A Benefit of Medical Marijuana
Is medical marijuana legal in your state? That probably means less narcotic use and abuse: Something to keep in mind as we fight our opiate epidemic.
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The Rise of the Healthcare Administrators!
We probably have a shortage of physician in the U.S., especially primary care providers. Our population is rising faster than the number of docs. But we don’t seem to be suffering from a shortage of healthcare administrators: Oh in addition, doesn’t look too convincing that all those administrators are finding ways to reduce healthcare spending….
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Is It Fair to Reward Medicaid Patients for Receiving Flu Shots?
My son was underperforming at school, and I was gently encouraging him to try harder (if gesticulating like an over caffeinated Italian qualifies as gentle encouragement). He could not understand why I was upset: “Dad, most of my friends are doing drugs and engaging in unprotected sex. You should be rewarding me for being such…
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Hugs, Tweets, and Physician Reimbursement — A Problem for Pay-For-Performance
According to recent research, a hug a day could keep the doctor away. According to another study, twitter can predict the chance that people will experience heart attacks. A normal blogger would look at these two findings and tell a story about the relationship between stress and health. I’m not normal. I looked at these…
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5 Ways To Figure Out Whether You Are Being Overtreated For Your Diabetes
Diabetes is a dangerous disease, putting people at risk for heart attack, stroke, kidney failure, blindness, amputation…plenty of serious stuff. Fortunately, pills and injections can reduce blood sugar and thereby reduce the risk of those awful sequels. Unfortunately, doctors sometimes treat blood sugar too aggressively, lowering it beyond the point where it helps avert heart…
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Even College Students Care about Healthcare Price Transparency!
Here is an article from the University of Indiana student newspaper, showing that even young adults in United States realize we have a price transparency problem in the U.S. healthcare system. Very exciting to see how many people care about this topic! Infections aren’t the only thing to have gone viral around hospitals lately. The…
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Copay Assistance Controversy Continues
My article with Peter Bach of Memorial Sloan Kettering continues to generate debate. The two of us argues that copay assistance programs from pharmaceutical companies help specific patients in the short run, but make it easier for drug companies to demand high prices for their products. Here is one take on the topic, spurred on…
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Why The Government Tried To Fix Primary Care And Failed
Americans spend more per-capita on medical care than just about any other country and, yet, they often have little to show for it. Americans have worse access to care than people in other countries, and are often less likely to receive primary care services, like preventive therapies and screening tests. Determined to address these problems,…
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Copay Assistance – Good For Patients, Bad For Prices
Peter Bach and I have an essay in the Annals of Internal Medicine laying out some of the problems with pharmaceutical funded copay assistance programs. Check it out.
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Cancer: A Disease of the Young?!?
If you only paid attention to popular media, you’d think cancers primarily strike young people. Here’s a picture from a medical journal contrasting media coverage of cancer to actual occurrence of cancer in younger and older people: