Changes to health care will continue
By Mark Guydish, The Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre, Pa.) | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
"Private insurers have had it, providers have had it, large companies have had it,"
Shikles, who has served as senior adviser to groups like the March of Dimes,
Her core message: The dynamics of health care spending are inevitably shifting from a "fee for service" to a system that increases successful outcomes while lowering costs.
"We spend
The old system provides services "in silos," with little or no communication among the providers, she said. This often created incentives to do things in costly ways -- hospitals made money by filling beds, not by helping people stay healthy, for example.
The need to control costs is pushing the system toward "coordinated care," with health providers working collaboratively to help patients stay healthy and, when they do need care, to provide it more often in the community rather than in an institution.
With both presidential candidates offering plans to curb
That's good news to many of Misericordia's students, she added, because the health providers and insurers will increasingly look to replace specialists and doctors whenever possible with professionals like the therapists and nurses being trained at the school.
"All of a sudden, they have a financial interest in your students," she said.
Shikles dismissed predictions that doctors will simply refuse to treat
Speech pathology students
"I thought a lot of her points were really on target," Flormann said. "Students need to be educated more about this, and to investigate what is happening in our field."
"A lot of students don't know how things are changing," Cellary added.
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