Medical Care Reform

With all this talk of medical reform I want to talk about a model which provides great service, all inclusive clinic in Washington State.

Group Health is a cooperative. I had the privilege of being a patient there. You had a primary care physician. You would visit your primary care physican and they would prescribe what ever services that were necessary. Needed an X-Ray walk to that clinic get an x-ray which was handed to you and you returned it to your physician in a few minutes. They had a pharmacy, get a prescription, get it filled at the same location. They also had physical therapy, Oncology, behavior health, post surgery, an emergency room. They literally had every type of treatment in one place.

If a clinic believed that they needed treatment they had a right to appeal. I was neve in a situation that I disagreed with the treatment nor was I ever dissatisified with the treatment.

A lot of the hospitals called it Group Death, just like the people screaming down their elected representatives. How ridiculous is it to believe that they would have end of life counseling. Will actually we do now it is called Hospice.

Now let me discribe how I receive treatment in my home state. I visit a physician. I get a prescription, I drive to a pharmacy. If I need X-rays I wait 1 hour to have the X ray taken, wait 4 days to have the X-ray sent to my physican. I just love driving to specialist and driving 50 miles some times.

I think that the Group Health Model would be one effective model.