Klobuchar checks in with future docs on health reform

Minneapolis, MN -- The U.S. Senate hasn't drafted it's own health care reform bill yet, but senators are gathering as many views as possible during their summer recess. For Senator Amy Klobuchar on Monday that road led to the University of Minnesota Medical School for a chat with future physicians.

The medical students Minnesota's more cost effective model, of primary care doctors coordinating treatment with specialists, would be easier to duplicate if there were more incentives to become a family practice doctor as opposed to a specialist. They also suggested the health system needs to do more to attract family doctors and specialists to underserved rural areas.

"We have an enormous shortage of primary care doctors and actually specialists in the rural part of our country," Sen. Klobuchar told reporters after the session, "Meanwhile we have cities like Miami where they're literally crawling over themselves in specialists and aren't delivering the kind of efficient care that we need."

Fourth year medical student Jennifer Sauter said she had a great experience working at a rural program in Virginia, Minnesota in the northern part of the state. She said that region's clinics have trouble recruiting outsiders because of the weather.

"They would come up in April to see the hospital and interview, and it would be snowing," Sauter said, "The idea in order to get people to move out to these rural areas, especially northern Minnesota, is to get people who grew up there because they're used to that weather."

Sauter said the loan forgiveness programs currently used to entice new doctors to rural areas may be more instrumental if they offered later in graduation path.

"If you're doing a family medicine residency," she explained, "Maybe within the first two years of that residency program because then you're closer to the time you're thinking where you're going to relocate to permanently with your family."

As to the larger issues the health care reformers seek to tackle, the students agreed the system needs to shift its focus, to reward providers for higher quality outcomes such as preventing major illnesses altogether.

"It's the most effective kind of medicine we have," fourth year student Peter T. Olsen told KARE, "To prevent disease before it occurs, to curb things like obesity, hypertension, and diabetes."

At the same time, Olsen told Klobuchar, doctors shouldn't be penalized for patients who don't comply with advice or treatment protocol. And those who grade performance for prevention need to keep in mind that some progressive diseases take their toll on a body over time, regardless of efforts to the contrary.

Klobuchar agreed, but said there is much savings to be gained across the nation by organizing and coordinating treatment.

"My favorite statistic is that if all the hospitals in the country followed the protocol that Mayo uses in the last four years of chronically ill patients' lives we would save $50 billion every five years in taxpayers money," Klobuchar remarked.

She remains convinced that a bi-partisan health care makeover will emerge this fall on Capitol Hill, but just investing more money in the current system will not fly with her.

"I believe the real focus here should be on making it more affordable, higher quality and reducing costs," she said, "And if none of these bills do that I'm not going to support them."

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