Workers’ Comp Insider has a fascinating post on workers comp in Iraq. Jon Coppelman discusses safety issues, premium rates (as high as $80 per $100 of payroll, for people making $100k a year!), the “competitive bidding” situation between AIG and ACE, and other intriguing points.
I highly recommend it.
Another interesting post discusses the costs and benefits of Ambulatory Surgery Centers, with particular attention paid to safety issues. An issue not covered in the post or resources on the post is the issue of ASCs siphoning off the profitable, private pay patients from hospitals, leaving hospitals with sicker, poorer patients. The result, hospitals’ outcomes go down, costs go up, and profits disappear.
Another post in Medpundit lead me to a great article about an American’s experience in the British health system. One quote from the article (originally in the Wall Street Journal) in the Medpundit post is particularly telling:
“There is much better teamwork among doctors, nurses and physical therapists in Britain. In fact, once a week at Queen’s Square, all the hospital’s health workers–from high to low–would assemble for an open forum on each patient in the ward. That way each level knows what the other level is up to, something glaringly absent from U.S. hospital management.”
Jun
14
