Extra billing made illegal

[stuphoto]

Used low-field MRI machines can be as cheap as $150,000 or as expensive as $1.2 million. For a state-of-the-art 3 Tesla MRI machine, the price tag to buy one new can reach $3 million. The room that houses the machine, called an MRI suite, can cost hundreds of thousands more.Jul 16, 2014

I hope you have a partnership in this.

You forgot about the trained technicians, earning $60,000 - $85,000 each.
I could write anyone here thinking of opening up their own clinic a cheque, just don't cash it until the year 2126.

[Queen K]

Used low-field MRI machines can be as cheap as $150,000 or as expensive as $1.2 million. For a state-of-the-art 3 Tesla MRI machine, the price tag to buy one new can reach $3 million. The room that houses the machine, called an MRI suite, can cost hundreds of thousands more.Jul 16, 2014

I hope you have a partnership in this.

You forgot about the trained technicians, earning $60,000 - $85,000 each.
I could write anyone here thinking of opening up their own clinic a cheque, just don't cash it until the year 2126.

Oh heck no, Veovis is going back to school to be a MRI technician. I'm sure he'd pass with flying colours and hire himself.

[Veovis]

Sounds like a plan. I'll apply for an NDP grant where they don't vet it at all and just fund the feelings.

I don't think healthcare should be private, but additional private agencies shouldn't be a crime. You can't force a person who put out personal capital vs government capital to be a government asset.

[hobbyguy]

I posted some thoughts on this issue in the BC NDP government thread.

It will wind up costing the government a bundle in WorkSafe and additional system costs that employers have been paying. Stepping over a dollar to pick up a penny... which ain't worth nuttin' now. Plus discouraging private clinics will only add patients into the public system and increase backlogs for regular folks.

I also posted the results that happened when Saskatchewan decided to work WITH private clinics and bring them in as welcomed partners - dropped wait times a whole bunch. Yes, Saskatchewan outlawed extra billing, but only beyond the fees they negotiated with private clinics as part of comprehensive strategy.

These piecemeal actions by the BC NDP are really annoying, the system needs reforms and enhancements, and this kind of ideological based lashing out only sets us back.

Not surprising though, as the BC NDP/LEAP have a dearth of management and leadership experience/skills. If you do the right things in the wrong order and not as part of a clearly enunciated overall strategy, then things constantly backfire and blow up in your face.

Every well developed OECD country with sound medical care welcomes private participation, and works with it. But oh well, the BC NDP instead of trying to improve the system, are bringing it down to the lowest common denominator of mediocrity.

This not good. Adrian we can do better! Get your head screwed on right, drop the ideology, and work WITH the private clinics to give patients better care. Political games like this one are not going to get us there.

[normaM]

Stuff like this makes my head ache.
We can support far more medical issues if we idk, get rid of the CBC
Cap Federal election spending
Make the Politicians pay for more of their expenses that are usually nothing more than photo ops
I'll return with more ideas once I have my second cup of coffee :/

[vegas1500]

If they can shorten MRI wait times then no one would pay for it anyways.

I often wonder why the waits are so long when the hospital can get you in quickly if they feel it's a life or death situation. The same goes after an accident if they feel you may have a broken neck.

Because its an "emergency". They always have staff on for those situations. When i was young i was involved in a snowmobile accident and they brought a doctor in at 3AM to do an MRI. And routine MRI's are not usually done in a hospital...not in AB anyway.

[Smurf]

stuphoto wrote:

I often wonder why the waits are so long when the hospital can get you in quickly if they feel it's a life or death situation. The same goes after an accident if they feel you may have a broken neck.

I can answer that from experience. The doctor that did my hip replacement was also a trauma specialist and I was knocked back down the list twice because serious trauma cases came in. once I got the phone call on the morning I was getting ready to go into the hospital. What is really maddening is you go to the bottom of the list because it is too difficult to reschedule everyone on the list. I understood the reasoning but that does not make the longer wait any easier.

