Healthcare executive: In RGV there is one primary care doctor for every 4,500 residents
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MISSION, Texas - Those attending a recent conference in the Rio Grande Valley heard how 20 percent of the nation\\u2019s gross domestic product is spent on health.\\xa0
\\u201cThat is more than twice that of other industrialized nations. And we lead the world in chronic disease, congestive heart failure, diabetes, neonatal mortality rates,\\u201d said Eric Weaver, executive director of the Institute for Advancing Health Value.
Weaver gave the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service an exclusive interview at the conclusion of the Accelerator 2023 RGV Health Equity Conference. The event, held at the Mission Event Center, was co-hosted by Western Governors University and AltaCair.
\\u201cI think now we are realizing, societally, that we\\u2019re on an unsustainable path in terms of health care costs. Twenty percent plus of our GDP and growing,\\u201d Weaver said.
\\u201cThere has to be a way where we can put the patient at the center, to go upstream, to address the things that are happening in the zip code, the social determinants and address these unnecessary admissions (to hospital), the high utilization that's impacting health outcomes because of that over intensity of procedural.\\u201d
In the same interview, Edwin F. Estevez, co-founder and principal at AltaCair and market president at Prominence Health, spoke about the same issue. Estevez was asked a question about getting value for money in the health sector by Guardian reporter Patricia Martinez. Estevez answered it this way:
\\u201cSomeone walks in through the ER. Just walking in through the ER is $2,000 to the system, whoever that is. Taxpayer money, the payers, whoever that is. It is a $2,000 click. If they are seen, evaluated, and then eventually admitted through the ER for non-emergency reasons, it's another $5,000 a day.\\xa0
\\u201cSo, someone who has a urinary tract infection that goes into the ER for such a medical condition that can be treated at the primary care level, will likely be hospitalized three days, four days if it's over the weekend.
\\u201cSo, a urinary tract infection, that could be seen in primary care for $30 and then $120 on the codes associated with seeing somebody there, that that office will get paid. So I'm giving you the cost, right? That translates into easily a $15,000 admission. That's cost that is unnecessary. That's unnecessary healthcare.
\\u201cAnd so that person would say, well, I was in pain. No, you can go to your primary care. The problem is that we don't have enough primary care. For every 4,500 people that live in this county (Hidalgo) there's one primary care doctor that can provide the care. They have to wait two to three hours when they go and so that's a difficult challenge there and you compound the problem. So now you have high cost and low quality.\\u201d
Here is an audio recording of the interview with Weaver and Estevez.
To read the new stories and watch the news videos of the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service go to www.riograndeguardian.com.
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