The Fight Back Guide to Hospital Care Horowitz, David

A collection of medical facts and advice encourages readers to take charge of their health care and get their money's worth, offering information on hospital procedures, the emergency room, outpatient care, billing, and pharmacies. Original.

Here are four titles in similar format that discuss current issues of healthcare. Although Guide to General Medical Care provides some excellent tips and pertinent questions for consumers, a negative, sarcastic tone affects credibility. The authors addresses mental health, life and death, cancer treatment, regulation of drugs, and dangerous products, along with the doctor-patient relationship and quality of care. Unfortunately, controversial areas (implants, estrogen replacement therapy, aspirin for heart attack prevention) are only lightly covered. Expected changes in the healthcare system make the comments dated. Not recommended. Guide to Health Insurance presents a confusing array of options, so the authors wisely begin with basics: definitions, key items, interpreting clauses, identifying time limits, and so on. The importance of execution clauses, benefits-provision sections, and benefit schedules are stressed. A brief history of health insurance, how it operates, and what changes may come about in the future are presented in a logical framework. The trend toward HMOs, PPOs, and managed care programs is especially pertinent. Recommended. Guide to Senior Citizens' Medical Care is a manual for caregivers covers a range of options: retirement communities, home care, nursing homes, payment choices for Medicare, insurance, employee and retiree benefits, and Medicaid. It includes excellent tips, warnings, consumer alerts, lists, questions, and addresses. This book could be utilized as a comparative reference; the safety tips, advance preparations, and lists of questions for caregivers are certainly valuable. Expected changes in healthcare legislation may date some of the information, however, so it is not a priority purchase. In Guide to Hospital Care , the authors discuss hospital administration and personnel, billing, quality, medical records, emergency rooms, and the choice of a physician/hospital, along with hospital history and childbirth. Some recommendations are good: keeping a hospital log; checking a physician's hospital privileges, and using an Urgicenter for minor emergencies. Unfortunately, there are omissions and inconsistencies: e.g., hospitals don't discharge patients, physicians do; and the DRG system doesn't "reward" hospitals for "throwing" patients out! A more realistic approach is Ellen Marezalik-Gaucher and Richard J. Coffey's Transforming Healthcare Organizations (Jossey-Bass, 1990.) Not recommended.
- Cather ine J. Greene, Bethesda Memorial Hosp. Lib., Boynton Beach, Fla.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.