Is 'Amazon Care' a True Benefit Or Industrial Era-Style Healthcare? (computerworld.com) 155
Lucas123 writes: Like Apple and Intel, Amazon is piloting an in-house program for employees that in addition to healthcare insurance affords workers access to telemedicine and at-home visits from a contracted provider. While growing in popularity, in-house healthcare programs, which even include corporate clinics, are seen by some as an example of the growth in fragmented care or mimicking corporate care during the industrial era when factories had worksite clinics to get employees back to work faster. "[Corporate-based virtual healthcare programs, like Amazon's] is yet one more example of fragmented care," says Cynthia Burghard, a research director with IDC's Health Insights. "Back in the day, manufacturers had worksite clinics to take care of workers injured on the job mostly so they could get back to work sooner. The difference with what Amazon is doing compared to what the [Deloitte] survey shows is that the Amazon offering is disconnected to other care providers rather than under the supervision of an employee's providers." [The Deloitte survey found that 66% of physicians said telemedicine improved patient care access and 52% said it boosted patient satisfaction.]
Vik Panda, lead of operations for French sleep company Dreem, had this to say: "The news is that Jeff Bezos' company, and others like it, don't need anyone's permission to start building and paying for their own parallel healthcare systems, little by little. If Amazon replaces the existing health care system bit by bit, and employees of self-insured companies migrate to this new digital health system, do we all get to come along?" Amazon Care, Panda said, represents a wake-up call for providers, payers and employers because telehealth is not just about video chats with a doctor or wearable fitness trackers. "...It's a new operating system for health, and big technology companies are not going to wait for everyone else to figure it out."
Vik Panda, lead of operations for French sleep company Dreem, had this to say: "The news is that Jeff Bezos' company, and others like it, don't need anyone's permission to start building and paying for their own parallel healthcare systems, little by little. If Amazon replaces the existing health care system bit by bit, and employees of self-insured companies migrate to this new digital health system, do we all get to come along?" Amazon Care, Panda said, represents a wake-up call for providers, payers and employers because telehealth is not just about video chats with a doctor or wearable fitness trackers. "...It's a new operating system for health, and big technology companies are not going to wait for everyone else to figure it out."
You know why we hate doctors in the US? (Score:4, Informative)
Because insurance will charge $900 for a course of bloody freaking doxycycline that you can buy at the pet store for $10.
True story.
Why doctors? Why not medical corporations? (Score:2)
They hardly make the prices.
They don't even choose the medicine, unless you're lucky.
(Remember Elsevier peddling several magazines targeted at doctors, containing nothing but fake studies from Merck?)
Or is it analogous to you hating the government because lobbyists write the laws and regulations to give themselves advantages and then tell you to hate the government when it was not them doing it?
Re:You know why we hate doctors in the US? (Score:4, Interesting)
Because insurance will charge $900 for a course of bloody freaking doxycycline that you can buy at the pet store for $10.
My sister did this trick once. Our mother was visiting her and our mother ran out of some medication she takes for her bones or hips or something like that.
My sister, a chemical engineer, looked at the list of contents on the empty bottle, googled the medicine, and discovered that it was EXACTLY the same thing that she gives to her dog.
So for a couple of days, my mother got doggie drugs and there were no problems.
Oh, and the doggie drugs cost a fraction of the human stuff.
Re:You know why we hate doctors in the US? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re: You know why we hate doctors in the US? (Score:2)
So I waited until I got back to UK, made a bee line for the nearest Boots (pharmacy) and got the same brand cream + the pills over the counter for less than
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There is such a thing as over-regulation, but the US pharmaceutical industry is not experiencing it.
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The contents are the same, the regulations aren't (Score:2)
John Oliver has a great video on poorly regulated compounding pharmacies [youtube.com]. It's scary to watch.
Go watch it. Now if you think that's bad try to imagine how well regulated pet medication is.
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Well, that's stupid of you. That's not the doctor's fault.
I hate doctors because they are assholes. They are trained to depersonalize you, treat you like a piece of meat, and ignore you. If you have researched something more than they have (say, mold exposure, which both the CDC and the Mayo clinic say is becoming an epidemic) then they will not listen to you even a little bit because you have injured their professional pride.
Prescription drug prices are the result of the efforts of big pharma, and the fact
Re:You know why we hate doctors in the US? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, that's stupid of you. That's not the doctor's fault. I hate doctors because they are assholes. They are trained to depersonalize you, treat you like a piece of meat, and ignore you.
