Help the snowbirds: Transparency as an enforcement tool

Elisabeth Rosenthal at the New York Times has a gift for taking what is right in front of us and unnoticed and making it evident.  She does it again in this story about elderly "snowbirds" in Florida who are persuaded by doctors there to undergo unnecessary tests. The lede:Like many retirees, one couple from upstate New York visit doctors in their winter getaway in Florida. But on a recent routine checkup of a pacemaker, a cardiologist there insisted on scheduling several expensive tests even though the 91-year-old husband had no symptoms.“You walk in the door, and they just start doing things,” said Sally Spencer, 70, who canceled the tests after her husband’s longtime doctor advised her by phone that none of them were needed.The couple’s experience reflects a trend that has prompted some doctors up north to warn their older patients before they depart for Florida and other winter getaways to check in before agreeing to undergo exams and procedures. And some patients have learned to be leery after being subjected to tests — and expenses — that long-trusted physicians at home never suggested.This is truly disturbing and disgusting behavior.  And it's not like it takes a complicated analysis to prove:When researchers from Dartmouth last year looked at the number of tests and imaging studies received by Florida Medicare patients in the last two years of life, with the exception of the panhandle, totals were far above the national average, s...
Source: Running a hospital - Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs