Preventing Diabetes – What Medicare Administrators Could Learn From Shark Tank

Preventing Diabetes – What Medicare Administrators Could Learn From Shark Tank

Byadmin2

The Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program is a lifesaver. Consisting of of at least 16 class sessions that provide practical training about healthy eating, physical activity, and other strategies for weight control, the Program reduces the chance that people at high risk for diabetes actually develop that life-threatening condition.

However, the Program is floundering, with distressingly few people having access to or enrolling in the program. Could it be because Medicare administrators haven’t watched enough episodes of Shark Tank?

Getting What You Want At The End Of Life – Lessons From A Dying Man
| |

Getting What You Want At The End Of Life – Lessons From A Dying Man

Byadmin2

Many people die in ways, and even in locations, that go against their preferences. They don’t want to be put on ventilators and, yet, spend their last days in intensive care units tethered to breathing machines. They don’t want cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), and, yet, receive full-on “codes” when their hearts stop.

Much of this unwanted care could be avoided if patients (aka: “people”) discussed their treatment preferences with their clinicians.

Spend Too Much On Your Medications? Help Is On The Way
| |

Spend Too Much On Your Medications? Help Is On The Way

Byadmin2

How is a physician supposed to know which medicine is most affordable under which insurance plan?

Fortunately, there are tools coming into use designed to help clinicians figure out patient-specific costs of any medication they prescribe. The tools (jargon alert!) are called RTBTs, for real-time benefit tools.

From Sponge-worthy to Contagion-worthy
|

From Sponge-worthy to Contagion-worthy

Byadmin2

After learning that her favorite prophylactic is going off the market, Seinfeld’s Elaine Benes had to decide which potential partners were “sponge-worthy,” even putting her new boyfriend through what resembled a job interview to see if he was up to her new sexual standards.

While the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic is hopefully behind us, new variants continue to spread, with news sources reporting this week that Jill Biden and Whoopi Goldberg have come down with the virus. Given the ongoing threat of Covid-19 and other infectious diseases, we all face a new kind of worthiness judgement, a decision about who is “contagion-worthy”: who should we hug, kiss and socialize with given the risk that they harbor a dangerous microorganism?

|

Regulating Surprise Bills Lower Healthcare Prices – Guess How Much

Byadmin2

You wake up in the post-operative recovery area, still groggy, the full effects of the procedure obscured by an anesthetic haze. You begin to ponder several questions: Was the surgery a success? Did the surgeon find anything unexpected? How quickly will the procedure make you feel better?

There’s another question you might ask yourself. A few weeks from now, is anyone involved in your care going to send you a surprise bill?

Puccini Was Dying Of Cancer—Hiding His Diagnosis Was A Grave Mistake

Puccini Was Dying Of Cancer—Hiding His Diagnosis Was A Grave Mistake

Byadmin2

It would have been a difficult ending under the best of circumstances. Composing what would be his last opera, Giacomo Puccini was struggling to humanize Turandot, daughter of the Emperor and a woman of mesmerizing beauty. Early in the opera, she had cruelly disposed of a series of want-to-be suitors, beheading some and torturing others,…