To each his own. I don't go to the doctor looking for someone to be chummy with me and much prefer someone with the mindset of a mechanic fixing a machine. :)
If you have researched something more than they have (say, mold exposure, which both the CDC and the Mayo clinic say is becoming an epidemic) then they will not listen to you even a little bit because you have injured their professional pride.
Maybe. Or maybe it's because (a) they constantly have to deal with people who spent some time on a couple of minutes googling and now think they know more than the doc and it's too much work to differentiate between them and the one-in-a-hundred who might actually be on to something and (b) they know that they carry the responsibility (and liability) so even if you're right, they still have to do pretty much the same work to arrive at the same conclusion. In the U.S. at least, if you were to mis-self-diagnose and get them to agree with you and prescribe the wrong treatment, you could turn around and sue them (and have a good shot of prevailing) even though it was your doing.
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You bring up something they haven't researched and from a reputable source and their response isn't to look it up, it's to patronize and ignore. Fuck that. They can't be replaced by an expert system fast enough. And since computers are actually better at diagnosis than doctors, it will be a massive win for everyone. Well, everyone but the doctors, anyway. Maybe the smart ones can go into research. Someone has to train the system, after all.
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Re: You know why we hate doctors in the US? (Score:4, Interesting)
drinkypoo raged:
I hate doctors because they are assholes. They are trained to depersonalize you, treat you like a piece of meat, and ignore you. If you have researched something more than they have (say, mold exposure, which both the CDC and the Mayo clinic say is becoming an epidemic) then they will not listen to you even a little bit because you have injured their professional pride.
You have to train them to recognize and respect your diagnostic skills, Martin. It isn't easy, I know, but it is possible. Eventually.
My personal physician is an internist - a doctor who specializes in diagnosis. He blew me off when I asked for a referral to a dermatologist because a white nevus had grown on my forehead, and I felt it was important to have it checked out by a specialist. (I'm at particularly high risk for skin cancer, both because I'm very fair-skinned and have an unusually-large number of moles - none of which are white - and because I've had several severe sunburns, including one that caused third-degree burns on my forehead and nose.) I was only able to afford to see him every 6 months, so, at my next visit, I told him that the mole in question had begun to bleed about 4 months earlier, then had stopped bleeding about 2 months later.
He immediately referred me to a dermatologist. With the 3-month wait for that appointment, it had been a full year since the nevus had first appeared and 9 months since I initially requested the referral. The dermatologist took one look at it, scrutinized it under an eyepiece lens, and announced, "Yep. It's cancer, all right. Oh, we'll biopsy it and send it to Pathology to confirm that - but I've seen enough of these to recognize a cancerous one when I see it, so I'm sure I'm right about it."
And, of course, she was correct. It was a basal cell carcinoma - the most common (and least lethal) form of skin cancer. Two months later, I underwent surgery to have it removed. That involved the surgeon cutting a 1-inch by .5-inch "football-shaped" chunk of flesh out of my forehead. He cut all the way to the bone (because cancer), and scraped the bone clean. Prior to the operation, my dermatologist had assured me that "he's an excellent plastic surgeon." He was, indeed. You have to know the scar is there to see it.
But it hurt like fucking blazes for months afterward - and I made it a point to mention that to my regular physician at our next appointment. A year or so later, I developed an umbilical hernia while foolishly carrying a full electronic drum kit down to my basement studio by myself. I made an appointment with my physician, and told him what had happened, and explained my self-diagnosis. He palpated the hernia, and responded, "I agree with your diagnosis. I'll refer you for a CAT scan, because they'll require one before they'll schedule you for surgery, but you're obviously correct about this being an umbilical hernia."
The thing is, when they scanned my CAT, the images not only confirmed my diagnosis, they also revealed a roughly-globular mass in the upper-left quadrant of my abdomen. "That's a gallstone," the imaging specialist told me. "It's a pretty big one, but it's not cancer, if that's what you're concerned about.
It wasn't. What I was concerned about was what that incidental image told me about a devastating chronic digestive condition from which I've been suffering for the past 5 years. I'd been referred to a couple of different gastroenterologists, and been treated with everything from industrial-strength antacids, to Elavil (to calm the muscles of my small intestine), to multiple courses of broad-spectrum antibiotics (to treat what turned out to have been an incorrect diagnosis of microbial overgrowth of the small intestine). None of that had worked. None of it even helped. But seeing that golf-ball-sized gallstone instantly revealed to me what had been causing my problem - a condition so disruptive that it causes me chronic, severe sleep deprivation to th
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because I've had several severe sunburns, including one that caused third-degree burns on my forehead and nose
Do you have a citation on how this is even possible? Everything I could find from health professionals says that you can't get third degree sunburns. For example, here's what Seattle Children's Hospital [seattlechildrens.org] says:
That stands to reason, since third-degree burns involve charring of the skin and sunlight isn't powerful enough to do that unless concentrated. If you fail on the simple diagnosis of the severity of a burn then I would say your internist would be cor
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**Except apparently in 2014...wikipedia notes that thee was a supply shortage that year and the price skyrocketed
Re: You know why we hate doctors in the US? (Score:2)
Early 2014 is the right timeframe, and that may well have been the cause.
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You need a recipe anyway, but the one from your GP or from hospital and ER will suffice. Sometimes you could get pills without prescriprion at full price [tellerreport.com] but it's actually forbidden and had consequence for the pharmacist.
Re: You know why we hate doctors in the US? (Score:2)
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You can also go to the pet store and get your doxycycline, if you're smart enough. Not sure if it's clean enough and tested on humans though. There is a reason for the charge, humans are expensive, research is expensive and if a single nation is carrying the majority of the world's medical research, that nation will have expensive medical systems.
Also, doxycycline specifically costs $15 from CVS and many other pharmacies.
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Animal health care is much less regulated and therefore has reasonable prices.
When the US didn't have health care regulation people organized into mutual aid societies.
Health care was affordable for everyone.
Doctors organizations didn't like it though, doctors would have to beg mere 'workers' for a job.
They wanted doctors to be respected, like in Europe, so they got government involved.
With destroyed a once great health system.
https://www.youtube.com/ [youtube.com]
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The biggest problem with the cost of healthcare in the US is a perverse incentive. Insurance companies get a percentage of every health care dollar spent. It is in their interest to encourage spiraling health care costs because their slice of a bigger pie makes big profits. The consumer in many cases pays for this increase in a delayed and indirect fashion. We are like
Perverse [Re:You know why we hate doctors...] (Score:2)
... The biggest problem with the cost of healthcare in the US is a perverse incentive. Insurance companies get a percentage of every health care dollar spent.
Sort of.
Insurance companies get a fixed amount in (premiums), and pay a variable amount out (healthcare cost). If they pay more for health care, that comes directly out of their profit.
In the long term, though, they raise premiums.
...
Regulation may be the only way to stop the perverse incentive of insurance companies gladly paying higher prices. An unregulated market has encouraged this system designed to maximize profits to evolve. What we really need is a "Goldilocks" approach with not too much, but not too little regulation.
Indeed. Like most systems, too much or too little is bad.
Policymakers should not be selling their influence to campaign donors ...
And that, right there, is the real problem.
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His example showed that regulation is the problem.
Animal health care is much less regulated and therefore has reasonable prices.
In US healthcare, the regulation problem shows up more often as extended time to market for new compounds because of the need to do a full course of US testing on top of perfectly good Swiss or Japanese testing. What's happening in the case of this old generic is the cartelized nature of pharma. One company can get mysteriously exclusive control of the supply of something they don't own a patent on.
My cure: let Amazon and Walmart import drugs directly from the international market, where because of their la
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Litigation not Regulation.
If your Dog died from a bad drug. While you may be sad and heart broken, you are not going to spend the next 20 years of your life suing the drug maker or the vet, for a bad call, or a bad product.
However if it was your family member, you are going to fight much harder.
Regulations which are well documented, and understood, are normally easy to follow, and are less of a problem overall. However Litigation is in essence punishment before the conviction.
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Well that's another difference, most countries don't seem to have such sue happy people, or more likely a more sane court system. Here in Canada, just about never hear about malpractice suits or suits over drugs. It does happen but usually only with a good reason and payouts make sense rather then being like a lottery win.
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Of course, part of that is because poor medical outcomes in the U.S. often come with millions in uncapped personal medical expenses to handle the fallout and quite possibly poverty inducing disability.
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If your Dog died from a bad drug. While you may be sad and heart broken, you are not going to spend the next 20 years of your life suing the drug maker or the vet, for a bad call, or a bad product.
You haven't seen John Wick, have you?
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That's not regulation. It's economics and the market.
The stuff for the pet store most likely comes off of the same production line as the stuff bound for CVS. The stuff for human use is marked up to insane levels simply because they know you are bent backwards over a barrel. You might take your chances skipping it with a fish if they demand $900, but not with a child and probably not with yourself. Nobody ever got charged with "fish abuse" because they chose to skip medical treatment and hope for the best.
I
Re:You know why we hate doctors in the US? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You know why we hate doctors in the US? (Score:5, Interesting)
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And a 3 month wait time for critical surgery (like the UK and Canada?). What's the investment rate and small business ownership like in your country? Lots of medical conglomerates that do research in advanced medicine?
Re:You know why we hate doctors in the US? (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess it depends what you mean by critical. There are numbers online [nuffieldtrust.org.uk].
There is an 18-week target for non-urgent surgery which they frequently miss but the chart on the page shows median wait is in the 6 - 8 week range and 92nd percentile in the 15-26 week range depending on the specialty.
anecdotally I suddenly needed a surgery while on a trip to the UK, the timeline was:
So I think the time to wait for critical surgery through the NHS is probably pretty low, otherwise people would be dying like flies.
Re:You know why we hate doctors in the US? (Score:5, Informative)
Define Critical.
Surgery in the UK is done on the basis of clinical need. Life-threatening - it gets done NOW. Not life-threatening ? We will manage your condition while it is stable until we can schedule your operation. If it changes, it gets done NOW.
There is no point in trying to convince people of this concept unless they were brought in Europe, Australia etc. where the concept of shared collective responsibility for the well being and health of your fellow citizens is understood. It's a social compact that has been in effect for decades.
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The punchline? The wife had cancer and was receiving cancer treatments. Because she lived in Canada, her health care was covered, and she needed none of those millions for her health care. Such a circumstance is basically UNTHINKABLE in the U.S.
Bless them both for their care and good will.
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The fact of the matter is that as a country we pay more per person for healthcare than ANY country that has socialized medical care, and our health outcomes are worse.
You can pay taxes or you can pay an insurance company CEO's Muti million dollar bonus but one way or another you are paying and you are paying a lot more than you think you will pay with these taxes you are so worried about.
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I was about to reply largely the same, but I think you got it.
I really don't wanna have to deal with my medical needs on the level of the DMV or any local/state/federal government interaction I've ever had to deal with in my life.
Even th
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Of course its not perfect: for some things there's long waiting times and some things are strangely not covered (dental care beyond the basics and glasses for
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Perhaps it's a matter of them learning that hard work and careful savings will leave them worn out and broke.
When we return to an economy and society where hard work and savings will lead to prosperity, we'll have less lazy people.
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While such a system would ideally be great, I fear that we (USA) have WAY more "lazy" people than you do, by percentage.
Why does that matter? "Lazy" means no active interest in keeping their health. Lazy means more crime, which is damaging to other people's health, and costs more in taxes. Lazy means poorer choices. Lazy means breeding lazy offspring, which condemns future generations. Lazy means lesser pay, which means lesser income taxes. Lazy also usually means less intelligent, which isn't beneficial to anyone, nor the country itself, going forward.
This is solely why I think full, socialized medicine can't financially work here.
I see things differently. American workers are the 3rd most productive on the planet, and at the same time the US is the most overworked developed nation. Crime, like drugs, robbery, B&E, murder, etc., is correlated with joblessness, not laziness. When manufactures moved jobs overseas for cheaper labor, crime rates shot up.
Coupling health care with employment has ceased to be a good thing. America pays more for less health care than any other developed country, and the health care industr
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I see things differently. American workers are the 3rd most productive on the planet, and at the same time the US is the most overworked developed nation. Crime, like drugs, robbery, B&E, murder, etc., is correlated with joblessness, not laziness. When manufactures moved jobs overseas for cheaper labor, crime rates shot up.
An interesting point, if true. But either way, that's still a lot of takers versus givers. And I see no end in sight there.
If there was universal health care in the US, separate from work, automation could become a good thing. Super Fitbits, Tricorders [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricorder_X_Prize], and even Amazon's Amazing AI devices could go a long way to making us all healthier. Might just take care of your laziness problem too.
Again, they choose the fast food over the homemade salad. They can buy a tracker now, and don't.
Re:You know why we hate doctors in the US? (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, it seems to be only the people who are strongly against single payer medicine, are calling it "free" while everyone else knows realizes it is coming from taxes.
