Everyone knows by now that Obamacare (patient protection and affordable care act) is definitely on track for 2014… unless this fall’s election makes a dramatic change in the Senate and White House.
Most of us has figured out by now that all the rhetoric about “keeping your own doctor” .. is going to be all that .. political BS.
In this same political speak… what really concerns me is the statement that “we are going to cut the cost of medical care”… what they don’t say.. or at least has been my experience with political speak is that they are talking about is the aggregate expenditures for healthcare. So in the political speak… that means a REDUCTION in the expenditures per person… that is before any REDUCTION in the aggregate expenditures.
Lets assume that there is 320 million in their country.. and that there are 50 million without insurance.. It doesn’t matter if we spend $10 or $8,000/person/yr .. when you spread those dollars over the 320 million …. that we have been spending on 270 million.. you get a ~ 16% REDUCTION in the expenditures per person. Whether the expenditures per person are less by 10% or 20%.. it really doesn’t matter .. the expenditures per person is going to be less.
That means that all of us in healthcare are going to have to seen 10% – 20% more patients to generate the revenue we do today.or manage to cut overhead by that much. … without putting the quality of pt care at risk?
How many of these scarce healthcare dollars are going to be parsed out to middlemen who have promised to make our healthcare system run more efficiently?
Could this be a opportunity for Pharmacists? It is estimated that we are only years away from putting 4000 more RPH’s into the market place than is going to be needed??
Can you see a office practice or clinic of some sort… headed by a few MD and a dozen or two ARNP’s, PA’s, RPH’s… running pts thru like an assembly line… or even doing some preliminary assessment or follow ups via email or Skype?… since reimbursement is most likely going to be on a capitation basis… salaries/profits are going to be how many people the clinic can sign on and “deal with” in some manner or another… and to maintain the clinic’s overhead to as low as possible.
In thinking about this… I recall the old cereal commercial…. with the tag “Let’s see if Mikey will eat it”… in this case .. let’s see if the second tier of healthcare professionals – ARNP, PA, RPH… can do it without causing too much harm to the patients… Is this a potential experiment that some pts may not experience a positive outcome.?
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act may be neither.
Filed under: General Problems
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