Other

Healthcare is a large field. Some topics which may be on the periphery of healthcare data processing include the following.

Safety Net Clinic: These are medical offices which focus on care for those without health insurance or money to pay.

Healthcare Model: Traditionally in the US, healthcare has meant employers pay insurance companies, and the insurance companies pay $$$ for medical doctors. Occasionally insurance companies try to avoid paying large amounts of money for care, but as long as insurance companies and doctors make a large profit, nobody will intervene much. There are models in which limits are placed on care costs per patient. There are also models in which care work is shifted as much as possible to nurses and physician assistants, reducing the need for expensive doctors. This approach appears both inside and outside the US.

Patient Dumping: When insurance companies and healthcare organizations find patients are costing large amounts of money, there is an incentive to drop some patients. Some patients have literally been taken from a private hospital and left outside a government run care facility. This is a topic for rumors amongst industry insiders. One challenge in choosing a robust healthcare model is ensuring that payers and providers do not make profits by simply getting rid of the most expensive patients.

The Value of CMS: In the US, CMS does actively work to improve patient care. The quality improvement projects of CMS may be clumsy and excessively difficult to adopt, however.

Pharmaceutical Corporations: Repeatedly I hear that drug manufacturing companies are manipulative and greedy. Don't expect them to save the world, and beware of them in the role of "partners."