Now I am not a huge fan of Socialized Medicine or Single Payer, as I see a number details that will need to be worked out and managed, where our current system more or less isn't a problem due to the "Invisible Hand of Capitalism" Such as time to get appointments, having nicer heal care institutions with better safety records, as people don't want to go to small run down places that takes years to get to. Also the Medicaid and Medicare model doesn't actually pay enough to the health care institution to allow that particular fee schedule to be used for everyone.
However in terms of cost single payer should be lower then what we currently do with our health insurances. For a few reasons.
1. Everyone is covered: Much of our insurance cost, is built in from people who cannot pay for services, where the hospital writes them off.
2. Follow up and maintenance care: A visit to the ER is 15x more expensive then going to your doctor or a specialist. So people with chronic conditions are better off going to the DR once a Month, compared having to be in the ER once. People normally avoid going to maintenance care is because of insurance.
3. Administrative cost: There is a lot of work at the health care institutions to get the insurance companies to pay for services owed to them. What makes it worse there are often dozens of insurance companies all with different rules for payments. A single system, while I expect till a lot of paperwork, would be uniformed and easier to administrator.
4. Managed Fee Schedules: Services that pay too little, (such as medicaid) will get its losses in profit added to the cost to a commercial insurance.
With commercial insurances we are paying for socialized health with extra money, as its fragmented nature adds additional costs, due to inefficiencies.
*Bonus*: Most taxes are progressive taxes or fixed percentage, meaning wealthy are paying more for taxes then the less wealthy. So it is the case that wealthy are slightly inconvenienced, while the poor are greatly benefited.
*Bonus 2*: People who are healthy are more apt to be at work and contributing to the economy and paying taxes. My wife is cryonicly ill, she wants to work, but cannot find a job that will work around her conditions, 2-3 times a week, with what ever hours she can function.
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3. Administrative cost: There is a lot of work at the health care institutions to get the insurance companies to pay for services owed to them. What makes it worse there are often dozens of insurance companies all with different rules for payments. A single system, while I expect till a lot of paperwork, would be uniformed and easier to administrator.
A lot of people vastly underestimate how costly this really is. One source suggests .61 FTE billing personnel per 1 FTE medical personnel [physicianspractice.com], with one recent report putting that cost around $80k per medical FTE in a clinic [healthaffairs.org]. Remember that this is in the current system where states have at
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[/sarcasm]
I shudder to think of the government dictating and doling out my medical needs.
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The way it works here (BC) is the government just pays the Doctors (well they own the hospitals as well). Doctors still have their offices that are run as a small business, they just bill the government rather then private insurance with the government setting the prices. Much simpler, which is why the Doctors like it.
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"efficient", timely, helpful and convenient
And which of those adjectives would you associate with your current HMO? I wouldn't use any of them to describe my health insurance plan.
I shudder to think of the government dictating and doling out my medical needs.
If you live in the US, there is already a death panel deciding when your health care needs are worth paying out for. Just look at the card in your wallet or purse - the one you have to present any time you to go a clinic or hospital - and you can find out who is evaluating the value of your life and health. You don't get any more freedom right now than anyone in a cou
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I don't have a HMO, but as a private contractor, I do have my own insurance plan, and I fully fund my HSA to the max every year.
Not sure I'd use all the terms, but they seem to be efficient, I can go to whatever Dr I want to for the most part, I know what I pay, I know what they pay, and I've never been turned down for any thing my Dr's prescribe or procedures they want
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I fully fund my HSA to the max every year.
HSA works well for single people who are reasonably healthy. People with existing conditions, spouses, or kids generally get screwed on HSA.
I can go to whatever Dr I want to for the most part
That doesn't match any HSA I've ever heard of. Every case of an HSA is no different from HMO, PPA, or any other system in that you have to subscribe to a network when you start out. You can't just go pick any doctor or office at a whim, it needs to be in your network. And if you happen to be traveling out of state, you're generally best of waiting until you get ho
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HSA = Health Savings Account
This is not insurance, but is a nice way to put back money pre-tax towards your medical expenses.
It is better than a FSA that W2 workers often are offered, since the HSA is not "use it or lose it" at EOY.
But I use the HSA funds to pay my co-pays, contacts, meds, etc.
I wish the Feds would expand and allow MORE money to be put in HSA's pre-tax, and to allow more regular people to set them up and use them.
With these, people might start being more
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HSA = Health Savings Account
Which usually goes with a high-deductible insurance plan.
With these, people might start being more careful and shopping around for their care.
Except that shopping for health care is nothing at all like shopping for consumer goods. You can't compare health care directly between two clinics, and you can seldom - if ever - get direct rates from them.
