Expert Witness Blog

In JRW Healthcare Article, health insurance expert witness Jon R. Wampler writes:

Finally, we need to establish our teaching and training hospitals as places where new physicians are trained in providing appropriate, cost-effective care. Patients could be assured that our very best in research and training universities are committed to the treatment of everyday patients, not just the rare or exceptional cases. This ‘cream of the crop’ mentality would guarantee treatment by the very best and brightest, who could provide, develop and create leading edge treatments to help serve the entire medical community.

We need to redefine the role of public research universities to helping all Americans and all physicians find just what works and what doesn’t in the treatment of common illnesses. Let our research universities be at the forefront of establishing best practices and then let them lead by developing and implementing outcome-based medicine. Every public university that teaches and trains physicians would be called upon to look at local and regional methods of treatment and work closely with the medical community at large to find ways to be much better at prevention, provide effective treatments and realize data driven outcome results. We have the finest research universities in the world. Let’s use them as a tool to train our new physicians in being the best, most cost effective, efficient physicians that they can be.

In JRW Healthcare Article, managed care expert witness Jon R. Wampler writes:

Fourth, we need to create a national risk pool for the insurance industry. Right now insurance companies do as much as they possibly can to minimize risk and control just who they insure. Financial incentives demand that health insurance companies behave just like auto insurance companies: find good risks with no pre-existing conditions and attempt to mediate that risk. By establishing a national risk pool (the FDIC would be an example to follow) we could make the following demands from the healthcare industry; guarantee issue to anyone, make health insurance portable (job to job, state to state), eliminate life-time limits and life-time maximums, and eliminate pre-existing conditions. By this simple step we create an industry where all patients can be managed by the law of large numbers.

In JRW Healthcare Article, health care coverage expert witness Jon R. Wampler writes:

Tort reform is the next step to take in helping straighten out our healthcare system. Currently, about 10% of our total healthcare expenditures are a result of “defensive medicine”, testing just in case there is a lawsuit filed. This amounts to over $210 Billion annually. Sadly, our President and the Democratic Party as a whole are handcuffed by their support from trial lawyers. Tort reform will not be an easy task because Congress is made up in overwhelming numbers by attorneys; but could be made easier if advanced by one of their own, namely the President.

Patients must do their part as well. Physicians do make mistakes; but, we must not punish the entire system by making physicians order every test and every procedure just in order to prevent unhappy and litigious patients. We need to think long and hard about limits on damages, punitive damages and the ease of lawsuits. We need to let physicians get on with the business of providing adequate, appropriate care to their patients without having to resort to the type of practice we have now where everything must be ruled out just because of the risk of lawsuits.

In JRW Healthcare Article, medical insurance expert witness Jon R. Wampler writes:

Secondly, we need to drastically increase the number of Family Physicians, General Internists, and General Pediatricians. Our ratio of Family Practice physicians to specialists runs about 30/70. We need to reverse that percentage with Family Medicine restored to its traditional place of dignity and importance.

Only 2% of this year’s medical students have chosen Family Medicine as their specialty. If you think waiting for an appointment is bad now, just add 45 million more people to the mix to find out just what the word ugly means. As baby boomers age (78 million of us now out of 330 million), the need for Family Medicine is more urgent than ever.

In JRW Healthcare Article, health insurance expert witness Jon R. Wampler writes:

Both political parties continue to focus solely on the supply side of our healthcare problem. We really need to be looking at the demand side as well. Value over volume should be everyone’s chief focus, but this will require sacrifice from everyone; physicians, patients, insurance carriers and the uninsured. We simply cannot afford to give everyone everything, no matter what the President says. The numbers just don’t add up.

It is time for all Americans to take a deep breath and revisit what could be done to make our healthcare system more accessible to all, less expensive, provide wider coverage, improve health for average Americans and still allow the 1300 companies currently providing healthcare coverage to continue to do so.