The Critical Side Effect Doctors Aren't Discussing: Out-of-Pocket Costs
In this video, I talk about why doctors should talk to patients about out-of-pocket costs when evaluating treatment options.
In this video, I talk about why doctors should talk to patients about out-of-pocket costs when evaluating treatment options.
Here’s a link to a review of Critical Decisions published in a journal called Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics. The reviewer had some nice things to say, but felt it wasn’t theoretical enough for his liking. Not surprising given that I wrote the book for a general audience, and not for an academic one. But this…
Such a no-brainer: If patients who receive care at Hospital A are more likely to get readmitted to the hospital 10, 20 or 30 days after discharge than patients in Hospital B, then Hospital A must be doing something wrong. Perhaps clinicians at that hospital are less adept at diagnosing and managing patients’ problems. Perhaps…
Latuda is a drug to treat schizophrenia. It costs about $4,000 per month in the U.S. In Canada, the price is closer to $500.
Ibrance, a breast cancer drug, costs $10,000 more per month in the U.S. than in Canada.
Why these enormous price differences?
Could ACOs be costing us money?
The United States far outspends peer countries on healthcare. When American politicians complain about these high healthcare costs, they often vilify pharmaceutical and insurance companies for profiting at the expense of the general public. As I wrote earlier, such vilification is misguided, pushing too much of the blame on individual actors rather than on the…
Risk isn’t all it is cracked up to be, as Amanda Dillard argues (with me as a co-author) in a new paper available on line at the Annals of Behavioral Medicine. At high risk for breast cancer? May not matter, in terms of getting you interested in taking a pill to reduce that risk. But FEELING at high risk? That is a different story. As Amanda shows quite persuasively, after you control (statistically speaking) for women’s actual risk, it is the way they feel about that risk that determines their behavior.