We in the press are accustomed to PR folks “advising” us of all the good things that hospitals do. They open new pavilions named for wealthy benefactors of new cancer and heart centers and children’s care, with media coverage of the ribbon-cutting ceremonies attended by famous faces. They buy big new machines that smash and diagnose illness and want the world to know about that, too.
But a press release that ...
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At last it was time for my cataract surgery. Having had one eye surgery done by a different physician in another New York eye and ear specialty hospital a few months earlier, I knew what to look for and could make comparisons from a patient perspective. As I noted months ago on this blog, I really had no choice of hospitals. If I wanted my trusted doctor to ...
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Consumerism in health care is coming to mean patients must shop around for the best price — for a doctor’s visit, Cipro, health insurance and maybe even your next operation. The marketplace gurus are telling us we can buy health care like TV sets and search for the lowest price tag.
But can you really choose a place for surgery based on the ...
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Recently, I spent some time answering the questions on one of those CAHPS surveys for doctors. CAHPS stands for Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems, and these days hospitals ask patients to use them to review not only their hospital experience but their experience with their doctors as well.
Many public hospital ratings use data collected from CAHPS hospital experience surveys, but patients rarely have much access to ...
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One of the greatest risks I faced from surgery to repair a macular hole in my eye was from a hospital acquired infection. But when I tried to find data on the performance of various hospitals in New York City, there were no ratings for Manhattan Eye, Ear & Throat where I would have my surgery. My doctor had moved from a prestigious New York City hospital to Manhattan Eye, ...
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Seniors need more Medicare choices, or do they? The answer depends, of course, on who’s doing the asking.
Republicans and others advocating a voucher plan for Medicare invoke the choice argument as the rationale for transforming Medicare from social insurance provided by the government to privatized arrangements between individuals and the marketplace. Under a voucher system, the government would give seniors and people who are disabled a fixed amount of money ...
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If you want to know if restaurant food is safe, there’s help. Just look at the signs in the window showing that the eatery got an A, B or worse on its latest government inspection report. There are government inspection reports for hospitals too, but you won’t see them on the front door or any place else in the hospital, for that matter.
Hospital inspections conducted by state departments of health ...
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When I learned recently that I would need cataract surgery, I researched New York City hospital ratings from three well-known sponsors: US News & World Report, the federal government’s Hospital Compare and the Leapfrog Group. After writing about what I discovered, I wondered if perhaps a few measures might offer a clue or two about how to better honcho some of my care, like the one that asks ...
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As a longtime consumer reporter, I’ve always thought the best way to see how the marketplace works is to put yourself in the shoes of someone buying the product or service you’re investigating. After learning recently that I may need cataract surgery, it was time for me to check out the hospitals where that procedure might take place.
To begin my quest for the best, I searched for ratings for four ...
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-Eric Topol, MD, author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine
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Past 6 Months
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