Encountering Negative Comments

Our daughter recently made the decision to go to graduate school. Once she chose a school, the real work began: getting her moved to and settled into Salem, Oregon

It was interesting to see how many pieces of information about the move we could obtain over the Internet. In some cases we arrived fully informed, and in others decisions were made before we started.

• Possible apartments (including the one she selected)
• Health Insurance possibilities
• Medical and dental care providers
• Closest Apple Store on our drive there (a MacBook Pro was in her future)
• List and location of reputable mechanics
• How to title and register her car
• How to get a driver's license
• Banking that provided a safe deposit box, nearby ATMs
• Renter's and car insurance

The one service that remained elusive was Internet access. The phone company required the additional expense of an ISP. The cable company wanted to bundle services she did not need. The third option was a wireless provider that covers many parts of the Pacific Northwest. But searches turned up many negative comments on their coverage, their contract, and their customer service. I asked the college IT folks, but received no clear direction.

Once we were in town, I decided to go with the wireless solution but not opt for the two-year contract. That evening, my daughter easily got online, and has not had any problems these few weeks getting a much more robust connection that I get from my own home. I was puzzled comparing all the negative comments to her actual experience.

One of the emails in my INBOX when I got back to work was the announcement of a new HeartBeat issue from Wendy Leebov. I have long been familiar with her works and had subscribed to this free newsletter on patient satisfaction. The lead story in August was how much faster and farther negative comments spread in today's world of social networking. The old rule of thumb was that a happy customer told 4 others, and an unhappy customer told 20 others. Leebov cites a new book that updates the ratio to 3 to 3,000.

I wondered if this is what I ran into with my search for Internet service providers? Surely some people were genuinely disappointed by the performance of this wireless Internet service and said so. But others were likely taking advantage of anonymity and the ease of posting comments to overstate the situation. Were some even working for competing services?

In choosing the wireless Internet service, I was willing to challenge the negative comments because I was not risking a great deal - one month of service and a wireless modem. But can we in health care expect our customers to take a risk with their next elective surgery? Fortunately for us, Wendy Leebov goes on to outline steps we can take to forge positive messages and how to take on negative ones. Her steps include:

• We can LISTEN
• We can INVITE feedback
• We can respond to feedback, quickly, honestly, and openly
• We can plant seeds

Read all of her comments on page 2 of the August HeartBeat. If you'd like to read the other HeartBeat articles, all issues are archived online.

0 comments - Posted by Steve Rauch at 12:00 PM - Categories:

HealthCare.gov

Twice within the past year I helped our daughter find health insurance in a new state. While I don't hope to get another chance to go through this process soon, a new government web site should make the experience more palatable.

HealthCare.gov went online at the beginning of July. The main information categories are Find Insurance Options, Learn about Prevention, Compare Care Quality, and Understanding the New Law. A final section is arranged by target audience: Families with Children, Individuals, People with Disability, Seniors, and Young Adults.

I was drawn to the insurance options section. On page one I selected a state and the user category that best described the applicant. On page two I gave the age range, insurance status, listed any special populations that have significance for insurance (veteran, pregnant, have a medical condition, etc.). The results are grouped by type of health insurance. It seemed lots easier than the multiple searches I had tried on my own.

The prevention page is currently a lead-in to healthfinder (an HHS web site with health information resources). The quality page is a lead-in to the Hospital Compare web site. There is more content regarding the new law, including an interactive timeline and pre-existing conditions insurance plans.

Although HealthCare.gov just went online, this news release outlines some of the planned enhancements. I would like to see the prevention section add resources like MedlinePlus and some of the other health information resources that many of us already use.

While I would find value in having a single place to search for health insurance plans, there is content here for small employers, veterans, seniors, persons with pre-existing conditions, and anyone just wanting to understand the jargon of health insurance plans.

0 comments - Posted by Steve Rauch at 1:51 PM - Categories:

Oral Allergy Syndrome

The first weekend in June, while the temperature was breaking the 100 degree mark, I enjoyed my first watermelon of the year.

About this same time last summer I did the same thing. Our son was home and asked me if the watermelon made my mouth itch. When I asked for more information, he said eating watermelon made the inside of his mouth and ears itch. The sensation dissipated quickly, but occurred each time he had watermelon. It happened the following week with a different watermelon.

Puzzled, I searched the medical literature to find out what this was and discovered OAS - oral allergy syndrome. Certain foods cause a sensation of itchiness or tingling in the mouth and throat.

Research into this condition is ongoing, but the current thinking is that many persons with pollen allergies develop OAS to foods that have a protein that the body confuses with the offending pollen. Cooked fruits and vegetables do not cause OAS, the proteins are broken down and do not trigger the pollen reaction.

This condition is also called pollen-food allergy syndrome, to describe what triggers the reaction instead of giving its physical location as OAS does. Researchers are mapping the fruits and vegetables that might cause this reaction based on different pollen allergies. For example, ragweed has its associated foods, birch allergy has its associated foods, etc.

Fresh fruits and vegetables become a staple of my summer and fall diet; I frequent farmers' markets to supplement my own garden. While I enjoy apple pie, I cannot imagine never enjoying a fresh apple. I am glad that I have never developed OAS.

Our son never had more of a reaction than the itchiness that dissipated quickly. A hallmark of OAS is that it only affects the mouth and throat area, a systemic reaction indicates something more than OAS. Our son told me that bananas have also started to trigger a reaction this year - another fruit on the ragweed list. He has stopped eating the foods that cause a reaction. Some individuals can have a stronger reaction, and those situations probably warrant a visit with ones health care provider.

For further information, read the Wikipedia entry on Oral Allergy Syndrome. The American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology published this page on ragweed and OAS in 2007. For a view from across the Atlantic, a British consumer health site focused on food issues published this look at OAS and its possible modern triggers.

0 comments - Posted by Steve Rauch at 9:39 AM - Categories:

Evidence-Based Papyrus

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Adjustable Eye Glasses

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Ride Like a Kid

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The Checklist Manifesto

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