Soaring Medicare costs will soon make the recent economic troubles look like a drop in the bucket.
Maggie Mahar tries her best to address this in a recent paper, summarizing many themes from her blog. Suggestions include instituting a comparative effectiveness agency and increasing funding for primary care, as well as left-leaning suggestions like eliminating the bonus payments to Medicare Advantage and negotiation of drug prices ...
September 2008
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Unusual cause of seizure in newborns
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| In the Clinic - Dr. Mark Batshaw, MD, discusses an unusual cause of seizure in newborns |
classid='clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000' codebase='http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,0,0' WIDTH='380' HEIGHT='240' id='play_continuous_flvs'> Doctor’s loungeHospitals are doing away with them. Sex addictionI've almost finished watching the first season of Californication - great show by the way - and started thinking if David Duchovny's recent tribulations could somehow be related to Hank Moody, the sex-obsessed character he plays on the show. Front line crisisNormally antagonistic to physicians, here's a nice change from the NY Times detailing the crisis that is affecting primary care and cognitive medicine. It even takes a jab against one of it's pet themes, universal coverage: There is a crisis in medicine today, and it will not be fixed by any candidate's proposal to provide health insurance for the 45 million Americans now without it. In fact, an ... Health information on the webSome patients find Internet-based health information empowering, others find it overwhelming. The daily bombardment of news reports and drug advertising offers little guidance on how ... Roving dermatologistsTired of waiting months for patients to receive a dermatology consult? Kaiser has a novel way to solve this. Enter the roving dermatologist, who takes consults over the cell phone and drives to the requesting physician's office for an evaluation or biopsy: The roving dermatologists can provide same-day assessments and biopsies of skin lesions, saving patients the month-long wait it can otherwise take to get an appointment ... General surgeon shortageThe primary care physician shortage has been well-documented. Pfizer gives up on cardiac drugsPfizer, who once ruled the cardiac drug scene with Lipitor and Norvasc, is pulling out of heart medications to focus on more profitable areas like oncology and Alzheimer's disease. Cutting Medicaid paymentsMedicaid payments to doctors will likely be targeted next year as an effort to save costs: "No states like to cut provider payments," Dr. Smith said. "But it is perhaps one of the first places states would turn to because it is a real savings."Idiocy. As always, the wonks take the short-sighted approach that will do nothing to save money. Medicaid rates are already ... Eliminate Internal Medicine and Pediatrics?Well, that can happen if this family physician gets his way. Prostate cancer screening and the PSA testI often talk about PSA screening for prostate cancer. The USPSTF recently did not recommend screening men age 75 or older. CRNA versus primary careCRNA salaries are rising and slowly eclipsing those of decreasing primary care physician wages. Height gapDuring last week's Presidential debate, Senator McCain pointed out the height difference between North and South Koreans. Studies of escapees from North Korea show that those born after the partitioning of the Korean Peninsula in the North were consistently about two inches shorter than their counterparts in the South.Tara Parker-Pope considers this fact, as well ... FACP, FACC, FACSThe increasing amount of letters after the signature signifies the fragmentation of physician into hundreds of professional societies, effectively "neuter[ing] us as effective voices in healthcare reform." Medicare adviceCEOs of the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins write an op-ed suggesting some common sense ideas to dealing with the runaway Medicare train. Futile care, againA doctor thinks back to a story where he successfully resuscitated an 89-year old. This left a lasting impression: From that point on, I no longer considered a patient's age as a determinant of the care they should receive.A great story to be sure, but consider that happy endings like these are a statistical rarity. Better to focus on patients having an appropriate advance directive than to ... Bailout for health careDavid Kibbe with an analogy between rising health care spending and the banking bailout. Surviving primary careThis New Jersey doctor talks about the demise of primary care in New Jersey, which is endemic nationwide. "Renting out space to specialists and by venturing into cosmetic surgery and other cash businesses. The primary care portion of his practice loses money each year." Extreme lab valuesER Stories compiles a list of record high or low lab values, or "numbers that are often not compatible with life." Kevin Pho, MD
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