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Curing Medicare : a doctor's view on how our health care system is failing older Americans and how we can fix it / Andy Lazris ; with a foreword by Shannon Brownlee.
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View online- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Lazris, Andrew, author.
- Series:
- Culture and politics of health care work
- The culture and politics of health care work
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Medicare.
- Older people--Medical care--United States.
- Older people.
- Older people--Medical care.
- Geriatrics.
- United States.
- Geriatrics--United States.
- Long-Term Care--methods.
- Quality of Health Care.
- Geriatrics--methods.
- Aged.
- Medical Subjects:
- Medicare.
- Long-Term Care--methods.
- Quality of Health Care.
- Geriatrics--methods.
- Aged.
- United States.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (xiii, 244 pages) : illustrations.
- Edition:
- Revised edition.
- Place of Publication:
- Ithaca : ILR Press, an imprint of Cornell University Press, 2016.
- System Details:
- text file
- Summary:
- Andy Lazris, MD, is a practicing primary care physician who experiences the effects of Medicare policy on a daily basis. As a result, he believes that the way we care for our elderly has taken a wrong turn and that Medicare is complicit in creating the very problems it seeks to solve. Aging is not a disease to be cured; it is a life stage to be lived. Lazris argues that aggressive treatments cannot change that fact but only get in the way and decrease quality of life. Unfortunately, Medicare's payment structure and rules deprive the elderly of the chance to pursue less aggressive care, which often yields the most humane and effective results. Medicare encourages and will pay more readily for hospitalization than for palliative and home care. It encourages and pays for high-tech assaults on disease rather than for the primary care that can make a real difference in the lives of the elderly.Lazris offers straightforward solutions to ensure Medicare's solvency through sensible cost-effective plans that do not restrict patient choice or negate the doctor-patient relationship. Using both data and personal stories, he shows how Medicare needs to change in structure and purpose as the population ages, the physician pool becomes more specialized, and new medical technology becomes available. Curing Medicare demonstrates which medical interventions (medicines, tests, procedures) work and which can be harmful in many common conditions in the elderly; the harms and benefits of hospitalization; the current culture of long-term care; and how Medicare often promotes care that is ineffective, expensive, and contrary to what many elderly patients and their families really want.
- Contents:
- Introduction : my boss
- Defining quality : the quest for numerical perfection
- Defining thorough : finding and fixing everything
- Excessive specialization, expectation, and litigation
- Hospitalization : the pinnacle of thorough
- Long term care : the unwitting geriatric ICU
- Quality and value : moving toward a cure
- Afterword : redefining thorough.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-236) and index.
- Electronic reproduction. Ipswich, MA Available via World Wide Web.
- Description based on print version record.
- Local Notes:
- Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the John Lammey Stewart Memorial Library Fund.
- ISBN:
- 9781501703874
- 1501703870
- Publisher Number:
- 99969496048
- Access Restriction:
- Restricted for use by site license.
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