Thread: My doctors, nurses and staff at Brigham and Women’s hospital this week was amazing. My thanks to them for stopping what was clearly a train to organ failure and death this week.

I want to talk about costs in hospitals, and the lack of trust in for-profit health care.

2/ Every day of hospitalization, I had my blood drawn twice for testing. Once in the AM, and then again in the evening.

Was this really needed for care? I can understand it while I had 103 degree fever, but that stopped mostly by day two.

Patients cannot help but wonder.

3/ Similarly, blood cultures were done which I understand the results will never be completed on. What about the number of days of hospitalization?

I was ordered blood thinners to prevent blood clots from too much bed rest, even though by day two I was walking 30 mins a day.

4/ I’m not a doctor, so I’m not in a position to evaluate any of this. I just shut up, did as I was asked, and as I result my arm veins look like I have a heroin habit.

But I can say our for-profit health care system gives me no reason to implicitly trust anyone’s motives.

5/ The problem is there’s no real incentive to be judicious in the care we prescribe patients.

It’s in both doctor’s and hospital’s interests to be very conservative in releasing people and aggressive in tests and procedures. It increases profit and lowers chances of lawsuits.

6/ This is a non-trivial part of why health insurance is so expensive. It’s the cost curves, higher in America than any other country in the world.

Again, my thanks to the doctors and nurses who saves my life this week. But, I can’t help but feel someone is getting ripped off.

7/ Just one more point. I had a conversation with my doctor about the blood thinners, explained that I was getting plenty of exercise at the hospital and she took me off them.

So they were very reasonable in hearing my concerns and adjusting course.

8/ And as far as the number of days of hospitalization, we had a discussion where both doctors let me ask pointed questions, and their logic seemed sound

There is an element of patients needing to notice what’s happening, advocate for themselves and coming to a team decision.