Want to Link Patient Advocacy to Death Panels? Look No Further Than Your Nearest PPO

Opponents of the healthcare reform have zeroed-in on the part of the bill that calls for reimbursing practitioners for “advance care consultation” inclusive of "end-of-life" considerations related to changes in the health condition of the individual, including diagnosis of a chronic, life-limiting condition, terminal illness or injury, etc. They're deeming this critical function of patient advocacy, and the patient advocates who fulfill it, as "death panels" in the opposition's reprehensible attempt to scare the public away from healthcare reform.

Isn't it ironic that Big Insurance has for years employed a huge number of so-called "patient advocates" who sureptitiously direct patient care in alignment with the profit motives of the managed care companies, rather than in alignment with the true medical interests of the patients?

Of course, no one is talking about Blue Cross, United Healthcare, Aetna, or Cigna "death panels" because who'd ever admit they exist? Yet every day, at every managed care company, medical decisions are being made or, at very least, are being influenced by people who are not the patient's doctor. Patient advocates who work for the managed care companies, in the process of fulfilling their noble profession, are nonetheless feeding information back-and-forth to their employers. Information that influences length of hospital stay, treatment options, and other medical considerations that, over time and in many cases, can influence whether a person lives or dies. Yet no one talks about this, nor ever mentions the deep-seated motives that underlie "patient advocacy" as sponsored by commercial managed care entities.

Death panels are a great way to scare people. Maybe if supporters of healthcare reform were willing to stoop as low its opponents, someone could build quite a case that such systems have been firmly in place all along in the profit-driven managed care business model of healthcare in the U.S.

I personally honor and respect the work of truly independent patient advocates. Such people saved my mother's life when she was prematurely released from hospital several years back with a latent staph infection. Had they not asked the hard questions of the managed care providers who were treating my mother, and then arranged for her re-admittance to the hospital, she'd probably not be alive today. I won't "blame" commercial managed care for releasing her too early, but I've thought of how differently that situation would have been had the managed care discharge planners recommended releasing her when she was "healthy", instead of releasing her when their managed care protocols said she was "ready."