At my recent Medicare wellness visit, I was asked, several different questions all related to am I having financial problems: buying food, paying for meds, paying necessities, etc.
The CMA person said these are Medicare wellness visit mandated questions.
I’ve never read the Medicare wellness visit list of required questions.
I don’t know if Medicare mandates intrusive questions or not.
I answered truthfully, but, It occurred to me that the “data miners” would label me as “target rich environment for milking”.
Should I have declined to answer?
Lied?
If I believe that the health industry will not data mine to find lucrative targets, then I’ve also got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell me.
Here’s another tidbit.
I called a nephrology clinic, part of the same healthcare system, and scheduled an appointment.
The person answering the phone asked who was referring me.
I answered that I have Traditional Medicare, and therefore do not need a referral.
She replied that that may be true, but their clinic requires it.
She scheduled the appointment anyway, saying I could get the referral.
And I got blood tests based on the appointment.
So, it looks like the appointment is moving forward.
LOLOL.
After the blood tests were taken and analyzed, at my recent Wellness visit, I asked my Dr to provide the referral, which he did without complaint.
My conclusion is that my health industry provider doesn’t like to do things without a referral.
Prolly trying to filter out patients based on need rather than self referrals. Esp if the specialists in that location have long waits. Maybe theyre using pcps to help with the filter process. Wait for derm is so long here that we’ll get pcps that refer to general surgery for basic biopsies, melonama etc (as opposed to something that needs mohs surgery), so to that end it kinda makes sense
She also asked:
Do you feel safe at home?
Is anyone bullying or threatening you?
Do you often think you might be better off if you were dead (or something like that)?
Those are mental health screening questions. (He says as if you didn’t know that already.) Non-Medicare insurance is pretty bad at dealing with mental health. It would not surprise me at all if a decent number of folks entering Medicare are doing so with undiagnosed mental health problems. And there are a number of potential stressors that older folks are subject to that are less prevalent in those younger.
I’m kind of glad to hear that the Medicare Wellness visit at least gives a bit of lip service to mental health.
Yes, for what it is, there’s a reasonable stab at trying to sift out some obvious vulnerabilities …frailty, loneliness, elder abuse (I had to take mandatory courses in recognizing it whilst I was still in practice) suicidal ideation etc. In a population that may be seeking non-urgent medical oversight for the first time and has no one in their life to care enough to ask about these issues, it’s nothing to scoff at.
Of course, it’s a shame that these checks are seen as a replacement to a rudimentary physical in some cases, but there you go…
You have to admit, health insurance is a funny insurance. It not only covers emergencies but also routine and chronic maintenance. If your fridge breaks down or your roof needs replacement i dont think homeowners insurance covers that. Same with car insurance and new tires.
The finances of healthcare as a whole is a scary concept in capitalism. How much is one willing to pay to stay alive? Literally anything.
YES! It is a stupid way of handling an extremely important commonly shared PUBLIC matter, and that is why shifting from a delivery system that was originally a luxury for the rich under the control of Doctors to a system more like the delivery of clean water, a Public Health System makes so so so much sense.
USAians are so habituated to the stupidity of their system that they cannot understand what I am talking about.
There is no such thing as health insurance. You get sick despite buying so called health insurance. The only thing you can insure is WEALTH
Life insurance: You die despite being insured
Fire insurance? Your properties burn down despite insurance
Collision insurance? You have accidents despite the insurance
Show me one thing that insurance prevents. Losing your wealth.
Routine and chronic maintenance should come out of your ordinary budget. Insure “Major Medical” that you can’t afford!
Why add the cost of insurance your ordinary health expenditures? In addition to paying for the treatment you pay for:
Insurance employee salaries
Insurance investors capital gains
Insurance executive option plans
Insurance advertising
Insurance agent commissions
Insurance broker fees
What a total waste
And the insurance companies, not doctors, decide what treatments are allowed.
The Captain
used to sell insurance. My clients loved me. I hated the insurance companies.
BTW, I ran my insurance portfolio with an Apple ][ with VisiCalc, VisiDex, and a word processor. Realizing that computers are much more fun than insurance I became an Apple reseller.
Well, what they “understand” is that providing medical care based upon need rather than ability to pay means that their own hard work/responsible saving etc (rarely is good fortune mentioned) is being used for someone who hasn’t done those things. If you think I’m mistaken, squander a bit of time reading through comments on threads related to the subject of defunding Medicaid.
Remember, I not only lived through, but as best I know I am the longest living survivor of the AIDS epidemic. I watched the demagoguery drift around for its most vicious and potent form before, no surprise, settling on
ignoring the anciently known facts of epidemiology (ignoring that it IS coming for you, Emperor)
blaming the dead and dying and most vulnerable, and also anyone showing any mercy
profiting by restructuring management of medical treatments that were funded by the people to profit private interests
Yeap! while they ignore the fact that they PAYPAYPAY for all manner of things (roads, clean water and sewerage, national defense, accurate disaster weather warnings,…..) that all those ne’er do wells pay nothing for either.
And, AND, they shriek about the potency of their “Christianity”.
As a physician, about 99% of the questions we ask are intrusive. These set of question might seem to intrusive because they are not your typical medical questions. But, have seen plenty of patients that have to choose/juggle between medicine, food, shelter. Plus, a savvy physician would know of some helping organizations to put a patient in contact with.
I’ve had various medical people ask me these questions at various interactions; like an ER visit or my PCP’s office. I think these are now standard health screening questions.
@JimA759s n @JLC
Even while it’s true that the questions are benign, or well intentioned, potentially helpful … and “routine” …
the data is still vulnerable to data mining exploitation.
The meme is “Data is the new oil”.
Big n little are watching.
ralph
It’s been noted before, that China (commie with no privacy) has massive data sets for research, while US data sets are much smaller due to all the ??? Privacy Acts (HIPPA, FERPA, ETC).
are watching.