Althouse: "Now, you might say, 'Well, turtles are dangerous' — but why do you have to have two codes?"

May 28, 2013

"Now, you might say, 'Well, turtles are dangerous' — but why do you have to have two codes?"

"Your doctor has to inform the government whether you've been struck by a turtle or bitten by a turtle."

39 comments:

Clyde said...: There should probably be a third code for turtles inserted into body orifices. The doctor would definitely need to know that one.; 5/28/13, 7:38 AM
Scott M said...: There should probably be a third code for turtles inserted into body orifices. The doctor would definitely need to know that one.

And another for a case in which the doctor was the one that put it there.; 5/28/13, 7:40 AM
Strick said...: Honestly, just the other day I was upset when traffic slowed on a local country lane. Pull up to the problem to see a young couple moving a very large, very angry gar turtle from the road to a near by creek.

That guy could easily have done lots of damage either way. :D; 5/28/13, 7:41 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: United Food and Commercial Workers International Union president Joe Hansen wrote in a recent opinion essay that Obama's promise 'is not going to be true for millions of workers now.'

As rank-and-file workers find that out, he wrote, their realization 'makes an untruth out of what the president said.'

What? Dear leader speaks untruths? NO! Careful Joe Hansen, Holder and Obama can and will send the IRS after you or shake you down for your slander. Obey.; 5/28/13, 7:42 AM
Clyde said...: @ Scott M

Hey, they do FECAL TRANSPLANTS, for goodness sake. At that point, they could put just about anything into a patient!; 5/28/13, 7:45 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Who needs nurses? What we needs are bureaucrats and computer programmers... with official codes.

Obamacare is cloward piven with a touch of Saul alinksy. It's meant to be broken. The fix is single payer 100% government controlled health care. Pray you don't ever get sick under such a horrid system.; 5/28/13, 7:50 AM
TMink said...: I have an honest, hard working friend who is a government health care official. He was working to implement the so called Affordable Health Care Act and he was in tears as he explained the levels and levels of bureaucracy that implementation will entail.

For instance, the law requires that the state have on site translators available. A good idea on the face of it. The requirement applies to languages spoken by 5% of the states population, or 50 people in the state, WHICHEVER IS SMALLER!!!!!

There are not enough translators in the US to fill this requirement as there are at least 303 languages spoken in America as of 2007.

That is just one small aspect of that is coming. So the augmentations to health codes will also be staggering and slow down the delivery of medical services, but then the entire program is a quagmire of bureaucratic best intentions with catastrophic unintended consequences.

So stay well.

Trey; 5/28/13, 7:59 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Government knows best. And as President Saul Alinsky Hillary Paul Krugman Mobster Corleone says:

"We are the government!"; 5/28/13, 8:02 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: 140,000 codes? That is outraqgeous if it is true.; 5/28/13, 8:07 AM
edutcher said...: Don't be surprised if the Demos end up leading the charge to repeal this.

Even they can see this is going to be a disaster and there's no way they came blame anybody else.

Little Zero wanted to outside input and that's what he ends up with.; 5/28/13, 8:10 AM
Aridog said...: I am not a doctor, not even close. But I do grasp databases. During my annual physical last month I was shown the new screen by Epic Systems that fulfill the PPACA Mandate for digital medical records. The health system I am in already had a fully digital medical record system, for over 10 years, but had to upgrade to one that was accessible nation wide....presumably by others outside the system, otherwise ordinary WWAN would connect you, a member, anywhere in the USA to the old system.

Okay, the new system has "instructions" such was the one that says the physician is supposed to look at the patient while navigating and click all the tiny dots in to their places on the patient history screens (many many)...e.g., even if the history is known it has to be clicked to confirm, etc....instead of merely reading from a list and taking verbal confirmation from said patient....the old way.

Each of the little yes/no dot pairs would both fit inside the "B" Blogger symbol by many of the names here. I defy anyone to show me how to look directly at the patient, as if in conversation, and still use the mouse to direct the dots to their proper places, line by line.

Fact is that it takes at least half of your time with your doctor for him or her to fill out the little dots and actually get around to examining you.

Many of the "new" diagnostic codes are in the Epic system and part of the drill is to apply the new ones to old ones. Just who did the uploading for all this and how did they do it? It was not doctors I assure you. Not even Registered Nurses.

