Matt Mazurek, MD, MHA, MBA, CPE, FAAPL, FACHE, FASA on LinkedIn: Presentation of the Morris F. Collen Award to G. Octo Barnett, MD (2024)

Private equity in healthcare.....surprise billing. Closing unprofitable service lines. Selling the land underneath a NFP hospital. The list of nefarious actions is long and distinguished at this point. Physician groups selling out and senior partners who control the decision to the detriment of the mid-career and recently hired partnership track physicians who enjoy nothing but a bait and switch....I have yet to see one example of how private equity has made things much, much better. There are plenty of Power Point slides, a slick presentation at lunch or dinner over a few glasses of wine and a promises, promises....but at the end of the day...someone is holding a bag of you know what from a dairy farm.....and someone else or a few others head for the exit with a sack of cash. Steward comes to mind.

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Most of us use Epic as the EMR. Epic's legacy software is built on software developed by Dr. Octo Barnett in the 1960's at MGH. Dr. Barnett recognized the need for an efficient way to handle medical data in hospital settings.He led a team at MGH's Laboratory of Computer Science to develop MUMPS (Massachusetts General Hospital Utility Multi-Programming System), a programming language and database system designed for high-performance transaction processing. MUMPS was designed to handle the complexities and high data volumes typical in healthcare environments, emphasizing flexibility and efficiency. Epic is incredibly complex and utilizes both old and new technologies. One of the reasons it is difficult to change the graphic user interface is its legacy purpose as a database first. #emr #healthinformation #informationsystems #it #healthit #electronicmedicalrecord #MUMPS

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Next post is on the software platform Epic sits on.....

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This is an interesting perspective. And concerning, too.

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"In an effort to keep medical debt from destroying credit scores, the Biden administration announced Tuesday that it is moving ahead with a proposal that would remove health care bills from consideration in credit checks."Would be far better IF...in an effort to keep medical debt from destroying people's lives.....I am going to call this a real hollow, shallow, almost irrelevant development. BUT, and I mean BUT--look out below. This does NOTHING to solve many relevant issues plaguing Americans.....The number of bankruptcies caused by medical debt (see map below, too):United States 66.5%Canada19%Australia10%United Kingdom 8.2%Percentage of median US income spent on healthcare premiums and deductibles by US employees has risen from 7.8% in 2008 to 11.6% in 2020. (Statista). This translates to less money for housing, education, and funding retirement, etc. And....show me where the money is going.....More than half of excess U.S. health spending was associated with factors likely reflected in higher prices, including more spending on: administrative costs of insurance (~15% of the excess), administrative costs borne by providers (~15%), prescription drugs (~10%), wages for physicians (~10%) and registered nurses (~5%), and medical machinery and equipment (less than 5%). Reductions in administrative burdens and drug costs could substantially reduce the difference between U.S. and peer nation health spending. (Commonwealth Fund data)Over the last ten years,the growth in the average premium for family coverage far outpaced inflation (47% vs.30%)[Figure 1.15]. The average family premium grew 7% in 2023, compared to the average wage growth rate of 5.2%. Over the last 5 years, family premiums grew 22%, compared to 27% wage growth.100 million Americans are saddled with some form of medical debt. Medical debt is the problem. How can we solve this issue? #medicalbankruptcy #medicaldebt #healthcarepremiums

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Always.

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OB wards across the US are in financial trouble. Large media organizations and corporations....crickets.

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