Personally, I don't think minimizing hospital stays is necessarily always bad. As anyone who works in healthcare will tell you, the last place you want to linger when you're vulnerable is a hospital — they have all the fanciest (antibiotic-resistent!) infections conveniently on tap. In most cases (though maybe not all), the sooner you're out, the better. They kept my husband hostage for nearly 4 weeks when he had his gallbladder out, and I found it completely terrifying.
So do primary care doctors actually treat patients in Switzerland? That sounds lovely. In Italy your GP is basically just administrative, not to mention impossible to get ahold of, which I find endlessly frustrating and inefficient. I also miss urgent care clinics or really any alternative to the ER. The ERs here are truly dreadful.
Oh, I agree with you about long hospital stays! How terrible for your husband to be kept in the hospital for so long. In my case, I was allowed much longer hospital stays than I took--I begged my doctors to let me go early, as soon as I was feeling better. An acquaintance who had a baby in Czechia also didn't use her full hospital stay, because she was eager to get home. The system allows the long stay if needed, but thankfully we aren't required to stay until the bitter end. (Personally, I was desperate for some good food again!)
Primary care doctors do treat patients in Switzerland. Except for that one time I had to go to the ER for the rash, when I've been sick or have had an issue that needs to be treated quickly, I have been able to get appointments with either my primary-care doctor or her partner either that day or the next day. We also have urgent care centers (although the waits there can be long).
I always suspected things worked much more smoothly up there. Ah, well. I’ve never had the impression you get any choice on Italian hospital stays. I can’t see them physically restraining you, but I’m not aware of any formal grown-adult, paperwork-sanctioned way to skip out early. We’re so close to the border I keep meaning to find out if there’s a way to go to a Swiss urgent care or ER for the can’t-wait-but-not-fatal stuff.
I’m glad you’re doing this series. I wish people in the US talked more about other ways to improve the system without just immediately going to “Medicare for all.” I agree with you that there are probably any number of smaller, incremental changes we could adopt that would be very effective and might actually make it though Congress. My mom’s primary care doctor had a sort of subscription model that I found really interesting. She paid a set monthly rate, which allowed the doc to provide better services and coordination (especially useful since she had a half dozen specialists who were all over the place). We should be innovating more in healthcare structurally instead of just throwing AI at it. Less apps, more humanity!
Thanks for the interesting review. I'm sure there are countless good suggestions for making U.S. healthcare more affordable and more effective, but currently our political will is to make it as expensive as possible. That seems to be purposefully built into the plan. We can't "demand" afforable healthcare and continue to elect while continuing to elect politicians whose priorities lie elsewhere. But hey, good to know that it's not objectively impossible!
Personally, I don't think minimizing hospital stays is necessarily always bad. As anyone who works in healthcare will tell you, the last place you want to linger when you're vulnerable is a hospital — they have all the fanciest (antibiotic-resistent!) infections conveniently on tap. In most cases (though maybe not all), the sooner you're out, the better. They kept my husband hostage for nearly 4 weeks when he had his gallbladder out, and I found it completely terrifying.
So do primary care doctors actually treat patients in Switzerland? That sounds lovely. In Italy your GP is basically just administrative, not to mention impossible to get ahold of, which I find endlessly frustrating and inefficient. I also miss urgent care clinics or really any alternative to the ER. The ERs here are truly dreadful.
Oh, I agree with you about long hospital stays! How terrible for your husband to be kept in the hospital for so long. In my case, I was allowed much longer hospital stays than I took--I begged my doctors to let me go early, as soon as I was feeling better. An acquaintance who had a baby in Czechia also didn't use her full hospital stay, because she was eager to get home. The system allows the long stay if needed, but thankfully we aren't required to stay until the bitter end. (Personally, I was desperate for some good food again!)
Primary care doctors do treat patients in Switzerland. Except for that one time I had to go to the ER for the rash, when I've been sick or have had an issue that needs to be treated quickly, I have been able to get appointments with either my primary-care doctor or her partner either that day or the next day. We also have urgent care centers (although the waits there can be long).
I always suspected things worked much more smoothly up there. Ah, well. I’ve never had the impression you get any choice on Italian hospital stays. I can’t see them physically restraining you, but I’m not aware of any formal grown-adult, paperwork-sanctioned way to skip out early. We’re so close to the border I keep meaning to find out if there’s a way to go to a Swiss urgent care or ER for the can’t-wait-but-not-fatal stuff.
I’m glad you’re doing this series. I wish people in the US talked more about other ways to improve the system without just immediately going to “Medicare for all.” I agree with you that there are probably any number of smaller, incremental changes we could adopt that would be very effective and might actually make it though Congress. My mom’s primary care doctor had a sort of subscription model that I found really interesting. She paid a set monthly rate, which allowed the doc to provide better services and coordination (especially useful since she had a half dozen specialists who were all over the place). We should be innovating more in healthcare structurally instead of just throwing AI at it. Less apps, more humanity!
The subscription model sounds really interesting! Would you mind if I quoted you in part 3?
If you don't think I sound dumb, sure thing 😄 By the way, I'd forgotten the term for it, but I guess it's often called "direct primary care."
Thanks!
Thanks for the interesting review. I'm sure there are countless good suggestions for making U.S. healthcare more affordable and more effective, but currently our political will is to make it as expensive as possible. That seems to be purposefully built into the plan. We can't "demand" afforable healthcare and continue to elect while continuing to elect politicians whose priorities lie elsewhere. But hey, good to know that it's not objectively impossible!
Yeah, I have to confess that I am not hopeful that anything will change for the better in our current system, and with our current politicians.