I was distressed to learn that I had a heart attack in 2009...no, actually quite surprised because A.) I don't recall it and B.) It never happened. It took the data manipulators three weeks to remove the "heart attack" from my records. My doctor tried to correct the entry but the system told him he was not qualified to make the revision. Huh?

Under the new system(s) I do suggest if you are going in to the hospital, in or out patient, for a surgical procedure, that you clearly mark with a bright red or blue *Sharpie* marker the location of the intended work...just in case. You never will know what that computer screen says...; 5/28/13, 8:16 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: It should have been a nice simple flat check each year to every American citizen to subsidy the purchase of a major medical insurance policy. But that would have required we know exactly who was legal citizen and who wasn't and God Forbid we mandate that. Instead, we let a dope [Pelosi], a sleazebag {Harry Reid] and a longtime lobbyist for lawyers [Sebelius] write a stupendously long, ridiculously complex bill that will disrupt many many sections of our weak & struggling economy.; 5/28/13, 8:19 AM
Scott M said...: Even they can see this is going to be a disaster and there's no way they came blame anybody else.

And that is going to be the Big Rub. They passed this monstrosity without even a peep of help from the other side.

First, they passed it without looking through it. Now that they, and they alone, own it, they're going to have a eat it and swallow it whole.

Now, the best they can hope for is passing it again in a solid waste sense, going through it for nuts and little kernels of corn, trying to find the least little bit of positive spin in an upcoming midterm election.; 5/28/13, 8:20 AM
Martha said...: TMink said...
I have an honest, hard working friend who is a government health care official. He was working to implement the so called Affordable Health Care Act and he was in tears as he explained the levels and levels of bureaucracy that implementation will entail.

I just visited my internist for my yearly physical. She was in tears over the demands of the bureaucracy now being instituted to comply with Obamacare demands. She was 45 minutes late for a 9 am appointment. Obamacare motto should be SPENDING LESS TIME TAKING CARE OF PATIENTS BUT FILLING OUT TEN TIMES MORE MANDATED GOVERNMENT FORMS.

Patient care is now secondary to answering computer prompts which usually have nothing to do with the patient being seen. Older physicians are retiring early--opting out of the bureaucratic nightmare.; 5/28/13, 8:26 AM
JackWayne said...: Dear Ann, My doctor just up and retired with no warning. But she's been complaiing about OCare for the last couple of years. I know she decided to just opt out. And we'll see a lot more of this in the next couple of years.; 5/28/13, 8:41 AM
Martha said...: Doctors did not go to medical school and then spend years in residencies to be treated as data entry clerks.

Obamacare takes trained professionals and turns them into data entry clerks--providing patient information to a national database.; 5/28/13, 8:52 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Martha- I think Obamacare assumes young doctors will be heavily indoctrinated that the profit motive is verboten.; 5/28/13, 8:58 AM
bagoh20 said...: Do you think some people watch the movie "Brazil" or read "1984" and see the government as the hero. It's like some people can't see even huge mistakes well foretasted and burning hot before their very eyes.

You would think that people repeatedly finding themselves on the wrong side of these things would take a break and reevaluate, but some just never do. They double down like a losing gambler certain that the next play will vindicate them, and erase all the past mistakes. I just wish they would play with their own money.; 5/28/13, 9:03 AM
Darrell said...: Keep repeating--it was DESIGNED to fail and be replaced with single payer/single provider system they wanted in the first place. Is that so hard to understand? Or is it the people can't believe that their party/politician is so devious?; 5/28/13, 9:06 AM
mrs whatsit said...: My doctor -- an old friend -- used to socialize a little during my visits but now sits with his back to me, hunting and pecking on the keyboard and muttering to himself. I now have access to my fancy new computerized government-approved health records, which don't include most of my actual medical history -- including a major accident and hospitalization just two years ago and a significant test result from a long time ago that will need regular lifetime followups -- but do state that I regularly take a couple of medications that have never actually been prescribed for me, for conditions that I've never had. Plus, now I have to set "goals" such as exercising more or eating more healthily and report at every visit on how well I'm complying with them. This is going to be such FUN.; 5/28/13, 9:09 AM
bagoh20 said...: It would take enormous creativity to come up with a health care system worse than what this is sizing up to be. Almost any hair-brained, thoughtless idea would have been better. Another system could have huge problems and still be better because it didn't make them so expensive and hard to to deal with.

