PHYSICIAN-LED HEALTHCARE REFORM: A NEW APPROACH TO MEDICARE FOR ALL - NEW BOOK

Physicians Hold Key to Cost-Effective Healthcare and Successful Healthcare Reform – NEW BOOK

Among the most pressing problems confronting physicians today are their dispiriting loss of professional autonomy, an overwhelming array of administrative obligations, and the daily conflicts between their business and patient care objectives.

In his new book, PHYSICIAN-LED HEALTHCARE REFORM: A NEW APPROACH TO MEDICARE FOR ALL, Ken Terry takes the complexities of the Medicare for All debate head on by explaining why the U.S. healthcare delivery system must be restructured to lower costs – and how to do it.

“Unless we can get doctors to change how they practice, Medicare for All will struggle with the same cost pressures that already make our system the most expensive in the world,” says Terry, a veteran healthcare writer, author, and former senior editor for Medical Economics Magazine.

In Terry’s view, the key to effective and successful healthcare reform rests in the capable hands of physician leadership.

“Today, employed physicians and independent physicians alike feel powerless. Hospital-employed doctors feel like cogs in a machine, and community doctors are increasingly threatened by forces beyond their control,” Terry says. “But under physician-led healthcare reform, coupled with a single-payer system, physicians stand to regain much of their autonomy, with far fewer administrative requirements and far greater ability to provide better care to their patients. Effective reform would give them back a large measure of control and pride in their work.”

According to American Association for Physician Leadership® CEO, Dr. Peter Angood, “All physicians are leaders at some level. Helping patients with their healthcare approaches, and then taking care of them when ill, is the primary driving force for physicians. Physicians are also the best enabled to create the change needed for leading reform of our complex healthcare system. This book portrays important approaches for how our industry can improve dramatically in a post-COVID environment.”

Although not intended to be a manual, PHYSICIAN-LED HEALTHCARE REFORM details practical steps for reducing health costs without sacrificing quality and explains the essential role of physicians in making this happen. The linchpin of a restructured system would be primary care groups large enough to take financial risk and powerful enough to influence spending on specialty, hospital and post-acute care. Leaning on the experience of accountable care organizations, Terry explains how these primary care groups would have to operate to be successful in a competitive environment.

“The reason that Ken Terry’s book is so compelling is that it is written by the right person and at the right time,” says David B. Nash, MD, MBA, founding dean emeritus of the Jefferson College of Population Health and author of the forward to the book. “As a non-physician, he evidently has the courage to call it as he sees it, and in so doing, he makes a number of important contributions to our collective understanding about what we really mean when we say, ‘a New Approach to Medicare for All.’”

Ken Terry

Terry is author of two other books, including Rx For Health Care Reform (Vanderbilt University Press, 2007) and Provider-Led Population Health Management (John Wiley & Sons, 2016) as a ghost writer for IBM Watson Health. As a senior editor at Medical Economics from 1993-2007, Terry covered all aspects of medical practice business, focusing on managed care and health information technology.

Table of ContentsChapter 1 Medicare for All LivesChapter 10 Taking Advantage of Health ITChapter 11 The PayoffChapter 12 Drugs and the Technology ChallengeFinal Thoughts Chapter 2 Obamacare: A Work in ProgressChapter 3 Industry Consolidation on SteroidsChapter 4 Primary Care on the RopesChapter 5 Waste Not, Want NotChapter 6 Population Health ManagementChapter 7 Addressing Social Determinants of HealthChapter 8 Physician-Led Healthcare ReformChapter 9 Building the New Delivery System

Early Praise!“Physician-Led Healthcare Reform: A New Approach to Medicare for All offers an encyclopedia of knowledge on the U.S. healthcare system, written in an engaging, popular style.”—Thomas Bodenheimer, MD, professor emeritus of family community medicine at the University of California San Francisco

“Ken Terry has produced a tour de force analysis of the current state of American health care. In a world filled with ‘alternative facts,’ Ken's encyclopedic reliance on research evidence, instructive interviews, and clear writing makes for compelling reading, whether or not you agree with his prescriptions for reform. An essential resource.”—Robert Berenson, MD, senior fellow at the Urban Institute

“Ken Terry has again dissected the health care industry and all of its faults with an eye toward finding solutions rather than merely pointing out defects.”—Michael LaPenna, healthcare consultant