Obama's Mystery Shoppers

If there is anything most health policy wonks and politicians agree on, it is the shortage of primary care physicians, a shortage that is going to get worse.

So now the Obama administration is setting out to prove what we already know, and likely to create a public relations attack on primary care physicians.

The administration has hired a research firm to employ mystery phone shoppers to call primary care offices with two versions of a script, one a insured patient script and the other a government funded patient script.

The purpose is to measure wait times for new appointments, and to look for discrimination against government-funded patients, particularly Medicaid patients.

The biggest burden will fall on front desk personnel, who are always too busy (I never asked an employee to do what I wouldn't, so I have worked the receptionist chair - gasp).

All this to prove what we already know. ????

Health Insurance Exchanges

The Obama administration has published draft rules for the formation and operation of Affordable Insurance Exchanges, a key element in the PPACA (Obamacare) plan to increase insurance coverage.

There is a 75 day comment and then more time to digest the comments before final rules are issued. Implementation is due by January 1, 2014.

See the rules here, 244 pages:

http://ofr.gov/OFRUpload/OFRData/2011-17610_PI.PDF