Brian C. Joondeph, MD

What does cable television and Obamacare have in common?

Policy

May 17, 2014

One of the many aspects of Obamacare adding overall costs for both patients and insurance companies is the feature called essential benefits. This means that Congress and the administration, in their infinite wisdom, have decreed that anyone purchasing health insurance must have a policy that includes emergency, maternity and preventative care, whether or not such coverage is needed or desired. For example, a middle-age man, such as myself, must have, and through the …

How the Medicare data release subtly rations health care

Brian C. Joondeph, MD

Policy

May 3, 2014

Medicare released the most comprehensive ever look at how Medicare dollars are paid out to physicians across the United States. In the name of transparency, this data drop will “provide consumers with an ability to compare doctors and treatments in a way they have never had until now.”

Will it really? Let’s look a bit closer at the data release.

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the payment data release aims to “make our …

ICD-10 will accelerate the demise of private practice

Brian C. Joondeph, MD

Policy

April 19, 2014

You won’t read about the International Classification of Disease (ICD) on TMZ or hear it discussed on The View, but it has the potential to be an unpleasant October surprise in the healthcare world. It is a list of codes that physicians and hospitals use when billing insurance companies. These codes cover all manner of medical diagnoses for diseases, conditions, and injuries.

The first version of ICD appeared in 1946 with …