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Children’s Health Care Inadequate

Please welcome MSU Guest Blogger, Sci-Fi Dad!

A new study that was published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine has found that children are not getting adequate health care. To be clear, this is not another lament about how unfair the health care system is in the United States, where children whose parents are unable to acquire or sustain insurance are subject to substandard health care. This is about how doctors are only treating children properly 47% of the time (compared to 55% of the time for adults, according to a similar study).

Surveying the details provided in the article:

  • 92% of children received care for upper respiratory infection while those with asthma only received 46% of the care they needed and just 44% of those children with asthma were prescribed an anti-inflammatory
  • only 16% of very young children who showed symptoms of a urinary tract infection were provided with a urine culture
  • just 38% of the needed care for severe diarrhea was provided, despite the fact that it accounts for up to 500 deaths per year in children
  • 31% of regular check ups included a height and weight check, despite the near-constant notices that childhood obesity is on the rise
  • preventative measures were rarely taken

It would be easy to say this is all the fault of doctors and HMOs. Services not covered by insurance (including many preventative measures) or deemed too costly by the HMO are not the root cause here. It is not that the doctors know what to do and are being prevented from doing it, but rather they are unable to do what is necessary because they don’t have the time to thoroughly treat each patient.

The modern health care model is to treat serious illness first, worry about everything else later. Parents need to be their children’s advocate once the doctor closes the exam room door. Make sure you get your child treated for the symptoms they develop. Take a few minutes to see if your child is showing symptoms match anything you can find with a little web search so you can be at least somewhat knowledgeable when you visit the doctor. Most people take the time to research about digital cameras before they go to the big box store to buy one; why can’t they do a little research before going to the doctor?

The doctor’s visit isn’t going to get longer than the average seven minutes you see now. It’s up to the parents to make the most of the time they get.

SciFi Dad is a husband and father living north of the Greater Toronto Area. His interests include his family, photography and television. He has an addiction to electronic gadgets, especially anything that plays music and/or video, and takes pictures. He maintains a personal blog called Tales From The Dad Side and also writes an commentary column called Daditorial.

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Posted in Children, Health Care by MSU Guest Blogger on October 11, 2007
Comments (8)


  1. melody said:

    I can attest to this. We have an HMO and we might get 5 minutes with a doctor or more frequently, a nurse practitioner. My child has been misdiagnosed more than once, I believe, because doctors just don’t spend enough time with the kids and even less time thinking about what the problem might be.

  2. Dana said:

    Brilliant article, Sci-Fi Dad! I experience the grief of an HMO quite often and it’s awful. I wish there were better options for children’s health care!

  3. Izzy said:

    We have a decent, albeit scaled down PPO that costs us $800 per month. We don’t have the option of an HMO but honestly, this plan isn’t much different and the care we get from our doctors is still fairly cavalier and HMO-like unless you count our pediatrician’s penchant for chest x-rays every time a child spikes a fever. Basically, the whole family’s care pretty much sucks.

  4. ValleyMom said:

    Those statistics are shocking. It’s kind of sickening when you hear of HMO CEOs getting six figure bonus’ and our kids have to see doctors, via those same bad health plans, that get it right less than half the time.

  5. Cristina said:

    Great post. I agree that you need to be very informed before I go in to the doctor. At least, that’s how I feel about my pediatrician. However, it’s more than a bit scary to think that as parents we have to be diagnosing our children through Internet searches. Not that there’s anything wrong with being informed, but I’d like to think that my doctor would spend enough time to make a proper diagnosis.

  6. Laural said:

    Interesting article.
    My son’s doctor is actually about an hour away from our house. We do take him to one closer to us, but I’m reluctant to transfer my records over because the one doctor (who we first went to when we were living in the other city) is much more thorough and I trust her to actually take the time to diagnose the problem.
    But, I agree that you need to take the problem in your own hands and do a little research. I’ve been given medication that I disagree with - and refused to get the prescription filled.
    I’ve learned that in addition to a good doctor a knowledgeable pharmacist is key. If I’ve had questions or disagreed with something I’ve asked the pharamacist’s opinion, and often received some interesting answers.

  7. Julie Pippert said:

    AWESOME post! Excellent advice.

    As much as I resent what I feel is often disinterested, hurried, rushed, or inadequate health care, and resent the need for me to be not just an advocate but An Advocate, not to mention my own armchair medical degree and PhD in Google, I know it is necessary.

    I learned it the hard way the first health challenged year of my oldest daughter’s life.

    Laural is right about the pharmacist. They are awesome helps, if you use them.

    Julie
    Using My Words

  8. Julie said:

    We’ve started seeing a D.O. instead of an M.D. Doctors of Osteopathy go to the same medical schools as M.D.s do, and they pass the same boards. But D.O.s are dedicated to treating and healing the entire patient as a whole. It’s a much more holistic approach to Western medicine. For adults, D.O.s often do things like massage and physical manipulation (like chiropractic adjuctments). For kids, they don’t do that stuff but do tend to take a much more progressive approach to health and well-being.

    It’s worth looking into, anyway.



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