Patient Stories
From Patient Determinants
To truly understand managing health, we need to hear first hand from patients to relate, emphathize and learn how to improve.
Complex Patients
- Rebecca Bryson has 10 different medical conditions and depends on 13 health care providers. Her life improved when a program funded a Clinical Care Specialist and the creation of a Shared Care Plan.
- Forty-year-old Jeremie Seals was assigned a care manager and a regular physician that helped reduced his 15 ER visits and 11 hospitals stays to 4 ER visits and 4 hospitals stays the following year.
- Virginia Hunt's story illustrates the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of our healthcare system that addresses conditions and often lacks capability to treat the overall patient.
Healthcare Payment Issues
- A patient suffering from an infected artificial shoulder couldn't afford intravenous antibiotics three times a day for six weeks in home. Medicare spent an unnecessary $30,000 on hospitalization and care rather than reimbursing for home care.
- Medicare would only pay for an 84-year-old man's infusion therapy at a nursing home rather than home (2/23/14)
End of Life
- A patient dying of cancer was denied home treatment that would have improved her quality of life over her last few days and saved tens of thousands of dollars.
- A frail, 94-year old women with with advanced Alzheimer’s has hip fracture surgery during her dying days due to poor communications
- A hospital CEO learns that the standard of care isn't always appropriate when her 94 mother sustained a fall
