Chemotherapy drugs have become ridiculously expensive. Many new drugs come to market costing more than $100,000 per patient for a full course of treatment. Often, patients have to pay a significant portion of these costs. For example, a 20% co-insurance rate, typical for basic Medicare coverage, leaves patients responsible for more than $20,000 of chemotherapy costs,…
Physician burnout in the U.S. is reaching epidemic levels, affecting the majority of physicians in some specialties. Practicing medicine is, of course, a stressful job. Make a mistake and you might end someone’s life. But physicians are not usually burned out by such life and death matters. Instead, it’s the most mundane part of their jobs that’s…
The US is finally making very small strides towards pulling healthcare prices out of the shadows. Here is a recent media story on the topic. U.S. hospitals are now required to list the prices of medical services online and update them annually, under a rule change that went into effect Jan. 1. Previously, hospitals only…
The U.S. isn’t exactly overflowing with primary care physicians. The job pays poorly compared to most medical specialties, while often requiring mastery of a fraud range of material. In fact, with expansion of insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act, many experts worried that it would become increasingly difficult for people to gain access to…
Sometimes it is hard for hospitals to provide expensive care to poor patients. When a low-income patient needs $20,000 of chemotherapy, a hospital loses money if that patient cannot pay for the medicine, or pays through Medicaid, with its relatively stingy reimbursement. Fortunately, the federal government created a program for hospitals that care for a…
A song comes through your earbuds: good rhythm, clever lyrics, pleasing melody. You know whether you like the song, right? Maybe not. A series of studies using brain imaging raise the possibility that sometimes we think we like or dislike things, but our brains know better. I will explain what I mean, by describing one of…
Healthcare reimbursement in the U.S. is frighteningly complex. We have federal payers, like Medicare; state/federal payers, like Medicaid; private, for-profit insurance companies, like Aetna; private, not for profit insurers, like many local Blue Cross Blue Shield networks. Oh yes, and we have private insurance companies managing reimbursement for many Medicare and Medicaid recipients. This complexity…
I am not one of those parents who believes kids should win trophies just for showing up for their t-ball games. But I’m also not stingy in praising my children when they do well. When my kids got hundreds on their grade school spelling tests, I told them how proud I was of their accomplishment….
Americans are not fans of socialized medicine. Sure, some people want socialized healthcare payment, including many people who are fans of Medicare for All. But even most Bernie Sanders supporters probably aren’t in favor of socializing the entire U.S. healthcare system, thereby making hospitals and medical clinics into government property. Americans are proud of the…
About one in fifty people reading this essay will be diagnosed with kidney cancer at some time in their life. In fact, one out of one people writing this essay has already been diagnosed with kidney cancer. (I had a small tumor removed from my left kidney not long after I turned 50.) But how many people…