Despite signifcant press coverage over the past four and a half years many provisions of the Affordable Care Act remain largely unknown to the American public. Polling data shows slightly less than half of Americans know the ACA is still law, over half said they've heard nothing about the state marketplaces and over a third do not know there's a penalty for not having health insurance. More generally, researchers have found Americans have a low health insurance literacy rate. Less than half of those polled were unable to describe an insurance deductable. None of this is surprising when you realize how complicated health care financing and delivery is. For example, the recently published final rule that describes changes to how Medicare will pay physicians in 2015 was well over 1,000 pages.
During this 20 minute interview Dr. Moore discusses the reasons he and Dr. Askin wrote the book, some of their findings, what he was surprised to learn and how health care is delievered in the US, how research and writing the volume changed his practice, reaction to, and use of, the work and changes in the soon-to-be-released second edition.
Nathan Moore is an resident physician in internal medicine at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. When he and his colleague Elisabeth Askin were in medical school at Washington University, they wrote The Health Care Handbook, A Clear and Concise Guide to the United States Health Care System. To date, approximately 60 medical schools and hospital residency programs have incorporated this handbook into their core curriculum. Dr. Moore has been a featured speaker at dozens of medical schools, universities and health professions conferences and is currently working on the 2nd edition of the Handbook. The 2nd edition is anticipated to be released this month.
To learn more about "The Health Care Handbook" go to: http://healthcarehandbook.wustl.edu/
Navigating Healthcare via "The Health Care Handbook:" A Conversation with Co-Author Nathan Moore (November 19th)