This thing seems like it was drafted by Political Science sophomores in a work group trying to hit on each other.; 5/28/13, 9:12 AM
cf said...: My friend who does some deep office work for a hospital system was telling me about this two years ago. She explained the Lamppost example that Rand Paul mentions, that there are three different codes for " walking into a lamppost"!

I was always amazed at how sanguine everyone in the field has been as this has come down on them. Too bad doctors and nurses weren't in the streets back in the day, or NOW.

But then, maybe they understood more about bureaucratic cultures than the rest of us, and wanted to keep their personal audits down?

Thank God for Rand Paul. Wish I could see how to be effective in this era, but it is clear anything I do will be used against me.; 5/28/13, 9:12 AM
Darrell said...: I just wish they would play with their own money.

You see, that doesn't work either. The system charges people paying out of their own pockets at an enormously higher rate than insured patients--absorbing a disproportionate share of all the costs that the system can't recover through insurance payouts, government reimbursals and the like. Someone can get a $250,000 bill for an appendectomy when Medicare only paid $800 for the same procedure. That is a real charge to a freelance editor in NYC--something that turned her life upside down.; 5/28/13, 9:15 AM
Tim said...: Keep voting Democrat.

See, we have to make them responsible for this, right...?

As if the idiots dumb enough to vote Democrat are smart enough to hold them accountable, for anything.; 5/28/13, 9:17 AM
Leland said...: or instance, the law requires that the state have on site translators available. A good idea on the face of it. The requirement applies to languages spoken by 5% of the states population, or 50 people in the state, WHICHEVER IS SMALLER!!!!!

So to do this, the doctor's office or hospital has a mobile laptop, which they use to call up a webcam service which provides a translator. Pron sites wish they could charge the price per minute for these services. And that charge? It's not medical, so good luck billing the cost and expecting the insurer to cover.; 5/28/13, 9:21 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: This is what happens when we let doctors like Ezekial Emanuel, who have never really practiced medicine, "reform" one-sixth of our economy.; 5/28/13, 9:23 AM
Dixie_Sugarbaker said...: Why does the government need to know how I was injured or what my injury is? How can it be any of their business? Unless an injury is the result of criminal activity, there should be no notification to the government.; 5/28/13, 9:41 AM
Dixie_Sugarbaker said...: Why does the government need to know how I was injured or what my injury is? How can it be any of their business? Unless an injury is the result of criminal activity, there should be no notification to the government.; 5/28/13, 9:42 AM
edutcher said...: Darrell said...

Keep repeating--it was DESIGNED to fail and be replaced with single payer/single provider system they wanted in the first place. Is that so hard to understand? Or is it the people can't believe that their party/politician is so devious?

True enough, Choom is on record when he was still in the IL State Senate and grazing on old white guys in Chi-town baths, but he didn't count on this turning out to be so bad, it would turn people off government health care permanently.

AJ Lynch said...

This is what happens when we let doctors like Ezekial Emanuel, who have never really practiced medicine, "reform" one-sixth of our economy.

His idea of health care - something called "Useful Lives" - is the same as Heinrich Himmler's - let the old, the young, and the unfit of anyone we don't like die.; 5/28/13, 9:47 AM
Aridog said...: Dixie .... just my opinion, but the government is already in the health care business ... if you are 65+ you know it as Medicare. You do not have a choice, with v-e-r-y few exceptions among the ultra wealthy. Every form of treatment you receive must be reported to Medicare. If Medicare's designated progress is not achieved lock step, treatment is ceased.

I agree with some others here that the PPACA was designed to fail (Cloward-Piven strategy) and force us in to single payer health care, a form a Medicare from cradle to grave.

It is merely a matter of time now. I am 70 years old and seem to need medical care more now than in my youth. In the past 12 months, 3 of my doctors have quit...2 of them have flat out said it was the mandates of ACA that did it....the de-emphasis on patient care and increased emphasis on spurious, sometimes erroneous, record keeping. I did mention my non-existent *heart attack* in my new records didn't I?; 5/28/13, 9:56 AM
JAL said...: @ April Apple Obamacare is cloward piven with a touch of Saul alinksy. It's meant to be broken. The fix is single payer 100% government controlled health care. Pray you don't ever get sick under such a horrid system

Bingo.

