Health insurance is not what it used to be. With increasing frequency, Americans who purchase private health insurance find themselves with plans that require them to fork over significant amounts of money every time they receive healthcare. That means if you get, say, a heart attack, your portion of the hospital bill is probably going to be significant.
(To read the rest of this article, please visit Forbes.)
I have two teenage boys. So of course I’m worried about them skipping the dating scene and engaging in “hookups.” That seems to be what kids do these days. But now, do I also have to worry about them engaging in hookah? Dave Chokshi (@davechokshi) recently tweeted an image of trends in tobacco use among…
I recently wrote something in Forbes about all the mergers going on in the U.S. healthcare industry. Well here is a nice article about the growth of the healthcare system in Western North Carolina, that explores some of the same issues. Check it out: Mission Health Partners, the Accountable Care Organization of Mission Health System,…
Among people receiving hospice care, the last few days of life can be intense, with progression of pain or breathing problems or other symptoms of their terminal illnesses. For those who die on Sundays, that means they are less likely to see doctors or nurses in the last days of life:
Shutterstock Medical appointments are getting shorter by the year. Sometimes it feels like doctors have no time to spend with their patients. What’s to blame for these brief clinical interactions? It could be the electronic health record, or EHR. Because of changes in how insurance companies and the government pay for medical care, doctors increasingly…
I know, I know: correlation does not mean causation. But it is still suspicious that when industry employees join as co-authors in medical journals, the randomized trials they are writing about are more likely to show positive results – results that make industry products look good. At least that was the finding from a study…
Lots of folks in the U.S. are finding themselves with health insurance coverage that requires them to pay lots of money, in their deductible, before insurance kicks in. Here is a nice piece in Cancer Today Magazine on the topic: Tammy Pope had already exceeded her health insurance plan’s $5,000 deductible for 2015 by August….