[stuphoto]

[quote="vegas1500] And routine MRI's are not usually done in a hospital...not in AB anyway.[/quote]
Too bad,
It was actually the High Level, AB hospital where I had one done 4 years ago after a rollover in a big truck. I have got to say their MRI machine was beautiful ( brand new at the time, I was one of the first people in it ) and they even brought in a technician at 11pm.
I hope no one here ever ends up in the hospital there, but if you do you will be treated right.

[stuphoto]

What is really maddening is you go to the bottom of the list because it is too difficult to reschedule everyone on the list. I understood the reasoning but that does not make the longer wait any easier.

I hope you are all healed up.
That does suck being sent back to the bottom of the list.
That tells me that we either need more machines, or more technicians. Possibly both.
Either that or more bubble wrap so people stop getting hurt.

[Drip_Torch]

The Feds are only deducting what Medical Services fee's would be for those same services. That is all the Province would get for those services if they performed them. Since they didn't, it is a wash for the Province. Why would the NDP then care if it was a wash on the revenue side if someone was willing to pay more to expedite their diagnosis? THe Province didn't lose a dime and that is what the LIberals recognized.Because they are NDP and stuck on a socialist, and almost communistic model, of anything that is state funded, all citizens will have equal access. That's all great and I have no problem with it until state funding creates waiting times. And since even the NDP do not discourage entrepreneurialism and recognize that some people are higher income earners, why would they preclude those that can afford to pay for extra health care, to seek it and pay for it??

I understand the word "extra" to mean something a little different than that. From what I've read, you want to pay a doctor to do something elective and he doesn't ask for your MSP card - no harm, no foul. Where this seems to be causing a problem is people are paying extra for publicly funded health care and because that doesn't follow federal laws, the feds are now holding back 15.9 million dollars from the public system. I don't agree with you on this being a wash on the revenue side. There are a number of other articles that give a little more background, as this doesn't appear to be anything new.

The Day case, for example:

A 2012 audit of Cambie Surgery turned up a half-million dollars worth of illegal billing, as the centre charged both patients and the province.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-c ... -1.3977566

So, if we're paying for publicly funded healthcare and people are able to move to the front of that list by paying extra fees - that really is a problem that needs some attention. Especially, because our public system is losing out on federal funding as a result of the practice.

[hobbyguy]

Dt - you miss the point altogether. It isn't one queue. The private clinics offer a second queue.

Used them a lot for injured workers and was able to get them better care and back to work faster at lower total cost to the companies I worked for. When we did that, those injured workers came out of the public queue, and so it sped up the public queue, saved government cost, both in terms of medical treatment and in terms of WorkSafe payouts.

There is a place in every successful medical care system for private clinics. The trick is utilize them in a way that provides the maximum benefit without detriment to the public system - as Saskatchewan is doing. IF you do it that way, there is no conflict whatsoever with the Canada Health Act.

Like it or not, our health care system is antiquated and creaky (as a system). It requires significant reform from the bottom up. Part of that is to embrace private clinic as a useful adjunct (there is a lot more to it than that, but that is indeed a component of the needed reforms).

I get a wry smile on my face when see folks go after "private clinics" from an ideological position of them somehow being "an enemy" of the system. The same folks don't seem to see elder care facilities, nor addiction rehab facilities etc. with the same lens, yet both are private businesses that provide health care.

To be honest, I think the "private clinic" attacks are really driven in a background way by the public institutionalized medicine seeing them as a threat to their turf. The public institutionalized medicine does a good job at what they were set up to do - acute care. That's not what private clinics do at all, but over the years the institutions have taken on chronic and non acute care aspects - very inefficiently (rather like using a semi truck to commute back and forth to an office job, yup - can do, but not efficient or cost effective). "Empire builders" within the institutions don't want to see their fiefdoms removed.

We have a system that was set up for "x" range of possible services, and set up for a population with a median age of 25. Well, the range of possible services is now what? 10 "x"? And the median age of the population is now well over 40. Chronic conditions (diabetes to asthma to hypertension) now represent a much, much greater portion of the medical care requirements. 25 year olds very rarely have worn out shoulders, burnt out knees, and ground down hips (all non acute care scenarios). 40+ year olds do and require non acute care.

