Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won't Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care [Review II]

“Caution: Reading this book will make your blood pressure rise and launch you on the warpath—directly to your legislator’s front steps.”

“Your colleagues will hate you for writing this book.” A compelling reason to read it, especially considering it is from the exclusive Valhalla of physicians.

Marty Makary is not only a doctor, but he is the son of a doctor, who after some soul searching dropped out of medical school to pursue a degree in public health. He is the person we need at the helm of our health care overhaul in America. Take a hard look at Dr. Makary as he lays out your future before you—his words falling like whispers from Buddha.

The doctor is really in the house when he states, “A hospital is no longer the community pillar I knew growing up, with an altruistic mission guiding its decisions. Patients are encouraged to think that the health care system is a well-oiled machine. It’s not, it’s actually more the Wild West.”

Take a good long whiff of your smelling salts because this book is going to b***hslap your assumptions about clinical care in America into outer space.

Dr. Makary reveals why the country’s health care system boasts runaway costs due to corporate gerrymandering and the lack of oversight on clinical care. The system currently pays hospitals and doctors to provide unnecessary services to make money, not to improve your health.

And giant hospital corporations are not subject to even a whiff of the public scrutiny that your average Wall Street fund gets. That’s right: People who can actually kill you are subject to less disclosure than your average IRA distributor.
Go figure.

If you want to learn about bad doctors, this book has plenty of examples, and no, we’re not talking about bad-ass docs, but incompetent ones. To improve your chances of optimal health care you really need to read Dr. Makary’s tip filled confession of the health care industry’s trade secrets.

Lest you think the country’s health care is all bad, Dr. Makary does point out the good health care systems—which alone should pay for the book’s cost.

Next time you need surgery, be sure to consult the riveting Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won’t Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care to avoid a poor outcome, which in clinical terms could mean death or severe complications.

For example, avoid hospitals selling services they know are unsafe, because they get paid for it. As revealed in Unaccountable, there have been hospitals that have had to close their organ transplant programs because of deaths. Though there are national standards for a hospital to get certified as an organ transplant center, apparently there isn’t enough oversight for even this most dire health care service. Someone can wait for months or even years for an organ and actually end up at an unqualified facility? Who knew?

For insiders’ tips on how to vet your surgeon and your hospital before your next procedure, Dr. Makary’s tell-all is a must read. Caution: Reading this book will make your blood pressure rise and launch you on the warpath—directly to your legislator’s front steps.