OT: Medical care of athletes at Indiana U.
This is an "Outside The Lines" piece from ESPN on medical care of athletes at Indiana University. If the credibility of the students can be taken for granted, it's unpleasant:
http://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/19211268/concerns-how-injured-i…
April 23rd, 2017 at 11:22 AM ^
Hoosier heartless sports program that cares more about wins than the health of the players?
April 23rd, 2017 at 11:38 AM ^
Zero excuse to IU but they must certainly can't be alone in this incompetent treatment.
Also, I'm actually surprised that for all D1 programs, the $1.6M IU spent on varsity medical treatment of all men's and women's teams was higher than average. I would have thought it would be double that. Heck, Newsome I bet will end up at $100K.
he was in the hospital for 38 days (iirc) with multiple surgical procedures by report.
room charges >$75K
major surgery >$35K each
all other services ?
i bet more than $250k for that long a hospitilization with multiple proceedures
April 23rd, 2017 at 11:47 AM ^
...for a month or more, right? My guess is the bill topped 100K well before he left.
Healthcare consultant here. The bill would have been over $100k just for the hospital room in many facilities. If he received any treatment (I'm being facetious...), any diagnostics, any equipment, or any consults or second opinions, easily double that. Maybe some of our MGoProviders can weigh in with estimates?
why not get all procedures done at afternoon matinee prices.
I've worked in insurance and billing in the past. I think you're being conservative. The AD will get significant price breaks (depends how the contract and calculate this sort of intra-org situation, but the actual cost could be less than half what the "charges" can make it IME) but I wouldn't be surprised for the raw bill to approach half a mil. Caveat: my experience is old and wasn't with the U of M, so my numbers might be rusty.
i do not believe they would give different pricing for a student- i think that might be illegal.
April 24th, 2017 at 10:32 AM ^
Illegal? Healthcare providers have contracts and give adjustments to all kinds of different people/companies, such as different insurers, plaintiffs' attorneys, etc. It is not out of the norm to give discounts to certain people or people who are part of a certain group.
April 23rd, 2017 at 12:21 PM ^
Read the whole article and am in medicine myself.
If I could give any recommendation to parents of student athletes or athetes themselves... is to listen to your body. If the univeristy's medical staff does not seem to be taking an injury seriously or you feel like you're not getting the best care possible then get a private, independent 2nd opinion.
There is OBVIOUSLY the potential for conflict between what is best for the patient and what is best for the program. Especially with the increased money and pressure to win in college sports.
That being said, I think it is the AD responsibility to have the medical staff INDEPENDENT of any influence from a coach. Their SOLE responsibilty should be towards the health of thier patient.
April 23rd, 2017 at 12:46 PM ^
Thank you - couldn't agree more. Is there a degree of independence at Michigan?
I thought it wasn't strange when they mentioned IU hired a doctor instead of maintaining the current third party contractor relationship as a step toward eliminating this type of thing. If the thought process is give the docs some long term stability doesn't that basically admit the care was compromised.
I actually thought it was quite strange. If he's a third party doc then he is stably employed by someone who doesn't have an interest in the performance of IU athletics. Granted they could lose the IU contract to provide care for IU athletes, but he still has his practice with his normal employer. If he's employed by IU it would seem they could employ undue pressures even more effectively b/c he can be fired if they don't like what he's doing and he would have to find a completely new job.
the medical staff should be independent from the programs and report to AD directly, and an outside independent voice should be brought in at the requests of a student atheletes.
I feel like reporting directly to the AD is just as filled with potential conflicts of interest. It's not like the AD is immune to the finances and performance of the department. He actually is as concerned with it as anyone.
April 23rd, 2017 at 12:32 PM ^
I may be mixing up stories here but didn't this break (or something like it) l sometime last summer?
April 23rd, 2017 at 12:36 PM ^
Yes, approximately around the time Kevin Wilson was canned.
