DOCTOR FILES: When the Unknown Is Not So Bad
“DOCTOR FILES: When the Unknown Is Not So Bad” – Los Angeles Times
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A Moderate Republican Plan To Fix American Healthcare: 'Medicare For All'?
Everyone thinks of “Medicare for All” as a liberal idea, an extremely liberal one embraced by the socialist wing of the Democratic Party. It’s an idea Democrats were hesitant to embrace in the Obama era, for being too far out of mainstream political thought. It was thought of as an idea that was too easy…
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Obamacare: Death By A Thousand Advertising Cuts
Obamacare is still the law of the land, but the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are determined to undermine the law in the hope it will cease to function. One of the strategies is to cut advertising funding for ACA insurance plans. If a recent study is any indication, that strategy might work. One of the…
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Measures of Physician Quality Don't Measure Up
Physician reimbursement increasingly depends upon measures of healthcare quality. Physicians who fall short on quality measures now face financial penalties. But it might be quality measures, themselves, that are falling short, according to a study conducted by the American College Physicians. The study involved a panel of people with expertise in evidence-based medicine. Panelists were asked…
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Is Your Boss Discriminating Against You Because You Smoke?
Obamacare gave employers permission to charge smokers up to 50% more for health insurance, as a way to incentivize healthier behavior. But to make sure smokers had a fair chance to avoid these penalties, the law required employers to provide tobacco cessation programs to anyone facing such a surcharge. Almost half of the companies who charge smokers…
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Medical Bankruptcy Is Much Less Common Than Elizabeth Warren Tells You
Elizabeth Warren describes medical bills as “the leading cause of personal bankruptcy” in the United States. She bases that opinion in part on her own research, in which she and her collaborators surveyed people who had experienced personal bankruptcy, asked them whether they’d experienced health-related financial distress, and concluded that 60% of all bankruptcies in the U.S. result…
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Five Warning Signs Your Doctor Was Too Quick To Diagnose You With High Blood Pressure
High blood pressure is the silent killer. It puts people at risk for heart attacks, strokes, vascular disease, kidney failure…it is basically really bad to have longstanding, undertreated high blood pressure. But it is also harmful to be told you have high blood pressure when you don’t, and to be treated for high blood pressure…
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Sleepless in the Hospital
Here’s a great New York Times article, highlighting some of the ways people like me think hospitals should help their patients sleep: If part of a hospital stay is to recover from a procedure or illness, why is it so hard to get any rest? There is more noise and light than is conducive for sleep….
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A Patient Complained about the Cost of Her Medical Care. Here's How Her Doctor Responded.
The oncologist had prescribed Xgeva hoping it would strengthen her bones while also delaying the progression of Angela Kahn’s breast cancer. But Kahn (a pseudonym) couldn’t get over the price of the drug. Before the oncologist had a chance to ask how she was feeling, she blurted out that the medication cost “$15,000 a shot.”…
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How Doctors Turn Patients into Lobbyists
I recently spoke with a Washington Post reporter about a troubling practice. Physicians convince their patients to sign letters to influence public policies the patients often don’t understand. Here is the beginning of that piece. Check it out: A proposal to sharply cut a drug discount program that many hospitals rely on drew some 1,400…