But again, HSA isn't insurance, it is just a nice side benefit of doing my own thing health care wise.
HSA tends to go with insurance. I've never heard of anyone having it without insurance, it would have very little - if any - benefit for someone who carried no insurance.
I have a medical insurance policy.
So then you really are not "doing [your] own thing health care wise". Y
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How much worse is the DMV compared to... ...
Fast Food workers
Bank Tellers
Telephone Tech support
In general when you work requires you to behind a counter, and your performance is rated in how many people did you service. The general level of service will be bad.
One time I went to the DMV off hours, there wasn't a line, and the person behind the desk was very friendly and helpful. Because she didn't a line of grumpy people behind me.
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MUCH worse
MUCH worse
MUCH worse
Wow....that was easy.
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If you think it's expensive, wait until it's "free"
The US system is significantly more expensive [healthsystemtracker.org] than other countries, while resulting in worse outcomes [healthsystemtracker.org].
.
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If you think it's expensive, wait until it's "free"
Health outcomes per dollar spent be it spent by the government through tax expenses, through insurance companies or directly are far worse in the USA than practically every other developed nation.
It exists to make more profit. (Score:3)
With the morals you know from Amazon.
Everything else follows from that.
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So Amazon saves money and increases profits. Nothing wrong with that
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Hi there Amazon Employee #104897, this is your friendly Amazon Cyber-Doctor here to assist you. I see you have the heartbreak of Psoriasis. Maybe you'd be interested in our valuable offer of 1 + One Free Pseudo-Hyperoxaline for your condition with free delivery. Rope some family members into this valuable offer and we'll deliver using our Fly-Bots, they know where you live.
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Victorian comeback (Score:5, Insightful)
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Amazon wants to be the only retailer left standing. Then you will have to sell your soul to the company store. They'll own you lock stock and broom handle.
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Since they're still considerably smaller than Walmart, looks like they're not succeeding too well, if that's their goal.
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Amazon is considerably bigger then Walmat when you consider the rest of the world. Total world domination of sales and IT Operations (AWS) in their aim.
With no one else to go to they will be the 'company store'. I fully expect them to follow FaceBook and issue their own crypto currency. Then it will be the only currency they'll accept.
Bezos is going to rival Zuckerberg for world dictator of the 2030's.
Would you want that? (Score:4, Insightful)
Would you really want your doctor to put your employer's interest before yours?
Because with some injuries it's quite possible to get you patched up in little time but ruin you in the long run (when you get thrown away and replaced with a new part, sorry, worker) rather than doing a full recovery which would take longer but allows you to actually stay healthy for longer, too.
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Would you really want your doctor to put your employer's interest before yours?
Because with some injuries it's quite possible to get you patched up in little time but ruin you in the long run (when you get thrown away and replaced with a new part, sorry, worker) rather than doing a full recovery which would take longer but allows you to actually stay healthy for longer, too.
Imagine if this kind of system was in place when all the nasty about asbestos was comeing out. We'd still be telling them to shut up you've only got a little cough, now drink 2 tea spoons of this and get back to work.
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Metropolitan Life Insurance company did a study on the health effects of asbestos in the 20s and 30s and found that a shit ton of people were going to die from it in the future. They promptly buried the study because it just so happened that they were insuring a number of companies mining asbestos and manufacturing asbestos containing products. The study didn't see the light of day until decades later.
I'd be interested in seeing the citation for that anecdote.
No and No (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a stupid American quirk due to your instance that sick people should just go off and die if they aren't wealthy. Corporations as healthcare providers is the dumbest "feature" of any developed country, and fortunately there are very few such developed countries.
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No, they are a result of government mis-regulation. Regulation isn't bad. The way you regulate in the USA is.
Wrong (Score:3)
It's a stupid American quirk due to your instance that sick people should just go off and die if they aren't wealthy
Hello ignorant European! You may not be aware, but emergency rooms are required to treat anyone who comes in, even if they cannot pay.
Now you are somewhat less ignorant, you are welcome!
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Hello ignorant European! You may not be aware, but emergency rooms are required to treat anyone who comes in, even if they cannot pay.
I didn't say emergency. I guess you may be ignorant of the things which go on in your own country, where people choose not to get treatment to prevent being a financial burden on their next of kin, or where the reason you end up in the emergency ward is because actually seeing the doctor for a minor ailment becomes a financial decision, or how some people with allergies don't carry epipens because fuck they are expensive for no reason over there.