He still doesn't get it. When asked about the allegations, he said they were false. As proof, he pointed to the fact that he was working at OSU. Yeah, because Urban Meyer is the ultimate arbiter of what is and is not morally acceptable. As we used to say, gag me with a spoon.
And yet OSU still receives no scrutiny or critism from the main sports networks for the hire. Very curious.
It doesn't make it excuseable, but the original allegations against Wilson were much more heinous. I had heard that Wilson was physically assaulting players at practice and/or threatening to take away scholarships from injured players if they didn't play...
Then past players came out to say that Wilson never threatened them to play injured, but he was a hardass of a coach that didn't accept people taking it easy. IIRC, one of them said something like if the doctors recommended "4-6 weeks" of rehab than Wilson was on their ass to get back on the field at week 4.
April 23rd, 2017 at 12:43 PM ^
First I heard of it was when Wilson got fired a few months ago. It is hard to believe the lack of compassion and poor treatment of players who are hurt. College football is an extremely violent game and to question someone's injury is absurd.
Some of the comments on that story are quite cringe-worthy.
It's funny how many people are calling for ... a HIPAA violation...
nobody called for a HIPAA violation. HIPPA, on the other hand...
I've actually had arguments with people who were firmly convinced that it was HIPPA.
It's a shame Indiana University School of Medicine is up in Indy while the undergrad is down in Bloomington. Ideally they could be treated by top docs at the IU SOM, but with them being so geographically separated I guess they have to contract out with local docs in Bloomington. Generally docs at good med schools should be delivering excellent care, and being employed by the SOM instead of the AD, they should be immune from inappropriate external pressures.
Also, why were no orthopods consulted at IU? I looked up the 3 IU docs Beck saw and all were primary care sports medicine docs (ie a family medicine training pathway). Those guys certainly have a role to play in sports med and can be very good at what they do, but ultimately at least one orthopedic surgeon should be available to see more advanced musculoskeletal injuries and potential surgical cases that are beyond the scope of practice of a primary care sports med doc.
I'm also technically blue in Cleveland. Are you in orthopaedics? I actually know the IU situation pretty well. This was an unfortunate situation. Send me a DM if that's possible.
1. Like a lot of things with sports both pro and collegiate, remember that it has only in the past few decades that it has become a huge multi-multi million dollar enterprise with media covereage.
2. Many teams and organizations in the past had as their medical officers just doctors who were friends of the coach or the university - not sports medicine or orthopods (remember that sports medicine didn't even exist as a specialty until recently). That is why a lot of sports you'd think would have highly technical specialists (see NFL) still often have doctors associated with the team that are internists and a lot of their leadership don't get it until they were taking a lot of bad PR flak.
(http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/17113610/controversial-nfl-medical-a…)
3. As for non-orthopods sports doctors it is probably because orthopods are surgical specialists so while they do see patients, they spend a good chunk of their time in the OR. A lot of injuries are soft tissue injuries and do not require surgery but do require accurate and prompt diagnosis - that is really where the ball was dropped here not the type of specialist. They missed the diagnosis, missed it when it wasn't getting better and then missed it a third time not getting better help.
4. What is that saying? When taking fire, widen the formation - when things aren't going as expected - get help. Women's rowing is not a major money sport. It isn't even a big olympic sport, so they had little reason to be pushing as if this young woman was needed to row in some huge regatta.
5. Medical Schools historically are located in the larger cities. The UM is actually one of the earliest ones not to be located in a big city by choice. The med school is located in Ann Arbor and not Detroit because at that time it was felt that it gave the faculty more opportunity to focus on teaching and research rather than just developing clinical practice. Like many things historical, go the Bentley Libary on North Campus for the detailed history.
I think it's rare that athletes are pushed in that manner because of financial implications for the school or the AD, Regardless of the sport, coaches can be too focused on their own success.
Medical decisions should be kept separate from athletic decisions.
Hope they get their act together - people's long term well being hangs in the balance.