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Are You Getting Too Much Medical Care?
This summer I had the pleasure of speaking with a very intelligent journalist, who was working on an article about overtreatment in medical care. That article has just come out, and I thought I would give you a sample of it here: A few months ago, I went to my gynecologist looking for help with a…

Medicare Pays More Money To Doctors Taking Care Of Rich Patients. Here’s Why.
It has always been financially rewarding for doctors to take care of rich patients. People with more money…well, they have more money to spend on healthcare. But shouldn’t this more money/higher payment relationship go away in Medicare? It doesn’t, and some recent payment reforms may be making matters worse. (To read the rest of the…
Do Cognitive Biases Improve Our Perceptions?
Those of us who work in behavioral economics love discovering brain farts—cognitive biases and unconscious illusions that highlight the limitations of human nature. We enjoy uncovering hidden sources of irrationality — mental shortcuts that send people down the wrong paths.
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When Less is More
Here is a news article discussing a paper I wrote with Michael Volk, in which we try to find ways to keep doctors from harming patients by finding and then getting all worked up over what we in medicine call incidentalomas–unexpected and ultimately benign findings that show up with unnecessary tests. The article is in the Archives of Internal Medicine this week.
New Yorker Article on Medical Decision-Making
Here is a link to a New Yorker website article, exploring the challenges of helping patients understand their medical decisions. The author, a physician, makes mention of some of my research. But that’s not the only reason I’m pointing towards the article. 🙂 (Click here to view comments)

Impending Spending Disaster – A Warning From Japanese Nursing Homes
Populations across many wealthy countries are aging. That means a huge swath of people will soon find themselves needing some kind of long-term care. Here is a quick look at what the aging of a population means for how much a country spends on long-term care. The data, published in the journal Health Affairs, come…