The President sent a clear and unequivocal signal that there will be health reform this year. He said in his speech he is going to convene experts next week.
I worry that all the usual suspects will fill the room as "representatives" for us in the front lines of care. If that's all the policy makers hear, we're going to be handed false reform that ultimately supports the status quo. If the net result of health care reform maintains the current policies toxic to primary care, we'll never achieve the results everybody says they want.
- Our patients need us to delivery the full scope of effective primary care practice: to do this we need resources adequate to the work at hand.
- Our patients need our time and attention: therefore we need to lose the mountains of administrative trivia that divert our time and attention away from the real work.
I'd love to see John Wasson of Dartmouth, Barbara Starfield of Johns Hopkins, and Thomas Bodenheimer of UCSF in the room.
These giants of health care truly understand the value of effective primary care. They have done the studies, published the data - and going beyond academics and theory - have worked with practices in the real world.
They are ready, willing (I asked), and able to carry the message that effective primary care is the foundation of high performing health systems - systems that consistently get better results at much lower per-capita costs.
We do need all Americans to have coverage, but coverage absent reform of the payment system and the delivery system falls far short of the reform we need.
To truly reform the health delivery system we need some of the best minds in the U.S. at the table.
Click to this web page to send an email the President today to urge him to include these thought leaders in senior level discussions. We can't have "reform" when a handful of focus group reports are squashed by all the usual D.C. suspects.
L. Gordon Moore MD
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