Patients are instead at the mercy of their insurance companies for determining the extent of care they receive and where they receive it. Any patient who wants a procedure or a medication not covered by their plan and any patient whose insurance company denies coverage of certain procedures is forced to foot the bill themselves. In most cases the bills are outlandish and only the very wealthy could afford to avail themselves of desired services.
Global competition makes medical procedures and pharmaceutical interventions available for a wider range of people. The lower price tags on medications and the cheaper surgeries offered by doctors in foreign countries has encouraged patients to seek medical attention abroad rather than in the United States. Because physicians in foreign countries are frequently well-trained, even trained in the United States, patients are becoming more open to medical tourism. Global competition has yet to affect American healthcare policy, which favors the interests of insurance companies and private institutions more than the interests of the average American citizen. In the future as more and more American money is spent abroad in the search for affordable, desired medical care then U.S. healthcare policies may change. The United States might need to become more competitive on the global healthcare market by limiting the power insurance companies have over healthcare costs and coverage. Health care policy in the United States has yet to keep up with the burgeoning global market but before long, health care institutions and insurance companies will start to feel the financial sting of medical tourism. Competitive pricing would be the most ideal way of addressing the issue in policy but it is also likely that public policy will become more protectionist. For example, policies preventing patients from seeking treatment abroad via collaborations with foreign health care institutions could limit the range of services available for Americans traveling abroad.
Telemedicine refers to remote medical practice such as a video conference with a psychiatrist instead of an office visit or in an increasing number of cases, a remote-guided...
Sending digital imagery and medical data over the Internet is also a type of telemedicine, a practice becoming increasingly common as technology improves and as geographic distances become less important to health care operations. Telemedicine, however, poses some problems for the legal system, especially regarding liability and malpractice issues. Doctors and other healthcare practitioners in the United States are generally covered by limited liability insurance that limits their practice to the state in which they hold a license. In some cases, cross-state practices are not covered and when they are, coverage is limited. Telemedicine necessitates fundamental changes to malpractice insurance policies.
Liability insurance that covers telemedicine does offer a way for doctors to stay covered for the remote services they provide to patients. However, most insurance carriers do not offer compensation to doctors for telemedicine practices, even those as simple as phone consultations (Wachter 2002). As a result, medical practitioners are forced to offer such serves at a considerable risk. Wachter (2002) notes that a lack of case law in the area of telemedicine has stymied attempts to move the issue forward in the legal system.
References
Employer-based health care erodes U.S. global competition: A New America report. 2008. Retrieved June 24, 2008 at http://www.healthpopuli.com/2008/05/employer-based-health-care-erodes-us.html
Herrick, D.M. (2007). Medical tourism: Global competition in health care. NCPA Policy Report No. 304. Retrieved June 24, 2008 at http://209.85.215.104/search?q=cache:PSdJmcyYxKMJ:www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st304/st304.pdf+global+competition+healthcare&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a
Stem Cell Basics."(2008). National Institutes of Health. Retrieved June 24, 2008 at http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics3.asp
Wacher, G.W. (2002). Malpractice and Telemedicine Liability: The Uncharted Waters of Medical Risk. Retrieved June 24, 2008 at http://tie.telemed.org/articles/article.asp?path=articles&article=malpracticeLiability_gw_tie02.xml
