We are Health Information Specialists, Consumer, and Patient Advocates. Since July of 2001, the California Council of Service Advocates, Inc. is a grass-roots community-centered non-profit social welfare organization; organized under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. We have been on the front lines representing the disabled, elderly, working class, including professional individuals and their families, before State Agencies, Social Security Administration, including school Boards.
What we have learned about the health care delivery system and bureaucracy over the past 15 plus years, we wish to share some sobering insights that could one day save your or your loved one's life or quality of life.
As a consumer, indeed, there are so many goods and services that have literally "flooded the world marketplace." We find ourselves sifting through an ocean of products; many are "emotional-driven" purchases. However, when it comes to health care goods and services, we tend to "trust" the "system," and its army of professional workers to show and tell us what is necessary and what is not.
STOP depending, relying upon, and trusting health care facilities, doctors, insurers, and governmental agencies with ensuring that your personal and family medical history is accurate, complete, and immediately available when you will need it the most.
What we have learned about the health care delivery system and bureaucracy over the past 15 plus years, we wish to share some sobering insights that could one day save your or your loved one's life or quality of life.
As a consumer, indeed, there are so many goods and services that have literally "flooded the world marketplace." We find ourselves sifting through an ocean of products; many are "emotional-driven" purchases. However, when it comes to health care goods and services, we tend to "trust" the "system," and its army of professional workers to show and tell us what is necessary and what is not.
Yet, Nearly 22 years into the twenty-first century. Most of us, age 50 + are experiencing difficulty in keeping up with advancements in science, medicine and technology, and the era of Big Data. Yet, most of us are greatly benefiting from technological advancements. We are living longer. But, living longer comes at a considerable price.
Generally, at this juncture around age 50, chronic diseases begin to affect us to one degree or another. However, with the advances in science and medicine, early detection, treatment, and management of illness, we are living longer.
There is potential trouble ahead on the horizon. As a changing global society, commerce and people are always on the move. People and businesses are almost free-flowing about the globe, importing and exporting goods, services, including global workers. Diseases, pests, animals, and micro-organisms, carried by its people (hosts), transport vehicles, ships, and various carrier containers.
A significant challenge to the U.S. health care system. The ecological and public health effects of global trade come with "hidden realities." It happened in the 1980s; when greed soaked the Medicare - Medicaid fee-for-service, reimbursement system. Hospitals, physicians, Durable Medical Equipment providers (DME), and professional ancillaries defrauded the Medicare-Medicaid program. Hospital corporations, doctors, and other providers paid significant fines, and a select few went to prison. Many of these criminal entities either closed down, went under a new name.
The government and private insurers increasingly scrutinize all medical, hospital, and ancillary services. Professional and Hospital Corporation's overhead costs are soaring. So, these multinational corporations and USA-based Professional and Hospital Corporations, have decided, to survive and thrive in an era of lean budgetary constraints; yet, with increasing demand for services, they must, and they do, gobble up smaller regional and local Professional and Hospital Corporations. With fewer facilities and treatment resources, and a higher demand for services, it does not take a "Robert Reich" or an "Adam Smith" to figure the result is a critical shortage, of crisis proportion, is quickly looming upon us all, as a society; but, most importantly, the poor, lower-middle and middle class are impacted at a far greater rate than upper-middle-class people.
The highest demand for health care services: "Baby Boomers." Boomers born between 1948 - 1965, comprise the largest population group in the United States. Physician Shortages, reaching a critical stage. Medical Schools across the United States cannot meet the replacement demand, due to the attrition of retired and soon-to-be-retiring physicians. Why? Unless you are financially well-to-do, seven times out of 10, your primary care practitioner will likely be a Nurse Practitioner, Physician Assistant, or if you are lucky, a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.), or a Foreign Medical Graduate (FMG).
If you are working-class, middle-class, and even professional class, socially and economically, your choices of Physicians, Psychiatry, Psychology, other Professional Ancillary Services, out-patient care clinics, and hospitals are perpetually shrinking.
