I Can't Stand Health Insurance, but Maybe I'll like "Value Based Medicine?"

With all my years at “Allexperts.com” trying to help patient’s with their doctor dilemmas, I was thankfully spared any real questions about how to deal with health insurance. For starters, I would be the wrong person to ask, because I find the health insurance maze just as laborious as the common person would. Second, I had no desire, to even “go there” regarding health insurance, because all health insurance solutions inevitably are a road to nowhere. But now that I blog on “PatientBabble.com,” I felt obliged to at least make an effort to find anything new on the healthcare horizon. So yesterday, I came across a story in the “AARP Bulletin” which addresses a new “Value Based Medicine or Patient Centered Care” system. The idea is that “medical organizations are moving toward a system that pays providers based on the patient’s healthy outcome.” So instead of random doctors shuttling you back and forth from specialty to specialty and coming away with no real answers…..an single organization or group of doctors will become accountable for an end result. This greater efficiency is supposed to drive down costs and at the same time provide a better healthcare experience. Honestly, I am a little bit skeptical. What does it mean when we say a patient has arrived “at a healthy outcome?” It seems like a gray area, that will never have a clear cut finish line.