Pulse on Health: Health reform ideas from the front lines

Pulse on Health: Health reform ideas from the front lines
Posted: Jan 26, 2011, 5:01 am

By Jeff Hansel
The Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN

I shake my head at bantering politicians of all parties in Washington, D.C., who can't seem to focus on Mayo Clinic's mantra of "the needs of the patient come first."

That, in my opinion, ought to be the overriding focus of health reform. Affordability is a patient need, as is access. Those two competing things can perhaps work together instead of against one another.

For example, at the Good Samaritan Dental Clinic a few years ago, the director got out a jar containing hundreds of pulled teeth she'd collected. No money was available to provide dental care to save the teeth (caps, bridges, etc.). So the teeth were instead pulled. Infection, illness, loss of sleep, pain and distraction at school can have a profound effect on a child's well being and success, I have been told by dental experts.

I also think about diabetics who use a single-use insulin syringe 7 days in a row because syringes cost more than they can afford.

Cost-saving, preventive measures might be worthwhile for health reformers to consider. If every school kid got access to a dental checkup — perhaps the savings from fewer emergency room visits would pay the price. If every diabetic got affordable glucose strips, maybe they'd be more likely to maintain sugar control (a proven way to decrease costly hospitalizations).

And if Medicare coverage for kidney transplants covered anti-rejection drugs (which are much cheaper than dialysis), perhaps fewer transplant recipients would have to stop taking their pills, suffer organ rejection and end up back on dialysis.

If every asthmatic child got affordable inhalers, we might decrease crises leading to costly hospitalizations.

"Someone" ought to analyze the barriers to patients getting "best-practices" health care and figure out if it might be cheaper to prevent than to treat. If it is, then one part of health reform seems pretty simple — pay for any prevention shown to be cheaper for society than treatment.

Then, maybe we'd have enough left over to pay for a few extras that aren't cheaper.

Reform that.

Health reporter Jeff Hansel (285-7615) writes a blog Pulse on Health at Postbulletin.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffHansel

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