MISSION, Texas – Attendees at a recent conference in the Rio Grande Valley learned that 20 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product is spent on health care.
“This is more than double that of other industrialized countries. And we lead the world in chronic disease, congestive heart failure, diabetes and neonatal mortality rates,” said Eric Weaver, executive director of the Institute for Advancing Health Value.
Weaver gave the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service an exclusive interview following the Accelerator 2023 RGV Health Equity conference. The event, held at the Mission Event Center, was co-hosted by Western Governors University and AltaCair.
“I think we realize now, societally, that we are on an unsustainable path in terms of health care costs. Over twenty percent of our GDP and that number continues to grow,” Weaver said.
“There has to be a way to put the patient at the center, to go upstream, to address the issues that are happening in the zip code, the social determinants and address these unnecessary (hospital) admissions.” , to high utilization which is impacting health outcomes due to excessive intensity of procedures.
In the same interview, Edwin F. Estevez, co-founder and director of AltaCair and market president at Prominence Health, discussed the same issue. Estevez was asked about value for money in the healthcare sector by Guardian journalist Patricia Martinez. Estevez responded thus:
“Someone comes into the emergency room. Just going through the emergency room costs the system, whatever it is, $2,000. Taxpayers’ money, taxpayers, whoever they are. That’s a $2,000 click. If they are seen, evaluated, and then ultimately admitted to the emergency room for non-emergency reasons, that’s an additional $5,000 per day.
“So a person who has a urinary tract infection and they go to the emergency room for a medical problem that can be treated at the primary care level will probably be hospitalized three days, four days if it’s over the weekend.
“So a urinary tract infection, which might be seen in primary care for $30, and then $120 on the codes associated with someone visiting there, that office will be paid for. So I’ll give you the price, right? This easily translates to a $15,000 entry. It’s an unnecessary cost. This is unnecessary health care.
“And so this person was like, well, I was in pain. No, you can go to your primary care. The problem is we don’t have enough primary care. For every 4,500 residents in this county (Hidalgo), there is one primary care physician who can provide care. They have to wait two to three hours when they leave, which is a difficult challenge and only compounds the problem. So now you have high cost and poor quality.
The main discussion themes at Accelerator 2023 were:
- Access to healthcare and value-based care
- Innovative, high-quality health and nursing training programs
- Nutritional security
- Preventive care
A program produced for the event noted that, according to the United States Census Bureau, 9.8 percent of people under the age of 65 lack health insurance nationwide, but that the percentages for the four poorest counties in the RGV are much higher:
- Hidalgo County: 33.1 percent
- Cameron County 29.9 percent
- Starr County 28.9 percent
- Willacy County 24.1 percent
To find out more about the conference, Rio Grande Guardian International News Service journalists Steve Taylor and Patricia Martinez interviewed four of the key players at the conference:
- Eric Weaver, executive director of the Institute for Advancing Health Value
- Kimberly Kelly-Cortez, senior associate dean and director of programs at WGU’s Leavitt School of Health
- Keith Smith, senior vice president of WGU’s Leavitt School of Health
- Edwin F. Estevez, Co-Founder and Director of AltaCair and Market President at Prominence Health
The audio recording below is the fourth in a four-part series on the conference.
