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Show United States Health Care Reform: Neuro-Ophthalmologist, W(h)ither Thou Goest? Howard R. Krauss, MD, Susan M. Pepin, MD According to baseball legend Yogi Berra, "The future ain't what it used to be." This is exemplified by the tectonic shifts occurring today in the US health care landscape. Although it's easy to under-stand the consequences of the subduction of the Pacific Plate by the North American Plate, the results of the tectonic plate shifts in US health care are harder to comprehend. Perhaps neuro-ophthalmologists are impotent in their abilities to prevent earthquakes, tsunamis, or volcanic eruptions but that does not negate the value of anticipation, preparation, and adaptation; and perhaps, when it comes to health care reform, it is not yet too late to establish and retain a rightful position of importance for neuro-ophthalmology. If so, our value is not likely to be adequately acknowledged by simply continuing our excellent job of research, teaching, and patient care; we have to lift our heads up, individually and collectively, wake up, turn on the lights, get up, and get involved in health care reform. The earth has 7 primary tectonic plates and many secondary and tertiary plates. Forces governing the movements of these plates include gravity, drag, convection, suction, forces generated by the rotation of the globe, and tidal forces generated by the sun and the moon. The tectonic plates of the US health care can be similarly categorized. Primary plates include Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), state, and county health care programs; employer-sponsored health insurance/health plan industry; the pharmaceutical industry, the technology/implant/ equipment industry; and hospitals. The secondary and tertiary plates include physicians, allied health professionals, patients, ambulatory surgical centers, imaging centers, and diagnostic laboratories. Forces governing the movements of these plates include societal needs and well-being, disease burden, cost, funding, laws, regulations, judicial decisions, political campaign contributions, lobbying expenditures, empathy, compassion, generosity, inertia, fear, and greed. The ground has been shifting and heaving for billions of years. We have all seen suspenseful sci-fi films where something triggers rapid shifts of the tectonic plates, and we witness the torturous deaths of billions while we root for a few survivors. Similarly, the tectonic plates of health care in the United States have been shifting for at least a hundred years. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt brought the progressive proposal for universal health care into his Bull Moose Party campaign against incumbent Republican William Howard Taft and Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson. From 1933 to 1935, Franklin Roosevelt attempted to fold publicly funded health care into Social Security legislation. Harry Truman called for universal health care as a part of his Fair Deal in 1949. The Medicare program was established by legislation signed into law on July 30, 1965, by Lyndon Johnson. The 2010 Patient Protection Affordable Care Act (PPACA or Obamacare) is creating rapid shift, with uncertainty and anxiety between patients and doctors. We are left hoping that we may be among the survivors. PPACA has been a veritable political football, and although the effects of federal health care reform are still yet to be fully implemented, our landscape is one of the shifting payment paradigms, medical group, hospital and health plan mergers and acquisitions, ever-changing state legislation and regulation, and ever-increasing costs. In Los Angeles County, the Medical Association remains in a battle with the state over its plans to shift 450,000 Medi-Medi patients into HMOs this year. Consequences may include serious jeopardy to the lives and well being of thousands of patients and financial failure of hundreds of practices, which have cared for these patients. In California, where the state health insurance exchange was ahead of the curve, online and functional on October 1, 2013, Pacific Eye & Ear (HRK), Los Angeles, California; Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth (SMP), Hanover, New Hampshire; and Section of Ophthalmology (SMP), Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, New Hampshire. The authors report no conflicts of interest. Address correspondence to Howard R. Krauss, MD, Pacific Eye & Ear, 11645 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 600, Los Angeles, CA 90025; E-mail: drkrauss@pacificspecialists.com Krauss and Pepin: J Neuro-Ophthalmol 2014; 34: 105-106 105 Editorial Copyright © North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. the state refused to allow its residents to maintain their individual health insurance that did not meet the new fed-eral "minimum standards." Many patients have lost their health insurance and shifted to new, narrow network plans. Many physician practices now are left with a too small patient base to sustain themselves. The PPACA set out to address 3 aspects of health care: