|
|
Post by emilybronte on Nov 12, 2014 12:32:06 GMT -5
We are a family of three and each of us have "non-preventative" issues. I could easily be paying $3,000 - $4,500 a year. Since I don't have this kind of money laying around, I would be charging it to my credit card and incurring large interest costs in addition to the monthly payments. I am well aware that other institutions offer health care plans with a deductible but I sincerely believe that Harvard does NOT have to do this. I don't believe cost savings should be hefted upon the employees who work so hard for this University.
|
|
|
|
Post by Emergency Room on Nov 13, 2014 6:46:13 GMT -5
They said in the Benefits Choices meeting that if you break your arm you should "go to the emergency room - it's going to cost you a lot less. Don't go to your doctor"
This just sounds wrong to me. Flooding the emergency room is the last thing we want to do. I want to go to my doctor and have a consist overview of my health from someone that knows my history.
This doesn't sounds like "Health Care" to me.
|
|
lifer
New Member
Posts: 1 
|
Post by lifer on Nov 13, 2014 10:52:19 GMT -5
Agreed-- isn't sending people to the ER just the thing most plans are trying to discourage? Completely backwards. Yet another sign this is about power and expediency, not money.
|
|
|
|
Post by profmlewis on Nov 13, 2014 14:13:08 GMT -5
Flooding the emergency room does not reduce health care costs in the aggregate, and it's what many of the most innovative programs are indeed trying to discourage. See for instance : New Yorker article by Atul Gawande from a few years ago: www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/01/24/the-hot-spotters |
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Nov 13, 2014 17:16:31 GMT -5
Flooding the emergency room does not reduce health care costs in the aggregate, and it's what many of the most innovative programs are indeed trying to discourage. See for instance : New Yorker article by Atul Gawande from a few years ago: www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/01/24/the-hot-spottersThat's an incredible article with a lot of great ideas - it comes down to investing in preventative care not in providing insurance if you have disaster strike. |
|
|
|
Post by Concerned Citizen on Nov 14, 2014 11:39:53 GMT -5
Thank you Professor Lewis for all your hard work and please know many many non-faculty support your efforts. The UBC mechanism needs to be reexamined...the Harvard physicians who are on it have a disincentive to narrow the networks if they or their friends are practitioners in the Partners behemoth.
|
|
|
|
Post by unwell on Nov 29, 2014 16:21:30 GMT -5
I understand that to employ us costs the University money in salary and benefits. What I don't understand is whenever we look at a financial report its highlighted clearly that this is their biggest operational expense - but I'm not sure what message I am supposed to walk away with. They know we don't work there just for the fun of it right? I work at Harvard because there are so many aspects I do enjoy but at the end of the day I need to earn money and I need health coverage. So are they telling us that we need to contribute more - hence the increase in our health care costs? Is that why they won't reclass anyone despite us working like dogs compared to the jobs we had 5 years ago? I feel that overall there is a HUGE disconnect with how the administration views those working out in the schools. This disconnect and total lack of understanding is leading us down a bad road. finance.harvard.edu/files/fad/files/har_fy14_financial_overview.pdf |
|
|
|
Post by Not Politcal on Dec 7, 2014 9:07:21 GMT -5
I wonder if President Obama might have skipped his recent CT scan for acid re-flux if he worked at Harvard. Probably. Perhaps he is simply a recipient of his health care rather than an informed consumer.
|
|
|
|
Post by rolando on Dec 29, 2014 12:36:04 GMT -5
They said in the Benefits Choices meeting that if you break your arm you should "go to the emergency room - it's going to cost you a lot less. Don't go to your doctor"
I believe it was employees that pointed that out. I think the folks from Benefits were taken aback when we brought this up. You max out at $100 for an ER co-pay if you go to the emergency room. If you go to the doctor's and they refer you to X-ray and then to an orthopedic surgeon your into it for $250 plus 10%. So this is counter intuitive to what they want you to do. ER is the most expensive place to deliver service yet this coverage change is only encouraging it. I'm definitely going to be utilizing the ER for more basic stuff going forward. The $100 still counts towards the $1500 max out of pocket and you minimize your out of pocket to $100.
|
|