Before calling people ignorant maybe ask if you understood the
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um (Score:2)
"[Corporate-based virtual healthcare programs, like Amazon's] is yet one more example of fragmented care," says Cynthia Burghard,
Um, what? How is it more "fragmented" than anything else?
People like convenient health care options. And there no reason amazon doctors can't communicate with other doctors, like everybody else. Urgent care sends a report to your PCP, Amazon doctor sends a report to your PCP, what's the difference?
Re: um (Score:2)
Take a look at what Amazon did with local law-enforcement to circumvent the need to get a warrant in order to gain access to your own cameras. Do you really think theyâ(TM)re going to honor patient Dr. confidentiality?
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"[Corporate-based virtual healthcare programs, like Amazon's] is yet one more example of fragmented care," says Cynthia Burghard,
Um, what? How is it more "fragmented" than anything else?
Because here's just another fragment. And I wouldn't expect amazon doctors to talk to other doctors without either a)it being beneficial to them, or b) the other side pays up. Probably both.
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Um, what? How is it more "fragmented" than anything else?
I think, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here, is that it isn't a question of quantity of fragmentation but of who is being fragmented. So, I'm guessing the argument someone might make is, imagine Amazon Fire Department and let's say Amazon pours a ton of money into it and is able to write it off taxes. Fire breaks out in an Amazon warehouse, Amazon's high tech FD puts out the blaze everything is great. Now let's say a fire breaks out in the town but poses no risk to the warehouse. Amazon FD si
Re: um (Score:2)
imagine Amazon Fire Department and let's say Amazon pours a ton of money into it and is able to write it off taxes. Fire breaks out in an Amazon warehouse, Amazon's high tech FD puts out the blaze everything is great. Now let's say a fire breaks out in the town but poses no risk to the warehouse. Amazon FD sits there and watches local FD put out a three alarm fire with whatever tax payer's money can muster.
A very similar scenario played out about 8 years ago when one town in TN I believe decided it didn't need a fire department, it was too expensive for their small town, so they collected no fire Dept taxes and had no coverage. A neighboring town offered to extend fire department coverage, but homeowners had to pay a small fee in lieu of collecting local taxes to fund the fire department. When a fire occurred in the town without a fire department the neighboring town FD would roll to the scene and monitor the
"boosted patient satisfaction" is not a metric! (Score:2)
People mark those down because they didn't get an antibiotic when they had a virus and thought the doctor wasn't doing their job.
would you trust that greedy skinflint? (Score:2)
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not me, i would never go to work for him, i read about the horrific conditions in hot un-air-conditioned warehouses with long hours and no overtime pay
Excellent, and I'm serious about that. The most powerful lever you have is personal choice. Exercise it. I guarantee Bezos cares a lot more about hiring people and selling product than any rant in any magazine.
I'd never take an Amazon warehouse job but only because I have much better options. I know people for which an Amazon job would look pretty good.
Caveat Emptor (Score:2)
Considering the firsthand stories that were relayed to me from people that have worked in the warehouses, I am surprised they are giving home visit healthcare. Based on the stories, as to how much they are overworked, I am rather surprised that they did not set up a clinic at the warehouses. I suspect that the employees will be afraid to use the service for fear of it costing them their jobs. At the same time I also suspect that Amazon is not being benevolent. They most likely suspect malingering. They prob
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I would not even be surprised if you called in sick if they did not send a medical expert out there to confirm you're actually really sick.
Uh huh. Because it's definitely cheaper to have a "medical expert" make a house call, than to have a low-paid employee take a day off.
Re: Caveat Emptor (Score:2)
They bill the insurance that comes out of the employees pay. You think amazon is gonna pay? They probably are getting more refunded than the cost of the medical employee. Its probably profitable.
Re: Caveat Emptor (Score:3)
Because it's definitely cheaper to have a "medical expert" make a house call, than to have a low-paid [hourly] employee take [an unpaid] day off.
FTFY.
The over-reaction is amazing. Amazon employs tens of thousands of people, many performing manual warehouse labor, where minor injuries a likely to occur. The company puts medical professionals on the staff to improve care and cut costs (eventually), and all people can see is a dystopian end where employees are permanently disabled by "company first" healthcare practices that only exist in their minds?
Explain to me how it's better to NOT have a nurse's office at an Amazon warehouse? How it's better for
Privacy is the issue (Score:2)
In practice, there is no way from preventing your employer with this having any and all data about your health. Health data is privileged and to be kept secret for good reasons.
