On Christmas Eve 2014, I received a present of some profoundly unwelcome news: a 64 slice CT scan confirming not only the presence of a malignant tumor in my neck, but also a fluid filled mass the size of a man’s finger in my chest cavity outside the lungs. Two days earlier, my ENT surgeon in Charlottesville, Paige Powers, had performed a fine needle aspiration of a suspicious almond-shaped enlarged lymph node, and the lab returned a verdict of “metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck with an occult primary tumor”.
Jeff, I'm researching Medicare Advantage. It needs to be reformed.
In the process, I revisited The Health Care Blog for the first time in a long time and almost instantly landed on this article. Then I noticed that you're on Substack.com.
I didn't pledge anything when I took a free subscription because I wanted to see if you're posting as often as I'd like you to.
Having known and followed you published your first article in the Harvard Business Review, I'm delighted to make a pledge and recommend your blog here and on Substack notes.
Nobody knows and discusses hospitals, health insurance, Medicare and Medicaid and health care economics the way you do.
Your description of your experiences at the University of Chicago and with Humana shows why we are not in Medicare Advantage. We are telling friends and families to avoid MA. I'm posting accordingly in the comments sections on WaPo, Wsj.com and SeekingAlpha.com.
For those interested, for about $36, it is worth going to Nolo.com and downloading (PDFs) of its books on Long-Term Care and Social Security and Medicare.
What a story. Your travails perfectly illustrate what so many write about abstractly. Our system can be excellent at crisis interventions, but is a total disaster in care coordination and follow-up care, with family members getting little support for their role in the process of recovering from serious illness. Thanks for telling it.
I'm so sorry you had to go through that, Jeff!! You're correct, of course, with your point. While practicing medicine, I led my medical group explaining that consumers remain just that until the moment they seek help. Then they are patients. Entirely different. And the system is designed with good intentions (on the road to hell), but only in the context of capitalism, profit, and market power monopoly. Quality, value, patient care take a back seat despite the efforts of good people in bad systems.
Jeff, I'm researching Medicare Advantage. It needs to be reformed.
In the process, I revisited The Health Care Blog for the first time in a long time and almost instantly landed on this article. Then I noticed that you're on Substack.com.
I didn't pledge anything when I took a free subscription because I wanted to see if you're posting as often as I'd like you to.
Having known and followed you published your first article in the Harvard Business Review, I'm delighted to make a pledge and recommend your blog here and on Substack notes.
Nobody knows and discusses hospitals, health insurance, Medicare and Medicaid and health care economics the way you do.
Your description of your experiences at the University of Chicago and with Humana shows why we are not in Medicare Advantage. We are telling friends and families to avoid MA. I'm posting accordingly in the comments sections on WaPo, Wsj.com and SeekingAlpha.com.
For those interested, for about $36, it is worth going to Nolo.com and downloading (PDFs) of its books on Long-Term Care and Social Security and Medicare.
Don
What a story. Your travails perfectly illustrate what so many write about abstractly. Our system can be excellent at crisis interventions, but is a total disaster in care coordination and follow-up care, with family members getting little support for their role in the process of recovering from serious illness. Thanks for telling it.
I'm so sorry you had to go through that, Jeff!! You're correct, of course, with your point. While practicing medicine, I led my medical group explaining that consumers remain just that until the moment they seek help. Then they are patients. Entirely different. And the system is designed with good intentions (on the road to hell), but only in the context of capitalism, profit, and market power monopoly. Quality, value, patient care take a back seat despite the efforts of good people in bad systems.
Jeff - perhaps of interest to you and others:
After cancer diagnosis, a neurosurgeon sees life, death and his career in a new way
JANUARY 30, 20232
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/01/30/1152038098/cancer-diagnosis-transforms-neurosurgeon-turned-patient
"And Finally"
NYTimes book review: A Neuroscientist Faces Death, and Learns
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/17/books/review/and-finally-henry-marsh.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
A Neuroscientist Faces Death, and Learns