98.6 Degrees: A blog from Dr. Brent King

Saving Public Health Programs – Pt 1.

Brent King — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 18:48:02 +0000

Saving Public Healthcare In previous posts, I have argued that the staggering costs of publically financed healthcare can only worsen the already dire deficit problem and, in order to balance the federal budget and make strides toward eliminating our sovereign debt, we are going to have to gain control over the costs of these [...]

Channeling my inner James Carville and Willie Sutton

Brent King — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 22:17:04 +0000

“It’s the chronically ill, stupid. That’s where the money is” Every medical student has learned “Sutton’s Law”. When we are trying to teach trainees to prioritize diagnostic evaluations we tell them to “go where the money is”, to focus on the most likely diagnoses. “Where the money is” is a quote attributed [...]

Texas without Medicaid?

Brent King — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 02:21:29 +0000

the new Texas legislature convenes in the next few weeks, it will face a projected multi-billion dollar state budget deficit. Among the suggestions for managing the shortfall is a proposal for the state to opt out of the federal Medicaid program in favor of a state-run alternative. The cost vs. benefit calculations for this proposal [...]

Guest Blogger – Dr. Jessie Tucker

Brent King — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:42:55 +0000

I recently asked Dr. Jessie Tucker, Senior Vice President in the Harris County Hosptial District and Administrator at LBJ General Hospital, how he thought healthcare reform would affect Houston in general and LBJ specifically. I thought his comments were worth sharing. BK “Healthcare reform provides enormous promise for us to better develop a more integrated [...]

Can We be “Accountable”? Payment reform and the “Accountable Care” organization. Part I

Brent King — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 15:47:39 +0000

Payment reform is an inevitable component of the healthcare reform movement. Our current system of piecework payments for each episode of care encourages providers to do more tests and procedures and to see patients in brief, problem-focused episodes. People with chronic illnesses, who are often prodigious consumers of healthcare, are especially disadvantaged under this [...]

A different future, Part V – What can the healthcare system learn from a racing team?

Brent King — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 13:45:38 +0000

If you are a fan of auto racing, you probably have a favorite race or event. NASCAR has been particularly popular in the United States in recent years but for my money, the most difficult test of cars and their drivers and crews is the 24 hours of Le Mans. From 3 PM on the [...]

A different future – Part IV: How is a hospital like an airline?

Brent King — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:19:53 +0000

In a couple of my last posts I suggested that the combination of a newly insured segment of society coupled with a glut of hospital beds in many urban areas might produce a situation in which hospital administrators begin to compete for patients. Some people have asked me whether this would remain true if [...]

A Different Future – Part III Prescriptions for Public Facilities

Brent King — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 23:11:42 +0000

In Part I of this series, I described what I believe to be the major challenges facing public hospitals in an environment in which all or most US citizens and legal immigrants have some form of health insurance. Apparently, my comments offended some of the leaders of our local public hospital system who, I assume, [...]

A Different Future Part II – Looming changes and new aliances

Brent King — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:18:49 +0000

Imagine for a moment that you are a person of means living in England in the early 1700’s. If you wanted to buy, for example, china dinner plates, you went to the shop (and probably home) of a master craftsman and he and his relatively small team made your plates to order. It was a [...]

A Different Future: Part I – What becomes of public hospitals?

Brent King — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 20:47:46 +0000

There is little doubt that, whatever the shape of the new American healthcare system, it will be different, perhaps radically different than the current one. Although the details of the final bill are far from certain, it is safe to assume that it will provide healthcare insurance coverage for many of the currently uninsured citizens [...]