Schwimmer Script Blog
ER? Urgent Care? Doctor’s Office? ‘Health Matters’ Poll Explores Where We Seek Care
We want people to car pool, so we create HOV lanes. We don’t want them to smoke, so we tax cigarettes and raise the age to purchase tobacco. Society has all kinds of incentives and penalties to encourage people to do the right thing. In health care, we have many choices of places to seek…Read More…
Practice Transformation Transcends Politics
Like many of you, I have been following the confirmation hearings of the nominee to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I am eager to learn what will be altered and what will remain of the past eight years of change in American health care. We’ve seen, for instance, enormous change driven…Read More…
2017 Certain to Be Year of Change in Health Care
The year ahead will be one of great change. We will have a new president and will elect a new governor. The shifting political landscape will change the world of health care in ways that are still evolving. I believe our voices, as members of the Quality Institute, will be more critical than ever. Here’s…Read More…
ACA: Reflect, Repair, Repeal, Replace
Last night I gave a talk at a community gathering in Princeton. My topic was: Repeal, Replace, Reform: where the ACA is going and how it impacts you. Back in August, when I agreed to give this talk and created this title, I was planning to talk about ACA fixes to make health care affordable….Read More…
Price is right?
I’m sure many of you checked out sales on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. I looked for a five-star-rated coffee maker for the lowest price. As we usher in a new President and Secretary of Health and Human Services, both calling for expanded use of Health Savings Accounts, tax deductions for health benefits, and more…Read More…
Sharing Savings and Lessons Learned By Leader in Medicare ACOs
The patient’s daughter called toward the end of office hours, fearing her mother, a diabetic, had experienced a stroke. The nurse practitioner — who had established a relationship with the patient — listened carefully to the symptoms and asked very specific questions before determining the elderly patient probably did not have a stroke but should…Read More…
Seeing Health Care Policy Turn Into Practice
At the Quality Institute, I work to encourage change that makes health care safer, more accessible and more coordinated. Often the changes in policy I explore do not affect the real-world practice of medicine until years later. So I am always excited when I see real investments in health care policy and infrastructure play out…Read More…
When Spending Health Care Dollars, “Choosing Wisely” Is Best Course
The cost of health insurance is rising. Again. High premiums, co-pays and cost sharing are hurting businesses and their employees. Insurers are pulling out of the ACA health insurance market in New Jersey and around the nation. U.S. health care spending, meanwhile, has reached $3.0 trillion, taking money away from housing, education, social services and…Read More…
A Story of Empathy and Kindness at the End of a Life
Think medical success stories and you may envision life-saving heroics in a trauma center. Or a brilliant diagnosis of a patient’s rare illness. Or maybe a laboratory researcher who finds a new cancer treatment. All valid successes. But recently I was reminded that success in health care can take more modest forms. Last week the…Read More…
Keeping Competition in the ACA Marketplace
Oscar Health Insurance just announced plans to withdraw from the Affordable Care Act marketplace in New Jersey next year. The company joins UnitedHealthcare, also exiting the marketplace in 2017. Aetna, meanwhile, has scrapped plans to provide coverage here next year. Are the exits a sign the ACA is failing? And what can we do to…Read More…