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posted by martyb on Tuesday March 21 2017, @04:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the ham-and-mayo-on-wry? dept.

Mayo Clinic, one of the country's top hospitals, is in the midst of controversy after its CEO said that the elite medical facility would prioritize the care of patients with private health insurance over those with Medicare and Medicaid.

The prioritization by the Rochester, MN-headquartered medical practice was recently revealed by the Minneapolis Star Tribune. And it has quickly drawn out some sharp critics—as well as sympathizers.

In a statement to the Minnesota Post Bulletin, Dr. Gerard Anderson, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Hospital Finance and Management, compared the prioritization to policies seen in developing countries. "This is what happens in many low-income countries. The health system is organized to give the most affluent preference in receiving health care," he wrote.

Likewise, Minnesota Department of Human Services Commissioner Emily Piper, expressed surprise and concern by the statements of Mayo's CEO, Dr. John Noseworthy. "Fundamentally, it's our expectation at DHS that Mayo Clinic will serve our enrollees in public programs on an equal standing with any other Minnesotan that walks in their door," she said. "We have a lot of questions for Mayo Clinic about how and if and through what process this directive from Dr. Noseworthy is being implemented across their health system."

Specifically, Noseworthy said in a video to Mayo employees late last year:

We're asking... if the patient has commercial insurance, or they're Medicaid or Medicare patients and they're equal, that we prioritize the commercial insured patients enough so... we can be financially strong at the end of the year.

In statements, Mayo has confirmed Noseworthy's prioritization and added that about 50 percent of its patients are beneficiaries of government programs. "Balancing payer mix is complex and isn't unique to Mayo Clinic. It affects much of the industry, but it's often not talked about. That's why we feel it is important to talk transparently about these complex issues with our staff."

Source: Ars Technica


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday March 21 2017, @05:56PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 21 2017, @05:56PM (#482272)

    This means charity cases should not expect others to pay for new and exotic treatements and even normal insured people should expect limits as well.

    Something to consider is that sounds not so nice out of context but my observation of dying elderly relatives is that the only thing less fun than paying for someones $1M of care in their last six months is being the recipient of $1M of care in their last six months and almost universally they all had their fill of doctors toward the end and just wanted to go home or hospice and die in peace. Enough pills and injections and therapies that don't work and ...

    I mean $1M of medical treatment sounds like a nice way to go out if its six months of endless sponge baths by a smoking hot 10/10 nurse. But the reality is that last $1M is usually not that much fun.

    It brings up weird market ideas. Imagine terminal diagnosis comes with an offer like "Sign this medical release that basically says 'nothing but bottomless bottle of free painkillers' and instead of spending $1M on aggressive intervention and you're gonna die anyway, we hand you a check for $100K and tickets to Amsterdam while you can still enjoy it. Or you can transfer $2 of refused medical care into $1 of life insurance for your family."

    There is an interesting capitalist type of problem were decades ago some cancers meant "you gon die" for sure, but spending an infinite amount of money for decades results in "you almost certainly not gonna die as long as you come in early enough" like skin and breast cancer. Eventually they'll figure out how to fix that outpatient maybe with an OTC pill. But how to figure out which diseases are eventually curable vs not, thats the mystery.

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