NYU Lagone Health is offering virtual urgent care as an alternative to the emergency room.
Direct Primary Care: Society of Actuaries study: ER visit are 40% lower.
Direct Primary Care case study: DPC reduced health plan spending by 54%, employees’ out-of-pocket costs at the point of care by 30%, and employee premiums by 20%.
Thanks for reprinting the article by Matthew Holt. He has been a solid commentator on healthcare for a long time.
I liked his advocacy for single payor; in recent years he has focused more on medical technology…but he can still call up the old muckraking fervor.
When you track back the numbers — i.e how does a 20 hospital system amass a surplus of $2.5 billion? — one conclusion I have is that Medicare (mainly) is paying these hospitals way too much for individual surgeries.
I would also support requiring super-rich hospitals to pay for public health measures with part of their surplus. This is similar to requiring any university with a huge endowment to fund free tuition from their surplus also.