Very Bad News For Preventive Medicine
A group of entrepreneurs has hijacked the concept of prevention as a means toward solving the US Health Care System Crisis.
On Wed January 10 U.S. PREVENTIVE MEDICINE - a for profit company- founded by Christopher T Fey,Founder and Chairman and Brian Baum,President and CEO- was launched. A full page ad in The Washington Post followed.
An e-mail I sent to them today appended below(slightly revised) expresses my opinion on this ill conceived venture
Dear Messrs Christopher Fey and Brian Baum;
I cannot bring myself to wish you and your colleagues well with the launching of US Preventive Medicine -a for profit company.
Until state and federal legislation incentivizes the correct model you espouse, which is prevention, and third party payers cover the services you are offering, in my opinion, you are omitting a huge number of uninsured and underinsured Americans- some say as much as 100 million US citizens.
Furthermore most the most highly regarded Preventive Medicine experts in our nation and the world fully and objectively understand the relationship of poverty and other SES=Socio-Economic-Status factors on health outcomes. I do not see that understanding at all in your for profit expensive high tech diagnostic and therapeutic/interventional approach to prevention. Please correct me if I missed it?
What we need in this nation is a citizen demand for single payer health care with an emphasis on prevention
To build for profit prevention centers even before third party carriers are reimbursing for such services is, in my opinion, nothing less than a very cruel hoax perpetrated on the American health consumer- most especially the disenfranchised. Shame on you.
If you believe my fundamental criticism of US PREVENTIVE MEDICINE is not accurate or fair I would be very pleased to hear from you both.
Sincerely
Richard Lippin,MD
PS- I intend to circulate my letter to you above as widely as I can
"Blake"
On Wed January 10 U.S. PREVENTIVE MEDICINE - a for profit company- founded by Christopher T Fey,Founder and Chairman and Brian Baum,President and CEO- was launched. A full page ad in The Washington Post followed.
An e-mail I sent to them today appended below(slightly revised) expresses my opinion on this ill conceived venture
Dear Messrs Christopher Fey and Brian Baum;
I cannot bring myself to wish you and your colleagues well with the launching of US Preventive Medicine -a for profit company.
Until state and federal legislation incentivizes the correct model you espouse, which is prevention, and third party payers cover the services you are offering, in my opinion, you are omitting a huge number of uninsured and underinsured Americans- some say as much as 100 million US citizens.
Furthermore most the most highly regarded Preventive Medicine experts in our nation and the world fully and objectively understand the relationship of poverty and other SES=Socio-Economic-Status factors on health outcomes. I do not see that understanding at all in your for profit expensive high tech diagnostic and therapeutic/interventional approach to prevention. Please correct me if I missed it?
What we need in this nation is a citizen demand for single payer health care with an emphasis on prevention
To build for profit prevention centers even before third party carriers are reimbursing for such services is, in my opinion, nothing less than a very cruel hoax perpetrated on the American health consumer- most especially the disenfranchised. Shame on you.
If you believe my fundamental criticism of US PREVENTIVE MEDICINE is not accurate or fair I would be very pleased to hear from you both.
Sincerely
Richard Lippin,MD
PS- I intend to circulate my letter to you above as widely as I can
"Blake"
posted by Blake at 3:11 PM
3 Comments:
PS From Blake to my post
New york Times Op-Ed on Prevention today
Dr. Rick Lippin
"Blake"
My apologies to U.S. PREVENTIVE MEDICINE Chairman Fey- I misspelled his name in a former version on this blog post.
Dr. Rick Lippin
"Blake"
PPS- Off blog I did hear from Brian Baum President and COO of U.S Preventive Medicine. He was quite cordial despite my vitriol.
After several e-mail exchanges we "agreed to disagee" in that we both believe that Prevention is the future of Medicine but he believes in creating demand for prevention through a free market model and I, conversely, believe that the excesses of the free market market medical system has abysmally failed.
This leads me to my supporting building on what we have already in the form of a 40 year old, single payer, government run system we call Medicare as the basis for health care with more prevention for all Americans
Dr. Rick Lippin
"Blake"
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