_bio.pdf

I am a fan of:

Large employers, like GE, have served as a testing ground for many of the major elements of health reform.  Let’s use their lessons as a platform to accelerate meaningful changes in the healthcare system that  benefit us all.

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Posted in Healthcare Reform

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Patient-Owned Health Delivery System in Alaska

September 16th, 2009

Before you think I’ve reverted to writing fiction with the title “Patient-Owned Health Delivery System in Alaska” let me share with you things I learned at a presentation last night at the National Library of Medicine, the originators of Medline Plus and PubMed among other activities. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/

Katherine Gottlieb, MBA, Native Alaskan, and CEO of the Southcentral Foundation described the creation and operation of the Alaskan Native and American Indian owned $160 million corporation which runs healthcare in Anchorage and its surrounds.  This is no casino-fueled initiative, but the result of a decision by the native peoples to take control of the monies previously spent on their behalf by the Indian Health Service and other government entities.  Under  their self-trained and determined native leadership the SouthCentral Foundation reports 50% reductions in urgent care use and hospital admissions than under IHS, 66% fewer C-sections than the national average, 95% childhood immunization rates and 91% customer satisfaction.

Their operating principles are based on considerations for the whole person and the whole community. Their vision is for A Native Community that enjoys physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellness and they underscore key points of shared responsibility, commitment to quality, and family wellness.

http://www.southcentralfoundation.com/

When will patients in the Lower 48 decide that we can direct and drive healthcare here too?

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Posted in Healthcare Reform, Wellness

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A Patient’s Principles for Healthcare Reform

September 7th, 2009

If we truly wanted to create a patient-centric healthcare system – not insurer-centric, employer-centric, or even physician-centric – I believe that we need to do the following:
1. Redefine healthcare to include a holistic, 360 degree view of health from wellness, to prevention, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, and hopefully back to wellness.
2. Align a payment system, not necessarily, but possibly an insurance system, to support those elements along this 360 degree paradigm that provide actual value, i.e. improve patient outcomes.
3. Provide transparency in pricing. Costs, potential cost-savings, and how those costs were calculated should all be included. Cost and price can be two different things. The government declaring that they need to cut physician payments in Medicare, for example, does not lower the costs of physicians delivering care.
4. Widely disseminate consumer education and patient decision support tools to facilitate informed evaluation of health and medical options.
5. Universal mandatory participation in some type of health insurance or financing mechanism coupled with guaranteed issue. The system should put individual coverage on an even playing field with employer coverage and drop barriers to multi-state or other groupings.
I believe in a system that is consumer-directed, where patients are able to accurately estimate the amount of financial risk they can tolerate for health expenses and can buy reasonably priced coverage for services above that personal level of risk. I believe that patients should have their choice of physicians and be supported and empowered to engage in appropriate self-management by members of their healthcare team. I believe that the most important decisions we make in healthcare involve what we eat, how much we move, choosing not to smoke, and other lifestyle choices, but when our genes, fate, or attempt to stay forever young fail us, the availability of quality medical care that does not bankrupt us in the best interest of all.

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Posted in Doctor-Patient Interactions, General, Healthcare Reform

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A Patient’s Perspective on Medication Compliance (Part 1)

September 7th, 2009

As the costs to the pharmaceutical industry and to the economy from patients not taking their medications as prescribed escalate into the billions and physician reimbursement is increasingly shifted to a “pay for performance” model where they are judged by outcomes as well as interventions, interest in understanding why patients do and do not comply with medication or other therapy recommendations increases.

Surveys of physicians consistently report a top complaint that patients refuse to take their medications as directed. Surveys of patients just as consistently state patients’ views that they are fully compliant with their medication therapeutic regimen. Somewhere in between lies the truth.

First, there’s the term compliance. Compliance, as defined by the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, is the act of conforming, acquiescing, or yielding. A person does not trade her free will for blind obedience when she trades her clothes for a paper gown. In this age of personalized medicine patients demand and deserve a personalized plan on taking that medication to which they are empowered and inspired to adhere.

Second, when a physician asks if a patient has taken her medicine that seems like a yes or no question. In fact, the patient is being asked, “Did you fill the prescription in a timely manner? Did you take the right dose at the right time in the right way every time (with food without food with a full glass of water on an empty stomach without lying back down for 30 minutes)? Did you take all the medicine (even after you felt better)? And did you refill the prescription as soon as you finished the first?” A patient may answer yes if they have fulfilled even one of these criteria.

What would drive a patient, even if diagnosed with diabetes, heart disease, or another serious, life-compromising condition, to not follow “doctor’s orders”?

  • Didn’t like being ordered around by the doctor
  • Medication tastes bad Side effects too much to bear
  • Method of administration painful or unpleasant
  • Taking the medication reminds the patient of her mortality
  • Doesn’t believe the condition is that serious
  • Treatment interferes with lifestyle
  • Forgot

(To be continued in Part II)

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