Physician Advice on Reform and Innovation, #1

My first piece of advice on reform and innovation comes from Rich Fogoros, MD – cardiologist, consultant, writer, blogger (www.tdisease.about.com, a New York Times company, and www.covertrationingblog.com), and author of Fixing American Health Care – Wonkonians, Gekkonians, and the Grand Unification of Healthcare, October, 2007 ((Publish or Perish DBS, Pittsburgh, PA, October, 2007

Here’s his advice.

1) Health care rationing is an economic imperative we can’t avoid.

2) We’ve deputized government and health plans to covertly ration for us.

3) Covert rationing destroys the patient-doctor relationship because it must be done at the bedside, and because it requires obfuscation, opacity, and complexity to implement.

4) All proposed reforms to date fail to confront the necessity for rationing, and ingenious American doctor innovators are best positioned to make rationing equitable, fair, and at a bare minimum through a combination of technology, information technology systems, and reforms.