The Personal Health Record A Means Of Containing Healthcare Costs
Utilizing a personal health record can reduce healthcare expenses because many of
the dollars spent in healthcare go toward the acquisition of data necessary to diagnose and appropriately treat. With passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which will expand healthcare coverage to an additional 32 million persons by 2019, more patients will be establishing new doctor/patient relationships and the flow of health information will most likely increase exponentially.
Although in recent years there has been a push for doctors to purchase and utilize electronic healthcare record programs for management of patient health information in the hopes that there will be a centralized repository of patient health data that will minimize treatment errors, in actuality, most doctors have not adopted the technology, and even if most did, because of the differences in styles of practice and documentation, a central database would not contain all of the data updated in real-time to meet healthcare needs of every patient in every healthcare setting and situation. Therefore, the best repository of health information is you and your own personal health record.
One scenario illustrating the cost of generating and exchanging medical data is the initial new patient visit to establish a doctor/patient relationship. A physician or other healthcare provider seeing a patient for the first time needs information provided by the patient which is oftentimes lacking because the patient is not knowledgeable and/or because previous treatment records were not requested, requested but not received, or requested and received but illegible. The new physician will oftentimes need approximate dates of diagnoses, approximate dates and results of prior tests, and approximate dates of hospitalizations with some details of the care which was given. If that information is not available, some doctors will order tests that he or she might otherwise not order had the necessary information been available at the time of the patient visit. The net result is an additional expense for the patient or at the very least another component of healthcare inflation.
Many diagnoses and treatment plans are made based on subjective information, i.e. information verbalized by the patient. For example, in evaluating chest pain a doctor will usually need to know when and how the pain started, the location of the pain, the frequency of the pain, the duration of the pain, the intensity of the pain, the quality of the pain (cramping, burning, stinging, etc.), what makes it better, what brings it on, what makes it worse, and other symptoms associated with the pain before deciding whether to admit the patient to the hospital to rule out a heart attack or whether to treat the patient for acid reflux outside of the hospital. Many times however, because patients have not thought about the information in an organized way and/or because of nervousness, patients feel put on the spot when asked certain questions about their symptoms and conditions. By recording information pertaining to symptoms and conditions to be discussed during an upcoming visit to the doctor, a patient is better prepared for the visit with useful information which can reduce expenses by minimizing over-reliance on the ordering of tests. Additionally, the information is more likely to be accurate and thus more likely to maximize the quality of healthcare received.
A personal health record might therefore also lower healthcare costs during follow-up visits or sick visits because a well-designed personal health record software program enables the patient to create journal entries and pre-visit notes about new and established problems, which can be printed out and carried to the doctor at the time of a visit. Additionally, the updating of entries in the personal health record by the patient tends to even better prepare the patient to answer questions during an impending doctor visit.
The length of the average doctor visit in the United States today at the time of this writing is approximately 16 minutes which is fairly generous compared to a county like Holland where it is 8 minutes. Factors which are likely to result in a decrease in the duration of doctor visits in the United States include healthcare reform which will increase the number of patients receiving treatment, the shortage of physicians, and increasing medical practice overhead. If the average length of a visit to the doctor in the United States does shorten the number of visits to address a set number of conditions more than likely will increase unless more can be accomplished per individual visit.
Implementing and maintaining a personal health record in principle should reduce healthcare cost not only at the time of the new patient visit, but also during established patient visits by shifting the diagnostic emphasis from objective date to subjective data and minimizing the number of required visits. The reduction of healthcare expenses by the utilization of a personal health record is predicated on the principle of more efficient generation and exchange of accurate health information.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purpose only and is not intended to be a substitute for medical consultation with a qualified professional. The author encourages Internet users to be careful when using medical information obtained from the Internet and to consult your physician if you are unsure about your medical condition.
by: Victor E. Battles, M.D.
Health is wealth Maca Benefits-raw Maca-buy Maca-macca-maca Extract-maca Herbs Cheat Your Way Thin Torrent-The creator of this program is Joel Marion, the former Body for Life Champion Calcium in Pregnancy Have a Wintertime Trip to Italy Is It Feasible To Build My Body Using Force Factor? Is There A Tea With More Health Benefits Than Green Tea? Tips for Pregnancy Diet Plan for Healthy Pregnancy Health And Beauty Products: A Brief Overview Vital Points In A Female Body Which Instantly Arouse Her For Sex Symptoms and Treatments of Diabetes High Blood Pressure And Its Relation To Diabetes, Obesity & Exercise Genital Wart, The Most Common Disease In Women, Treatment Advice And Precaution Tips Of The Herpes Virus