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Ambulances benefits from frequent users. Place a call for patient transport and a bill is generated. But what if the ambulance service was paid to keep patients out of the hospital? A new model pioneered in Fort Worth, Texas has caught the interest of other communities.
Health care super-users are often chronically ill, alone and with limited incomes. They typically need the medical skills of a trained health-care professional, but also the listening, counseling and support offered by social workers and clergy.
How do you stop an epidemic? Keep the people who are sick from infecting more people. Isolate them if you have to, treat them, and cure them. But what if you don’t know who’s sick? What if the person who’s still infectious doesn’t know it either, and won’t notice any symptoms for decades?
Can "super-utilizers" be helped? A partnership of health care workers, case managers, social workers, parish nurses, clergy and community members in Allentown, Penn. thinks so. The group is building a program to help those with manageable chronic illnesses stay out of the hospital.
For many of the patients who are known as "super-utilizers" of the health care system, the issue of simply getting to treatment is critical and sometimes more problematic than getting the treatment itself. The picture is often complicated by the disabilities and haphazard lives of these patients.
Delorian Cole is a 10 year old with a rare disorder that causes her breasts to grow at a rapid, abnormal rate. Doctors at Children's Hospital Los Angeles prescribed monthly injections to stem the growth, but the insurance company that covers Delorian said the injections were not medically necessary.
An analysis of federal workplace accident data found that more people die while on job in California's Riverside and San Bernardino counties when economic times are good. State regulators say safety should now be foremost as more people re-enter the workforce.
California's Medicaid expansion has extended coverage to many Chinese Americans in the state. But the imbalance between the numbers of newly insured and available providers means some doctors are swamped while patients often have difficulty accessing care. Low reimbursement rates aren't helping.
Although the Affordable Care Act has led to thousands of people in Texas getting insurance for the first time, many consumers aren’t turning to care at a doctor’s office. Instead they’re turning to places that are convenient, like Walmart.