quality of care, access to care, and cost. What is quality? Is it defined by CMS's Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS)? Is it defined by careful scrutiny of your billing and coding? Is it defined by some yet to be concocted special software sauce in a government or for-profit health insurance kitchen, which analyzes your EHR entries, your e-Rxing compliance, your "meaningful use," your wait times, your laboratory utilization, your "outcomes," which may or may not be relevant to your own personal interven-tion, your direct and indirect costs of service, and, of course, your throughput. Or is it defined by patient and family confidence, trust and appreciation of your efforts, your skill, your compassion, and, at times, your intervention that may alleviate pain, improve or preserve vision, or even extend life? Who determines this value? Every neuro-ophthalmologist knows his or her value and yet every neuro-ophthalmologist is threatened by the continued rearrangement of the chairs on the decks of the USS Health Care. Thirty percent of the US health care dollar supports the health insurance and health plan industry; 5% is dedicated to physician compensation. One third of one hundredth of 1% goes to compensation of neuro-ophthalmologists. The USS Health Care is in stormy seas, surrounded by rocks, sea monsters, and pirates, while there is a battle of titans at the helm. Physicians are not on the bridge, not on the upper decks, but rather are locked below with their patients, in the lower decks, below sea level, pounding away on keyboards, while on hold, listening to recorded messages touting the proper balance of nutrition and exercise as the key to good health, while hoping to obtain approval of an MRI. Meanwhile, the government officials are in the ballrooms on the upper decks with the captains of the health insurance, hospital, pharmaceutical, and biotech industries. Although the Standard & Poor's index (S&P) has doubled since Election Day 2008, the rate of increase of the market capitalization of the for-profit health insurance industry has increased at 2.5 times the rate of the increase in the S&P. The pharma-ceutical industry, however, has tracked evenly with the S&P, doubling in market capitalization. In the same time period, the National Institutes of Health budget has been treading water, up only 9% over 5.5 years. Compensation for physician-provided medical services has been flat and compensation for neuro-ophthalmic services has declined. We are the Rodney Dangerfields of US health care. Neuro-ophthalmologists have survived as residency program directors, ophthalmic surgeons, electromyographers or oculoplastic, strabismus, or LASIK surgeons, who dabble in neuro-ophthalmology. Ironically, the value of clinical neuro-ophthalmology is a too closely guarded secret; so much so that we seem to be undervalued. What is the value of listening to a patient? What is the value of asking clinically appropriate questions, rather than a standardized 15-point history and review of systems? What is the value of diagnosing a patient with Horner syndrome? What is the value of detecting a carotid dissection before a stroke? What is the value of detecting an aneurysm before a subarachnoid hemorrhage? What is the value of detecting hyperthyroid-ism before cardiac failure? What is the value of preventing blindness? The list of our valuable life-saving and morbidity-sparing interventions is nearly endless. Obviously, neither we, nor the business managers, nor the department chairs, nor the Deans, nor the for-profit insurance industry executives, nor the hospital administrators, nor the CMS have a full understanding of the value of clinical neuro-ophthalmology. We must individually and collectively recognize our value and commit ourselves to assuring that our value in the US health care system is understood. We must be transparent in our costs, we must quantify our value, we must collect and publish data. This is a project for NANOS: "A Cost/Benefit and Outcomes Analysis of Neuro-ophthalmic Evaluation and Management." And what can we do individually? 1) Do not despair; continue to be an ethical and compassionate physician; 2) Continue your dedication to research, teaching, and patient care; 3) Continue to hold your patients' well-being above your own personal interest and serve as your patients' advo-cate; 4) Hold your patients responsible for partnering in their well being and let them know that as insurance sub-scribers and voters, you are depending on them to advocate for maintenance of access to neuro-ophthalmologists; 5) Be active in educating your medical and general community about what you do; and 6) Get involved in your local, state and, if possible, national medical and political communities. Most importantly, our patients and patients-to-be need us to stand up for them now and for their future. Begin your personal plan of action today. Become proactive in the changing paradigm of US health care or be prepared to be swept aside! 106 Krauss and Pepin: J Neuro-Ophthalmol 2014; 34: 105-106 Editorial Copyright © North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. |
