CAVE: 'Administration Halts Survey of Making Doctor Visits' - NYT

[WillyT]

Administration Halts Survey of Making Doctor Visits
By ROBERT PEAR - NYT
Published: June 28, 2011

<snip>

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Tuesday that it had shelved plans for a survey in which “mystery shoppers” posing as patients would call doctors’ offices to see how difficult it was to get appointments. “We have determined that now is not the time to move forward with this research project,” the Department of Health and Human Services said late Tuesday.

The decision, after criticism from doctors and politicians, represents an abrupt turnabout. On Sunday night, officials at the health department and the White House staunchly defended the survey as a way to measure access to primary care, and insisted that it posed no threat to privacy.

Health policy experts have long expressed concern about a shortage of primary care doctors, including family physicians and internists. The shortage, they say, could become more serious if, as President Obama hopes, more than 30 million people gain insurance coverage under the health care law passed last year.

Having coverage is not the same as having ready access to care — a fact demonstrated in Massachusetts, which has come closer than any other state to the goal of universal coverage. A recent survey by the Massachusetts Medical Society found that about half of family doctors and internists were not accepting new patients.

Plans for the federal survey were devised by the office of the assistant health secretary for planning and evaluation, Sherry A. Glied, and the government retained a big survey research company to help conduct it. Ms. Glied declined Tuesday to respond to questions about cancellation of the survey. Administration officials evidently concluded that the survey could be a political liability. But Christian J. Stenrud, a Health and Human Services spokesman, said, “Politics did not play a role in the decision” Tuesday.

<snip>

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/29/health/policy/29docs.html?_r=1

:wtf:

[dennis4868]

1. makes sense to me....

good call by the Obama administration! :-)

[readmoreoften]

5. So are you like a computer program or something?

I'm sure you have an algorithm to answer that combination of words.

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. Why am I not surprised to find you cheering a decision pressed for by Republicans.

Or did that fact escape you?

[blue neen]

2. This "Cave" that you speak of...

does it have stalactites and stalagmites?

Which ones hang from the ceiling, and which ones rise from the floor? I always get them confused.

:shrug:

[WillyT]

4. No... This Is The Kind Of Cave Where You Get Smacked On The Snout...

and then slink away with your tail between your legs.

Hope I cleared that up for you.

:shrug:

[tkmorris]

7. Stalactites hang TIGHT to the ceiling...

Stalagmites MIGHT make it to the top someday.

And yes, I know you were merely being flippant :)

[dflprincess]

3. The biggest thing keeping people from seeing a doctor is the cost -

even those with insurance can find the out of pocket expenses make it too expensive. If the administration had any real concern about our access to care they would have done something about that rather than happily selling us out to the for profit "health" insurance industry.