Social Needs
A recent survey by Harris Interactive found that eighty-five percent of primary care physicians and pediatricians say unmet social needs are directly leading to worse health for all Americans. Only 20% of doctors feel confident or very confident in their ability to address those needs. Being a doc in the trenches for the last 17 years, I agree with this. This is just another reason why “quality” indicators are bogus because there is no solutions for doctors to use to fix the personal lives of their patients. This is common sense and one of the factors that hurt the No Child Left Behind Movement in education. The evidence keeps piling up against this type of payment model.
Once again I’m impressed by the similarities between medicine and public education. Both are having their practice defined by ignorant beancounters and venal interests.
I wonder if Handel’s Messiah would be a better piece of music if we cut it down to two measures-get the damn thing over with, fewer paid hours for the performers, lower light bill for the concert hall, etc.
I also suspect that each Congressperson’s office costs 10 times more to run than it did in 1940. Surely if their office/travel budgets were halved, they would be twice as efficient?