Generally, at this juncture around age 50, chronic diseases begin to affect us to one degree or another. However, with the advances in science and medicine, early detection, treatment, and management of illness, we are living longer.
There is potential trouble ahead on the horizon. As a changing global society, commerce and people are always on the move. People and businesses are almost free-flowing about the globe, importing and exporting goods, services, including global workers. Diseases, pests, animals, and micro-organisms, carried by its people (hosts), transport vehicles, ships, and various carrier containers.
A significant challenge to the U.S. health care system. The ecological and public health effects of global trade come with "hidden realities." It happened in the 1980s; when greed soaked the Medicare - Medicaid fee-for-service, reimbursement system. Hospitals, physicians, Durable Medical Equipment providers (DME), and professional ancillaries defrauded the Medicare-Medicaid program. Hospital corporations, doctors, and other providers paid significant fines, and a select few went to prison. Many of these criminal entities either closed down, went under a new name.
The government and private insurers increasingly scrutinize all medical, hospital, and ancillary services. Professional and Hospital Corporation's overhead costs are soaring. So, these multinational corporations and USA-based Professional and Hospital Corporations, have decided, to survive and thrive in an era of lean budgetary constraints; yet, with increasing demand for services, they must, and they do, gobble up smaller regional and local Professional and Hospital Corporations. With fewer facilities and treatment resources, and a higher demand for services, it does not take a "Robert Reich" or an "Adam Smith" to figure the result is a critical shortage, of crisis proportion, is quickly looming upon us all, as a society; but, most importantly, the poor, lower-middle and middle class are impacted at a far greater rate than upper-middle-class people.
The highest demand for health care services: "Baby Boomers." Boomers born between 1948 - 1965, comprise the largest population group in the United States. Physician Shortages, reaching a critical stage. Medical Schools across the United States cannot meet the replacement demand, due to the attrition of retired and soon-to-be-retiring physicians. Why? Unless you are financially well-to-do, seven times out of 10, your primary care practitioner will likely be a Nurse Practitioner, Physician Assistant, or if you are lucky, a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.), or a Foreign Medical Graduate (FMG).
If you are working-class, middle-class, and even professional class, socially and economically, your choices of Physicians, Psychiatry, Psychology, other Professional Ancillary Services, out-patient care clinics, and hospitals are perpetually shrinking.
Another hurricane of "Katrina-Rita" magnitude, followed by a nationwide disease or virus pandemic, will "implode" and alter the U.S. Healthcare delivery system, unlike as we know it, today. Moreover, all economic indicators suggest that it could take nearly a decade to rebuild and recover the U.S. healthcare system to the pre-2014 level of interoperability.
Simple planning and preparation tools; can and will positively impact how well you survive an automobile accident, medical treatment errors, quality of life when challenged by a chronic medical condition, interstate travel and abroad, and the fury of a natural or human-made disaster.
A Simple but highly effective tool we are offering is the Travelers' Emergency Electronic Health Record.
Simple planning and preparation tools; can and will positively impact how well you survive an automobile accident, medical treatment errors, quality of life when challenged by a chronic medical condition, interstate travel and abroad, and the fury of a natural or human-made disaster.
A Simple but highly effective tool we are offering is the Travelers' Emergency Electronic Health Record.
- It comes with a (7) form pre-loaded health history template, stored on a USB flash drive media.
- The device features a privacy-sensitive, user-friendly instruction-guided tutorial.
- You record, update, save and retrieve only your essential health information and emergency contacts without fully disclosing non-medical sensitive data about you.
- Your information, preserved on (.pdf) Portable Document File, which is universally recognized, and a pdf reader is downloadable and free from adobe.com.
- No passwords to store or remember, because your forms only ask for partial personal identifiers.
- The wearable device comes stamped with a "medical emergency alert" symbol on it; universally recognized by Emergency First Responders and health care personnel.
STOP depending, relying upon, and trusting health care facilities, doctors, insurers, and governmental agencies with ensuring that your personal and family medical history is accurate, complete, and immediately available when you will need it the most.