Dr. Mindy Fain Pens Op-Ed in Los Angeles Times About Benefits of House Call
Dr. Mindy Fain, professor of medicine at the University of Arizona and co-director of the Arizona Center on Aging, wrote an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times arguing for the need of house calls for older adults. Due to the succeptibility of older adults to infections and medication errors in hospital settings, house calls are better suited for the needs of older adults with chronic illness and can better healthcare overall.
Dr. Mindy Fain, professor of medicine at the University of Arizona and co-director of the Arizona Center on Aging, wrote an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times arguing for the need of house calls for older adults. The piece was published on June 4, 2014.
In "Want better healthcare? Have doctors make housecalls," Dr. Fain describes the benefits that older adults can gain through home care medicine. Because of the succeptibility of older adults to infections and medication errors in hospital settings, administering house calls can minimize obstacles encountered by older adults who are frail and may do worse in unfamiliar settings.
Citing a recent Brookings Institution report, "older people with chronic conditions suffer 'repeated cycles of crisis, hospitalization and expensive but ineffective or even counterproductive treatment — leading to still more of the same,'" Fain said. "This is one reason our healthcare system is so expensive. Patients like this who constitute the top 10% of Medicare beneficiaries account for 57% of Medicare spending."
However, making house calls and home care teams the norm may prove an uphill battle as "Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance companies, integrated health systems and health plans have to dismantle the reimbursement barriers to home care medicine" in the current system.
Dr. Fain is a fellow with the OpEd Project and was also involved in the Hartford Foundation's Chief Resident Immersion Training (CRIT) Program and has joined the leadership team of the Integrated Geriatrics into the Subspecialties of Internal Medicine Project.
To read the full op-ed piece, click here.
