Does the health care system encourage non-compliance? A post from new ER blog WhiteCoat Rants comments:
“In this country if someone doesn’t take their medication and has a seizure on the side of the road, we send a big taxicab with lights spinning and sirens blaring to go pick them up and bring them to the hospital. We put them in a nice warm bed. We give them a meal if they are hungry. They get to watch cable TV. Several well-educated servants in scrubs tend to their every need. We even give them the medicine they should have been taking through an IV so they don’t have to swallow it. We then send them home with a prescription for more medication in their pocket and give them a survey to make sure that they enjoyed their stay. And if they don’t have a ride home, we get another big taxicab to take them home and tuck them into bed. Two days later when they don’t fill the prescription and have another seizure, the same big taxicab goes out to find them and we repeat the same process all over again.”
(via Scalpel)
Related posts:
- Ted Kennedy’s brain tumor, and the medical care he receives
- "Avoiding drug companies and their advertisements is not the answer"
- Guess the country
- Panda on AMSA
- Confessions of a medical marijuana card-holder
- New Hampshire #3 in the country
- What’s the world’s fattest country?
KevinMD.com on Facebook
{ 1 comment }
Yes we are. The key problem is in the word “give”. If people the person actually had the pay the bill for all of that, it would only happen once.
My favorite patients are those from that slice of the demographic who are unisured but pay their bills (such as some farmers and tradesmen). They are the most compliant and cooperative patients in the world. They want whatever is needed to keep them working, but don’t want any defensive medicine. People with the corporate socialism of “health plans” can be just as institutionalized as those with government paid care.
Comments on this entry are closed.