Re: Privacy is the issue (Score:2)
Explain how my employer gets all my medical information - and please be sure to explain how our current HIPPA regulations (which prevent my doctor from telling my wife my medical condition) simply rolls over and provides employers your complete medical history.
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If you go to the in-house clinic of your employer, or get health-care pretty much directly provided by your employer, please explain to me how you realistically want to keep that data isolated and that includes data in people's minds. No fantasies please, actual reality.
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What? (Score:2)
Vik Panda, lead of operations for French sleep company Dreem, had this to say: "The news is that Jeff Bezos' company, and others like it, don't need anyone's permission to start building and paying for their own parallel healthcare systems, little by little. If Amazon replaces the existing health care system bit by bit, and employees of self-insured companies migrate to this new digital health system, do we all get to come along?"
This fellow is expecting that as Amazon's "parallel healthcare system" for Amazon employees grows, he wants access to it for non-Amazon employees? Why? Is there some fundamental problem in the French healthcare system that something like this would address?
This is really nothing new, I've worked in several companies with on-site medical offices, typically staffed with nurses, similar to school nurses in the past.
I owe my soul to the company store... (Score:2)
I've extremely wary of these kinds of services being conglomerated under one roof, a big corporation. How is this driving freedom of choice?
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I've extremely wary of these kinds of services being conglomerated under one roof, a big corporation. How is this driving freedom of choice?
At the risk of sounding pedantic, it enhances choice because you now have a new choice: work at Amazon and get their in-house care or work somewhere else and get more traditional care. That first choice did not exist a week ago.
What's odd is my company (which is not Amazon) also makes available all sorts of on-line consulting services. I don't know if they're doing it to contain costs or as a perk to spice up the benefit plan. I guarantee Benefits is looking at how popular the service is and if it's not, it
It's about costs (Score:2)
Healthcare costs at least $1k per employee per month. Amazon probably has about 100k employees in the Seattle area. That means they spend about $100 million dollars a month on premiums - just for the Seattle crowd alone. Amazon is so big they probably self-insure, but they're still going to be spending a literal ton of money a month on employee health.
Doctors and nurses on-site makes sense. It's convenient, and for people who don't really have "a relationship" with their doctor it doesn't matter.
Don't want
End employer benefits (Score:3)
We are falling down a slippery slope of benefits that will slowly crush small or even medium businesses. If a big company offers me health insurance, life insurance, a 24/7 on-site doctor, car insurance, a discount on cars purchased from some vendor, a discount at AT&T, discount cable TV, identity theft prevention, and a gym discount -- eventually people will lose their ability to switch jobs, which deflates salaries and slows the economy. Small businesses can't provide all of this, which means small businesses won't start and self employment will become financially nonviable. Plus, it skews the market: Maybe I prefer Verizon, but my employer only gives me a discount if I use AT&T. That happens today with health insurance, I don't want it to happen with other services.
THOUGHT-EXPERIMENT TIME: Suppose we made it illegal for employers to offer any benefits. Employers may only offer salaries. Anything the employer paid on your behalf, or that was paid pre-tax, becomes a tax deduction instead.
There would be more incentives to start a business, become self-employed, or to switch jobs. Your existing health insurance, life insurance, AD&D, etc would not change. It would be easier to compare one job to another. You could choose your insurance instead of being tied to the employer's selection and your employer would not be able to require you to change insurances, thus they couldn't make you change doctors. The private insurance markets would be on the same level playing field as the corporate-backed ones. Individuals would get to see the actual cost of their insurance coverage.
Salaries would have to increase proportionally, but the total expenditures by the company would be the same. We might have to deal with whatever tax incentives they lost by providing it.
It would also make it harder to game the system by paying the VP a salary of $1/year and providing them with $400 million in benefits per year. Maybe we would make some exemptions for stock options or profit sharing or something like that.
There is a historical reason that the US started tying health insurance benefits to employment, and it wasn't a very good reason really, and it doesn't make sense any longer.... I gotta search for what that was...
First and second hand experience is this is bad (Score:2)
Practicing Workers Comp attorney here, many of my clients work for Amazon (public record) and some of them have been treated at AmCare. My personal review of the medical records shows that they are sloppy, poorly made, and at least when they involve a claim of injury, were altered after the fact to provide the best possible coverage for Amazon.
Even if Amazon isn't pushing them to falsify documents, there is an intrinsic bias in company employees to do something favorable to the company and to be critical