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Can't speak to the UK's situation, but these housecalls are a little different than the old-time GP with his little black bag. The first link talks about geriatric specialist seeing elderly people in their homes, like visiting nurses.
" Known as the Independence at Home Act, the provision is intended to encourage more doctors to make house calls by allowing them to share in any savings if they can prove they reduced hospital use, improved quality care and left patients satisfied with their treatment.
The program will focus on the sickest and oldest patients. If doctor-supervised home-visit teams are able to reduce the projected annual medical costs of their at-home patients by at least 5%, those savings would be split between the medical organizations and the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which would implement the program. The health care reform law calls for the program to start in January 2012, but Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., who introduced the legislation, are pushing for it to start earlier."
Now I don't work in geriatrics, so I don't know if this program ever got up and running. (The link is almost three years old.)
The second link has a lot of internal links that say "Page not found", so maybe the business isn't as successful as it had hoped.
The last time I heard of a doctor making a house call was on an episode of The Brady Bunch when everyone got sick & the boys wanted a boy doctor & the girls wanted a girl doctor. That was in 1969.
Can't speak to the UK's situation, but these housecalls are a little different than the old-time GP with his little black bag. The first link talks about geriatric specialist seeing elderly people in their homes, like visiting nurses.
" Known as the Independence at Home Act, the provision is intended to encourage more doctors to make house calls by allowing them to share in any savings if they can prove they reduced hospital use, improved quality care and left patients satisfied with their treatment.
The program will focus on the sickest and oldest patients. If doctor-supervised home-visit teams are able to reduce the projected annual medical costs of their at-home patients by at least 5%, those savings would be split between the medical organizations and the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which would implement the program. The health care reform law calls for the program to start in January 2012, but Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., who introduced the legislation, are pushing for it to start earlier."
Now I don't work in geriatrics, so I don't know if this program ever got up and running. (The link is almost three years old.)
The second link has a lot of internal links that say "Page not found", so maybe the business isn't as successful as it had hoped.
All the links worked for me, so you might want to reload your browser or retry the page. Here are some more recent links.
I have worked for a group of five doctors for nine years. I can think of one time when one of them made a house call, and that was on his way home. One time, a doctor on his way to the hospital came to our house on a Sunday morning to see my daughter following her cancer surgery and took out her drain. I know of no other doctors who make house calls.
These "trends" people like to talk about aren't really happening.
I refuse to watch videos with all their advertising.
The next link is a blog, exhorting doctors to do house calls.
The next one requires a log-in with a password. Not doing it.
The last link is about a concierge house call practice. The doc averages six calls a day. I wonder what she charges and what, if any, insurance pays. Usually nothing with concierge practices. The docs don't want to mess with it. It's for the wealthy.
I have worked for a group of five doctors for nine years. I can think of one time when one of them made a house call, and that was on his way home. One time, a doctor on his way to the hospital came to our house on a Sunday morning to see my daughter following her cancer surgery and took out her drain. I know of no other doctors who make house calls.
These "trends" people like to talk about aren't really happening.
I refuse to watch videos with all their advertising.
The next link is a blog, exhorting doctors to do house calls.
The next one requires a log-in with a password. Not doing it.
The last link is about a concierge house call practice. The doc averages six calls a day. I wonder what she charges and what, if any, insurance pays. Usually nothing with concierge practices. The docs don't want to mess with it. It's for the wealthy.
I don't know how rampant it is but here is one that was local when I lived in the Raleigh, NC area:
There's 38 of them and they make about 55,000 housecalls a year. They accept some insurances, Medicare and Medicaid.
Doctors Making Housecalls is an “in network” provider for all Blue Cross Blue Shield, Humana and Cigna insurance plans. We also accept Medicare and Medicaid, and take assignment.
When I was in the Charlotte area there was a group of 6 dentist and dental assistants who traveled around in an RV fitted with most of the major equipment needed. They would mostly go to high density areas like low-income housing or assisted living. That was about 13 years ago and they did pretty well for themselves.
I have worked for a group of five doctors for nine years. I can think of one time when one of them made a house call, and that was on his way home. One time, a doctor on his way to the hospital came to our house on a Sunday morning to see my daughter following her cancer surgery and took out her drain. I know of no other doctors who make house calls.
These "trends" people like to talk about aren't really happening.
I refuse to watch videos with all their advertising.
The next link is a blog, exhorting doctors to do house calls.
The next one requires a log-in with a password. Not doing it.
The last link is about a concierge house call practice. The doc averages six calls a day. I wonder what she charges and what, if any, insurance pays. Usually nothing with concierge practices. The docs don't want to mess with it. It's for the wealthy.
Only about 1% of patient - Dr visits are house calls, but statistically the trend is up. Think about it, who is the most likely person to utilize a house call when you can drive to a clinic or have an e-consultation over the internet? People that can't drive and need to see a real person.
The video is a news clip, not an advertising clip. I have adblock installed though.
None of the links required a log in.
RESULTS: Physicians made 478,088 HCs in 2000; 700,661 in 2003; and 995,294 in 2006. Over the same period, the proportion of physicians making HCs decreased from 7.22 (standard error, ±0.20) to 5.26 (±0.19). Physicians in the top decile of HC volume made an increasing number of HCs (median, 56 in 2000 and 86 in 2006). In 2006, physicians who made HCs were more likely to be older, geriatricians, and osteopaths, be in solo practice, and reside in rural areas compared with those who did not make HCs
It's not very surprising.. most companies do this even now. I work as a cook in a chain grocery store while I'm in college and you can only work 34 hrs/wk as going over would make you full time and result in a write up (you can only have 3 before being suspended, then one more and you are fired.) Regardless that there isn't enough time to finish everything they leave for the night crew anyway. They will not hire anyone full time anymore and are finding ways of getting rid of full timers who make 14~15/hr /w 40 hours and hiring people at 7.25/hr to replace them.
Businesses - large and small - will ALL drop health benefits eventually.
We were heading in this direction before Obamacare.
Hopefully this will take us to a universal hc/single payer system like much of the advanced world.
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