Hey, this should be your primary care doctor, right? This article from Forbes.com describes what they call "health care transition coaches," who can help reduce patient's hospital bills and rate of re-hospitalization.
The "transition coach" works with patients on four main areas: medication self-management; the creation of a personal health record maintained by the patient; obtaining timely follow-up care; and developing a plan to seek care if certain symptoms appear.This article doesn't say who these coaches are, who pays them, and how they get paid. These are probably agents of the insurance companies, who already dictate how health care is delivered in this country.The program was created to solve problems -- such as conflicting medical advice, medication errors and lack of follow-up -- that often affect patients during periods of transition between sites of care.
The idea of a "health care coach" just sickens me. These concepts are exactly what should be happening in the offices of primary care docs. Unfortunately, this is probably not happening, and that's why these coaches were created. Just another symptom of the broken US health care system. If we treat the symptom and not the overall big picture, the status quo will remain and the frustrations will continue to grow.