I have several friends who are physicians (ortho, family practice, internal medicine stuff) The ortho guy was going nuts, as was his office, because the program itself is so defective it will not allow him to actually document what is going on, as the choices are not logical / rational. They had to hire someone just to put codes in.

I have a family member and spouse who are both ER docs. I sent them the link to the turtle codes. Hahah. I wonder if there is one for knives -- cutting bagels (a common Sunday A.M. ER trip), or dishwasher induced (put in tip up)? Or pocket knives (one of our kids managed to slice himself at least 3 times in the pasture, once nicking a tendon)? Different codes?

The local independent mental health providers in this state are in existential angst now, some blaming it on the Republican legislature, but they Have. No. Idea. And being mental health people, they have blue blood, and until it collapses around them -- which honestly, I hope it does if it doesn't get repealed -- they may never see their way clear to just taking care of people.

There is absolutely NO WAY -- as I watched the local mental health "management" provider bureaucracy metastasize that this can be efficient in any way.

Last time I went to the doc (possible kidney stone) and walked out, I was handed my papers (not a receipt, not something about why I was there-- my whole medical summary -- [whatever happened to save a tree?]) I discovered when I looked at it a couple days later that it was SOMEBODY ELSES!

Lovin' that government control. /s

More steps equals more mistakes.

And the IRS gets to check up on everybody for NO reason now, except to look at your medical.

Do we all feel better now that it is going to be "fair" now?; 5/28/13, 10:21 AM
Wordsson said...: I wonder if there is a code in Obamacare that would have covered the "problem" Howard had in "The Big Bang Theory." Since Professor Althouse is not a fan, here's a link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZTEvcTIuCQ; 5/28/13, 10:24 AM
Kirk Parker said...: Aridog,

Well, I'm about to have my should-have-been annual physical in July. Maybe I'll find that I've "loaned" my (@ age 39) heart attack to you? :-)

That would actually help my insurance rates--or would if there were still such a thing...; 5/28/13, 10:59 AM
Martha said...: AJ Lynch said...
Martha- I think Obamacare assumes young doctors will be heavily indoctrinated that the profit motive is verboten.

True but I fear the quality of those going into medicine will not be the same. Who will undertake the rigorous study and training it takes to become a first rate physician when ithe autonomy of the physician is eliminated?

I do not believe that profit was ever the primary motivation for most young students who chose medicine.; 5/28/13, 11:17 AM
Bryan C said...: "I was always amazed at how sanguine everyone in the field has been as this has come down on them. Too bad doctors and nurses weren't in the streets back in the day, or NOW."

Learned helplessness, I suppose. Medical professionals, as a group, have never been much good when it comes to speaking truth-to-power. So long as they can pretend they're in charge, they'll fall in line and rationalize whatever they're told to do.; 5/28/13, 11:46 AM
ErnieG said...: Dixie_Sugarbaker said...

Why does the government need to know how I was injured or what my injury is? How can it be any of their business? Unless an injury is the result of criminal activity, there should be no notification to the government.

Dixie, statistical data are the mother's milk to public health and safety regulators. To take Rand Paul's examples, they could use these data to promulgate the Turtle Control Initiative, or mandate municipalities to install Pedestrian Safe lamp posts and parking meters.; 5/28/13, 11:50 AM
CWJ said...: I'm still trying to get my head around the above mentioned condition of 5% of the state's population or 50 people whichever is smaller. What state has less than 1,000 people?

Either the citation is incorrect, or the condition's author, editor, and proofreader are idiots.; 5/28/13, 12:45 PM
Sydney said...: The whole new coding system is an amazing piece of crap. There are codes to tell them whether or not you sprained your ankle playing trumpet or clarinet in the marching band. What difference could that possibly make?

Organized medicine has been yammering at the government to cease and desist with the new codes, but to no avail.; 5/28/13, 1:03 PM
Sam L. said...: 'Your government just wants to take care of you,' he snarked. 'They don't think you're smart enough to make these decisions.' Given Obama voters, well, yes, they're not smart enough.

Around here, the turtles carry shivs and zipguns. Mean, angry little dudes. And dudettes.; 5/28/13, 2:05 PM