Showing posts with label health care delivery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health care delivery. Show all posts

Sunday, February 10, 2019

Success stories - V.A. Wait Times Now Shorter Than for Private Doctors

From New York Times on 01/22/19

Wait times for an appointment at Veterans Affairs hospitals have decreased since 2014 and are now, on average, shorter than those in the private sector, a new study shows.
Researchers used V.A. data to calculate wait times for about 17 million appointments. The public sector data came from a survey conducted by a physicians’ search firm in nearly 2,000 medical offices in 30 major and midsize metropolitan areas.
The study, in JAMA Network Open, covered four specialties: primary care, cardiology, dermatology and orthopedics.
In 2014 the average wait time in V.A. hospitals was 22.5 days, compared with 18.7 in the private sector, a statistically insignificant difference. But by 2017, mean wait time at V.A. hospitals had gone down to 17.7 days, while rising to 29.8 for private practitioners.

Editors note:
There is a new tag being used on Markham's Behavioral Health "success stories." As Johnny Winter sings in his great blues song, Bad News, "Bad news travels like wild fire. Good news travels slow. That's why you hear that bad news every where you go. Talkin about bad news."

Here on MBH we also provide good news in the form of "success stories."

There is an organizational development model called "Appreciative Inquiry" which focuses on what is going right instead of what is going wrong. Also, Solution Focused BriefTherapy (SFBT) in psychotherapy focuses as much on what is working as well as the problems.

So look for the success stories and pass them along. They will provide satisfaction, hope, inspiration, and gratitude.

Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Health insurance uninsured goes up since individual mandate eliminated

Click on image to enlarge

From Gallup report on 01/23/19

The uninsured rate rose for most subgroups in the fourth quarter of 2018 compared with the same quarter in 2016, when the uninsured rate was lowest. Women, those living in households with annual incomes of less than $48,000 per year, and young adults under the age of 35 reported the greatest increases. Those younger than 35 reported an uninsured rate of over 21%, a 4.8-point increase from two years earlier. And the rate among women -- while still below that of men -- is among the fastest rising, increasing from 8.9% in late 2016 to 12.8% at the end of 2018.
At 7.1%, the East region, which has in recent years maintained the lowest uninsured rate in the nation, is the only one of the four regions nationally whose rate is effectively unchanged since the end of 2016. Respondents from the West, Midwest and South regions all reported uninsured rates for the fourth quarter of 2018 that represent increases of over 3.0 points. The South, which has always had the highest uninsured rate in the U.S. but has seen some of the greatest declines at the state level, has had a 3.8-point increase to 19.6%.
For more click here
Editor's note:
Quality of life is often impacted more by social policy than individual choice. The policies of the Republicans have been major obstacles to improving health care in the United States which may have been a major reason in their historical defeats in the 2018 elections.
In general, citizens in Red states have much poorer health care coverage than in Blue States.

For more click here.