In essence we are using a fleet of semi trucks to deliver everything from heavy loads to letters. The "fleet" needs a combination of semis, flat decks, cube vans, small cars, and even bicycles - each used when and where appropriate. In the health care system, private clinics can be a useful thing when slotted in.

Think about the hip surgery thing. A large institution like a hospital, set up to deal with the immediate and extensive needs of acute care trauma i never going to be able to accurately schedule not cost effectively deal with non urgent care like hip surgery. A clinic set up specifically for knees, hips, shoulders etc. will be able to do those things more cost effectively and more reliably. Isn't that, in the end, what we need? Reliable and cost effective care?

[GrooveTunes]

you miss the point altogether. It isn't one queue. The private clinics offer a second queue.

And that's what makes the don't get it elite crowd, "I'm helping the others in the long line up by paying my own way" laughable. For them it's all about me,me,me.

[hobbyguy]

you miss the point altogether. It isn't one queue. The private clinics offer a second queue.

And that's what makes the don't get it elite crowd, "I'm helping the others in the long line up by paying my own way" laughable. For them it's all about me,me,me.

Was my post too complicated for you?

Only an ideologue would fail to see that used properly, private clinics can be a valuable asset to the health care system. The private clinics would not exist if it were not for the failings of the public system, and your response is that you want to make health care more mediocre not better, and more expensive to boot?

We need "all hands on deck" if we are to actually improve our health care, and to improve it we do not have unlimited $$$ to throw at it (which will do little long term good). We need to innovate and pull together as many we can into an efficient team to provide patient centered, not institution centered, health care. That means everyone from home care workers, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, private clinics, elder care homes, rehab centers, and everyone throughout the scatter gun of the existing system.

If we do that, we can have more efficient, more effective, and more cost effective health care. Better for taxpayers, better for health care professionals, better for patients.

[normaM]

well except ppl who have the money to pay out of pocket often balk of paying. Know someone who waited til the situation was bone on bone for the hip replacement, he could have paid a private place saved his pain ( and knees)
We have a mentality of " why should I pay" well trust me
sitting in ER for what seems like years
yea, I can forego coffees/drinks/ meat out for awhile to speed the process/
But, All these Senior Living places luring the elderly to move/live in their residences, how come they are not offering some services?
Going to run ads other provinces and encourage ppl to move here.. then offer something. Instead poor sick elderly are warehoused at the Hospital. Shame

[hobbyguy]

well except ppl who have the money to pay out of pocket often balk of paying. Know someone who waited til the situation was bone on bone for the hip replacement, he could have paid a private place saved his pain ( and knees)
We have a mentality of " why should I pay" well trust me
sitting in ER for what seems like years
yea, I can forego coffees/drinks/ meat out for awhile to speed the process/
But, All these Senior Living places luring the elderly to move/live in their residences, how come they are not offering some services?
Going to run ads other provinces and encourage ppl to move here.. then offer something. Instead poor sick elderly are warehoused at the Hospital. Shame

Your point is correct. There are enough chronic care (including the elderly) "warehoused" in our hospitals to amount to the equivalent of 11 new average size hospitals built and staffed in BC. Hospital costs are about 4 times the cost of a proper chronic care system - which we don't have. So part of the answer to wait times is to focus first on chronic care patients, and the "like magic" our existing hospitals will have more staff and room available to care for patients who should be there.

It is a systems problem, and the "old way" of doing things has become ossified around the acute care model of hospitals and big institutions. It needs a coordinated, innovative and comprehensive reform.

But instead, we mostly see pols throwing money at the ossified... "golden shovel" photo ops for more hospital capacity etc. instead of the hard work of fixing the system.

Chronic care and elderly patients stuck "warehoused" in hospitals should not be there - hospitals are where the nastiest bugs hang out - my dad got "hospital" pneumonia - nearly killed him. Far better for such patients to be looked after elsewhere, and the dumb thing is that would cheaper too. Cheaper and better - pretty good combo, but it seems none of our pols can get there!