Re: Prevention Saves? - WSJ Article - Unexpected Limits of New, Free Preventive Care

[Guest guest]

also depends on what you consider preventative care.  many of those studies just look at more labs, scans, and specialist visits for prevention which certainly rack up costs and dont necessarily IMO improve care

having a system where you have a good primary care doc that has time to spend to investigate your background, habits, and risks and then make effective plans to address them, and then follow up to ensure they are proceeding i find to be excellent prevention and i'm pretty sure doesn't ramp up costs

 

yeah  if we keep  people alive longer   they use more services and cos t   more Damn.

 

Interesting Wall Street Journal article talking about preventive care and new federal laws - plus whether it saves money in the long run or not.

There is debate on whether it saves money - I'm not saying we shouldn't do prevention - just be willing to pay for it as a society.

 

Unexpected Limits of New, Free Preventive Care

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703396604576087811990834234.html

 

snip/snip

The debate is whether preventive care saves money, or adds to already-spiraling costs and siphons money from services that might be of greater benefit. The Trust for America's Health, a nonprofit advocacy group, estimates that prevention programs could save the country more than $16 billion annually within five years; researchers at the Commonwealth Fund estimate that reduced tobacco use and a decline in obesity would lower national health expenditures by $474 billion over 10 years.

Other studies, though, have shown that added costs of preventive services tend to exceed savings. A 2008 study in the journal Circulation estimated total cost of caring for heart disease and diabetes over 30 years at $9.5 trillion; while preventive services would reduce those costs by 10% they would cost $8.5 trillion—increasing total medical costs by about $7.6 trillion.

And in the New England Journal of Medicine, a review of hundreds of preventive-care studies showed that fewer than 20% saved money, while the rest added to costs. The Congressional Budget Office concluded in 2009 that expanded government support for preventive medical care would probably improve people's health but wouldn't generally reduce total spending.

" The right question is not whether it saves money, but whether we are getting a good value for the nation's health-care dollar and saving as many lives as we can with each dollar we spend, " says Woolf, professor of family medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University, and past member of the preventive services task force.

Removing financial barriers to preventive services has been shown to increase their use, Dr. Woolf says, " and the spirit behind the law is to remove those barriers, increase the use of preventive services, and reduce the disease burden of the country. "

snip/snip

Locke, MD

--      MD          ph    fax impcenter.org

[Guest guest]

How many times have I attempted to make the point that until we take the cost calculations outside of "Just Medicine" we will never understand and realise the real cost savings no less the savings in human costs including quality of life... One Main Family Bread winner who either stays a semi-healthy productive tax paying citizen with regular off the public system health insurance (old broken model numbers for the moment) verses that same Bread Winner getting sick and semi to fully disabled or even Dead, and the expensive ripples that causes in that person's family and therefore raises the cost to all of society that has safetynet programs for the worst off, is almost astronomical... Welfare, food stamps, disability payments, Medicaid and Medicare based healthcare for that one Bread Winner no less

Medicaid for all of their dependents and spouse... And then does this person's children does their life radically change as opportunity is taken away from them and a brand new high cost cycle follows them and their one day to be families and off-spring as well....

Having Diabetes is not just about preventing it alone or preventing the secondary worst parts with neuropathy and amputations, it is about taking a tax paying productive member of society and their entire family possible and turning the entire lot into consumer of public funds and services as opposed to keeping that person and their kids as productive tax paying system supporting citizens... If we as primaries start making sure that we always calculate costs verses savings in these most extended and honestly much more realistically based research and numbers then the answers are clear... We can't afford NOT to take decent care of people and to spend monies on public outreach and education to help change and influence behavior and lifestyle choices as well... Spend a few hundred thousand bucks on one family alone and start multiplying that a few thousand times over and that starts adding up to some serious money... Or stop the cycle and reverse the

trends and keep that Bread Winner just that, A productive tax paying Bread Winner who contributes to our general funds and society instead of draining it with a life long disability...

To me the choice is clear... But we need to change the basic facts in the arguement from just healthcare spending to life cycle spending and or tax collection.... Productive members of society verses long term healthcare and social welfare for thousands, millions of people... Now that's a heck of a lot of money to sway one way or the other....

To: practiceimprovement1 < >; Practice Management Issues ; Kim Scheuer ; Ressler Sent: Wed, January 19, 2011 2:01:09 PMSubject: Prevention Saves? - WSJ Article - Unexpected Limits of New, Free Preventive Care

Interesting Wall Street Journal article talking about preventive care and new federal laws - plus whether it saves money in the long run or not.

There is debate on whether it saves money - I'm not saying we shouldn't do prevention - just be willing to pay for it as a society.

Unexpected Limits of New, Free Preventive Care

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703396604576087811990834234.html

snip/snip

The debate is whether preventive care saves money, or adds to already-spiraling costs and siphons money from services that might be of greater benefit. The Trust for America's Health, a nonprofit advocacy group, estimates that prevention programs could save the country more than $16 billion annually within five years; researchers at the Commonwealth Fund estimate that reduced tobacco use and a decline in obesity would lower national health expenditures by $474 billion over 10 years.

Other studies, though, have shown that added costs of preventive services tend to exceed savings. A 2008 study in the journal Circulation estimated total cost of caring for heart disease and diabetes over 30 years at $9.5 trillion; while preventive services would reduce those costs by 10% they would cost $8.5 trillion—increasing total medical costs by about $7.6 trillion.

And in the New England Journal of Medicine, a review of hundreds of preventive-care studies showed that fewer than 20% saved money, while the rest added to costs. The Congressional Budget Office concluded in 2009 that expanded government support for preventive medical care would probably improve people's health but wouldn't generally reduce total spending.

"The right question is not whether it saves money, but whether we are getting a good value for the nation's health-care dollar and saving as many lives as we can with each dollar we spend," says Woolf, professor of family medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University, and past member of the preventive services task force.

Removing financial barriers to preventive services has been shown to increase their use, Dr. Woolf says, "and the spirit behind the law is to remove those barriers, increase the use of preventive services, and reduce the disease burden of the country."

snip/snip

Locke, MD