Law Commons^™

The Evolving Relationships Between Hospital, Physician And Patient In Modern American Healthcare, Craig B. Garner, David Mccabe

Craig B. Garner

This article investigates the ways in which the relationships between patient, provider and hospital have evolved in the past fifty years, while paying special attention to the influence of modern health care reform on all parties involved. Using Medicare as the primary standard, the nation’s health care system is examined both historically and in light of recent changes that seek to transition its structure from one that is cost based to an approach that emphasizes performance. It is only through understanding the roots of our health care program that we can make informed decisions designed to improve its future impact …

Bending The Health Cost Curve: The Promise And Peril Of The Independent Payment Advisory Board, Ann Marie Marciarille, James Bradford Delong

Ann Marie Marciarille

Underlying today’s and the future’s health-care reform debate is a consensus that America’s health-care financing system is in a slow-moving but deep crisis: care appears substandard in comparison with other advanced industrial countries, and relative costs are exploding beyond all reasonable measures. The Obama Administration’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) attempts to grapple with both of these problems. One of ACA’s key instrumentalities is the Independent Payment Advisory Board—the IPAB, designed to discover and authorize ways to reduce the rate of growth of Medicare and other categories of health spending. The IPAB is a peril. Expert boards to …

"How's My Doctoring?" Patient Feedback's Role In Physician Assessment, Ann Marie Marciarille

Ann Marie Marciarille

A society-wide consumer revolution is underway with the rise of online user-generated review websites such as Yelp, Angie’s List, and Zagat. Service provider reviews are now available with an intensity and scope that attracts increasing numbers of reviewers and readers. Health care providers are not exempt from this new consumer generated scrutiny though they have arrived relatively late to the party and as somewhat unwilling guests.

The thesis of this article is that online patient feedback on physicians is relevant and valuable even though it is also uncomfortable for health care providers. This is because the modern physician-patient relationship is …