PERIODIC HEALTH ASSESSMENT PHA PATIENT'S Public Navy Form

In the US, a fairly firm diagnosis is required before the health insurers will pay for consultations and treatments.In the UK, in which I was qualified about 50 years ago, the National Health Service assesses and treats everyone with no payment at point of access. Health care is funded from contributions to a government run national insurance scheme. There is no overdrive to make rapid firm diagnoses.Although registered and trained to use tests, I rarely used them unless I was writing a report for legal purposes, such as court reports or acting as expert witness.Clinical psychologists in the UK are not expected to diagnose though they may give their opinion to a psychiatrist colleague, who is responsible for diagnosis.I would be able to assess whether someone was probably psychotic or neurotic; a risk to self-harm or harm others; depressed; anxious; OCD or whatever within my first hour of meeting the person - sometimes within the first 5 minutes.To decide whether an older person was dementing or had memory problems because they were depressed might need some testing for a further hour.

If the treatment is simple counselling in my office, all I have to do is type my note, then I bill automatically through my electronic health record. So all codes for diagnosis and type of exam are preprogrammed into the system. Treatment has occurred. No trees were injured.If the treatment requires a prescription, then I can write the prescription in my Electronic health Record (EHR) and efax to pharmacy. Or I print it out, sign it. The patient takes it to a pharmacy where his or her insurance is checked, information is added to her computerized record and the medication is dispensed. If I made an error or pharmacist has a question, then they contact me and we fix it. Sometimes a medication is covered only under specific circumstances, so I may have to fill out an online form that gets efaxed to government requesting approval. (Examples might be a cholinesterase inhibitor for dementia, or a specific expensive treatment for Attention Deficit Disorder…). Minimal paperwork for treatment.It’s more complicated if I refer to a specialist. Depending on the specialty, there are a variety of ways to refer. Some go to a centralized booking Center, some are given to the patient who then has to call and make appointment, sometimes it goes to a team that has a specific referral form (pain clinic, head trauma….). In some cases I phone a specialist to find out how to get a patient in for rapid diagnosis in cancer care. Sometimes they’ll see the patient the next day. Only paperwork was a printed out referral with a copy of the X-ray.I have very little paperwork in general for treatment to occur (which is what you asked in your question).When I do have paperwork, it’s usually for insurance companies for short or long term disability, life insurance, workman’s compensation, road insurance for someone injured in a vehicle accident, fitness to drive forms….,The other administrative stuff I have to do involves looking up the patient results for all the tests I do. I try to minimize the testing I do, for example I do not send every cough for a chest x Ray or every case of dizziness for a brain scan. But even so, most of my patients come in with an illness that does require testing and I have to look through the results, file them or act upon them. That takes at least an hour a day.That has nothing to do with whether healthcare is privatized or universal.Hope this answered your question.

There are many (many) reasons - so I'll list a few of the ones that I can think of off-hand.Here in the U.S. - we have a multi-party system: Provider-Payer-Patient (unlike other countries that have either a single payer - or universal coverage - or both). Given all the competing interests - at various times - incentives are often mis-aligned around the sharing of actual patient dataThose mis-aligned incentives have not, historically, focused on patient-centered solutions.  That's starting to change - but slowly - and only fairly recently.Small practices are the proverbial "last mile" in healthcare - so many are still paper basedThere are still tens/hundreds of thousands of small practices (1-9 docs) - and a lot of healthcare is still delivered through the small practice demographicThere are many types of specialties - and practice types - and they have different needs around patient data (an optometrist's needs are different from a dentist - which is different from a cardiologist)Both sides of the equation - doctors and patients - are very mobile (we move, change employers - doctors move, change practices) - and there is no "centralized" data store with each persons digitized health information.As we move and age - and unless we have a chronic condition - our health data can become relatively obsolete - fairly quickly (lab results from a year ago are of limited use today)Most of us (in terms of the population as a whole) are only infrequent users of the healthcare system more broadly (cold, flu, stomach, UTI etc....). In other words, we're pretty healthy, so issues around healthcare (and it's use) is a lower priorityThere is a signNow loss of productivity when a practice moves from paper to electronic health records (thus the government "stimulus" funding - which is working - but still a long way to go)The penalties for PHI data bsignNow under HIPAA are signNow - so there has been a reluctance/fear to rely on electronic data.  This is also why the vast majority of data bsignNowes are paper-based (typically USPS)This is why solutions like Google Health - and Revolution Health before them - failed - and closed completely (as in please remove your data - the service will no longer be available)All of which are contributing factors to why the U.S. Healthcare System looks like this:===============Chart Source: Mary Meeker - USA, Inc. (2011) - link here:http://www.kpcb.com/insights/usa...

Usually there is a one or maybe a two-page form. I don't think they are that difficult to fill out. They copy my insurance card and that's it. Generally they include a brief list of history questions and current symptom questions. If it is a current doctor, only the current symptom questions. As I am not the one with the medical degree, I hope they use those answers to put two and two together in case my sore throat, indigestion, headache or fever is part of a bigger picture of something more seriously wrong. The HIPAA form is long to read, but you only need to do that once (although you'll be expected to sign the release each time you see a new doctor or visit a new clinic or hospital).

According to OCR, the Office for Civil Rights at HHS, the value is $50K.That is the fine for not removing identifiable information.http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/h...http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/office/