Synopses & Reviews
The Health Care Safety Net in a Post-Reform World examines how national health care reform will impact safety net programs that serve low-income and uninsured patients. The andldquo;safety netandrdquo; refers to the collection of hospitals, clinics, and doctors who treat disadvantaged people, including those without insurance, regardless of their ability to pay. Despite comprehensive national health care reform, over twenty million people will remain uninsured. And many of those who obtain insurance from reform will continue to face shortages of providers in their communities willing or able to serve them. As the demand for care grows with expanded insurance, so will the pressure on an overstretched safety net.
This book, with contributions from leading health care scholars, is the first comprehensive assessment of the safety net in over a decade. Rather than view health insurance and the health care safety net as alternatives to each other, it examines their potential to be complementary aspects of a broader effort to achieve equity and quality in health care access. It also considers whether the safety net can be improved and strengthened to a level that can provide truly universal access, both through expanded insurance and the creation of a well-integrated and reasonably supported network of direct health care access for the uninsured.
Seeing safety net institutions as key components of post-health care reform in the United Statesandmdash;as opposed to stop-gap measures or as part of the problemandmdash;is a bold idea. And as presented in this volume, it is an idea whose time has come.
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Review
andquot;This is a really important, well-organized, and timely book by some of the best thinkers on the subject. It would be hard to gather a more knowledgeable group on this topic.andquot;
Review
"A comprehensive must-read for those who truly want to understand the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing
Review
andquot;Given the current debate on health care policies in the US, this volume is both timely and informative. It is also very accessible to readers without a background in the health care industry. Highly recommended.andquot;
Review
andquot;The Health Care Safety Net in a Post-Reform World provides food for thought for policy makers and providers striving to understand and strengthen the safety net's post-reform role.andquot;
Review
andquot;A comprehensive must-read for those who truly want to understand the
Review
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Practice Under Pressure could not be more timely. Timothy Hoff has written a concise, compelling examination of the work of primary care based on integration of qualitative data and published quantitative findings. Hoff interviewed 88 PCPs, residents, and students, as well as 2 nonphysician leaders. The book's power emanates from these narratives."
Review
"In this timely book, Timothy Hoff presents a survey of ninety primary care physicians. They speak their minds—and hearts. Hoff explains how, in a generation, our family doctors gave up hospital practice and found themselves boxed into fifteen minutes of face time with patients in the office: the business model that favors technology over talking and thinking. Primary care, which we need more of, cannot compete with the higher prestige and earnings of specialties like surgery and radiology. This book will help everyone—professionals, the public, and politicians—to grasp the nettle. Meanwhile the US healthcare system hardly deserves a passing grade."
Review
"Sociologist Timothy Hoff takes us to the heart and soul of the primary care crisis in America. Through personal stories, he reveals the daily frustrations and the deep compassion of these dedicated physicians."
Review
"The erosion of primary medical care is of increasing concern for the organization of our health care system, for patients, and for issues of access and cost. In this book, Timothy Hoff looks at this issue through the perspectives of primary care physicians and provides useful information for understanding significant changes in medical care and future challenges."
Review
"This is the best book on primary care to come along in years. Hoff's recommendations for improvement are grounded in the everyday experience of primary care providers and what they and others will need to make such improvements reality."
Synopsis
The Health Care Safety Net in a Post-Reform World examines how national health care reform will impact safety net programs that serve low-income and uninsured patients. With contributions from leading health care scholars, it is the first comprehensive assessment of the safety net following enactment of national health care reform.
and#160;
Synopsis
The Health Care Safety Net in a Post-Reform World examines how national health care reform will impact safety net programs that serve low-income and uninsured patients. The "safety net" refers to the collection of hospitals, clinics, and doctors who treat disadvantaged people, including those without insurance, regardless of their ability to pay. Despite comprehensive national health care reform, over twenty million people will remain uninsured. And many of those who obtain insurance from reform will continue to face shortages of providers in their communities willing or able to serve them. As the demand for care grows with expanded insurance, so will the pressure on an overstretched safety net.
This book, with contributions from leading health care scholars, is the first comprehensive assessment of the safety net in over a decade. Rather than view health insurance and the health care safety net as alternatives to each other, it examines their potential to be complementary aspects of a broader effort to achieve equity and quality in health care access. It also considers whether the safety net can be improved and strengthened to a level that can provide truly universal access, both through expanded insurance and the creation of a well-integrated and reasonably supported network of direct health care access for the uninsured.
Seeing safety net institutions as key components of post-health care reform in the United States--as opposed to stop-gap measures or as part of the problem--is a bold idea. And as presented in this volume, it is an idea whose time has come.
Synopsis
Through ninety-five in-depth interviews with primary care physicians (PCPs) working in different settings, as well as medical students and residents, Practice Under Pressure provides rich insight into the everyday lives of generalist physicians in the early twenty-first centuryùtheir work, stresses, hopes, expectations, and values. Timothy Hoff supports this dialogue with secondary data, statistics, and in-depth comparisons that capture the changing face of primary care medicineùlarger numbers of younger, female, and foreign-born physicians.
About the Author
MARK A. HALL is the Fred D. and Elizabeth L. Turnage Professor of Law and Public Health at Wake Forest University. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including Making Medical Spending Decisions and Health Care Law and Ethics.
SARA ROSENBAUM is the Harold and Jane Hirsh Professor and founding chair of the department of health policy at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. An author of more than 350 articles, studies, and health policy reports, she is also a coauthor of Law and the American Health Care System.
MARK A. HALL and SARA ROSENBAUM each contributed chapters to Medical Professionalism in the New Information Age, edited by David J. Rothman and David Blumenthal (Rutgers University Press).
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
1. The Health Care Safety Net in the Context of National Health Insurance Reform
Part I
2. Dr. StrangeRove; or, How Conservatives Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Community Health Centers
3. Reinventing a Classic: Community Health Centers and the Newly Insured
4. Applying Lessons from Social Psychology to Repair the Health Care Safety Net for Undocumented Immigrants
5. Community Health Center and Academic Medical Partnerships to Expand and Improve Primary Care
6. Examining the Structure and Sustainability of Health Care Safety-Net Services
Part II
7. Safety-Net Hospitals at the Crossroads: Whither Medicaid DSH?
8. The Safety-Net Role of Public Hospitals and Academic Medical Centers: Past, Present, and Future
9. The Declining Public Hospital Sector
Part III
10. Achieving Universal Access through Safety-Net Coverage
11. Public Coverage Expansions and Private Health Insurance Crowd-Out: Implications for Safety Nets
About the Contributors
Index