(2011-01-25) Gawande High Cost Patients

Atul Gawande on the small number of patients who generate the bulk of HealthCare costs. The critical flaw in our health-care system that people like Gunn and Brenner are finding is that it was never designed for the kind of patients who incur the highest costs. Medicine’s primary mechanism of service is the doctor visit and the ER visit... Verisk reports that most of its clients can slow the rate at which their health costs rise (via Case Management contractors - ACO?), at least to some extent. But few have seen decreases, and it’s not obvious that the improvements can be sustained.