Posts tagged as:

health reform

Support for the patient centered medical home in the House health reform bill

November 6, 2009

by Thomas C. Bent, MD
As the House of Representatives prepares to vote on its historic health care reform bill on Saturday, family physicians are heartened to see the support it gives to the emerging new model of care, the patient centered medical home.
The House bill is good news on many fronts. It would provide health [...]

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Saving what’s good about the United States’ health care system

November 4, 2009

by Bruce Goldman
The U.S. health care system, although it’s the costliest in the world, doesn’t even deliver the goods when it comes to delivering health. That’s the conventional wisdom. But is it true?
At least a few well-researched studies by credentialed and respected experts suggest we might want to pause to consider whether, in the mad [...]

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Christian Science prayer should not be a part of health reform

November 4, 2009

Hidden in the Senate version of health reform is wording that would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments.
Although not expected to be a big expense, this is causing some consternation, as it blurs the line between church and state. And this would likely invite other religious groups to organize, so they [...]

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Health reform ignores primary care doctors at its own peril

October 30, 2009

by Richard Reece, MD
I would like to introduce you a remarkable article by Edward J. Volpintesta, MD, a 65-year old solo primary care doctor in Bethel, Connecticut. Dr. Volpintesta is a veritable writing machine and has been published in The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, medical journals, and other publications. His articles cry [...]

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Health care reform needs to improve physician satisfaction

October 30, 2009

Of the myriad of proposals meant to change the health care system, including switching to electronic records, paying for performance, and adhering to evidence-based standards, very little attention is being paid to how they will be implemented, and the unintended consequences that may arise.
Annie Brewster, an urgent care provider in Boston, outlines this in a [...]

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ACP: How to fix the primary care problem in health care

October 29, 2009

The following is part of a series of original guest columns by the American College of Physicians.
by Steven Weinberger, MD, FACP
Many would argue that lack of universal coverage is the primary problem with health care in the United States, accompanied by the logistical and financial difficulties of obtaining coverage for someone with a pre-existing [...]

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Are specialists preventing the government from spending more on primary care?

October 28, 2009

by Glenn Laffel, MD, PhD
After a painful, summer-long labor, Senate Finance eventually had to be induced before it gave birth to a health reform bill of its own. But give birth it finally did, and the products of its conception now stand alongside the offspring of 4 other proud Congressional committees.
But please! Save the silver [...]

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Incentives promote unnecessary, excessive tests in the ER

October 28, 2009

A professor of medicine visits the emergency department with a seemingly routine case of shingles, and gets the million dollar workup.
Writing in the Washington Post, Jack Coulehan describes how he was subjected to neurology and ophthalmology consults, several MRIs, and a CT scan. All for shingles, a disease that is diagnosed clinically, and treated [...]

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How teamwork can improve patient care

October 26, 2009

by Toni Brayer, MD
I spent the entire day in meetings today. One would think that is a boring or unproductive way for a physician to spend time, however these meetings made me proud to be a doctor and proud of my colleagues in medicine.
The morning was spent with nurses, respiratory therapists and quality experts who [...]

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Both the far left and right agree not to receive the H1N1 vaccine

October 26, 2009

What can unify Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh with the progressive anti-vaccine bloggers of the Huffington Post?
Both camps are revolting against the H1N1 vaccine.
In a piece from Slate, Christopher Beam notes that “the two sides have finally found common cause,” and share a worldview where there’s “distrust—of doctors and modern medicine or of government.”
On the [...]

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Discussing end-of-life care in the ICU and saving Medicare money

October 25, 2009

by Marya Zilberberg, MD, MPH
I think by now there is not a person in the US who cannot quote at least approximately how much we spend annually on healthcare. Fewer people appreciate that nearly 1/3 of this $2.2 trillion bill is eaten by hospitalizations, amounting to about $680 billion. Although the data in the diagram below [...]

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When compassion meets progress in American health care

October 24, 2009

by Edwin Leap, MD
Does anyone realize that the chaos of modern American health-care is not a tragedy, but a triumph? We’re so busy trying to fix what isn’t broken and ignoring what is, so busy casting stones and casting doubts that we are blind to what we have.
I have practiced medicine in this labyrinth [...]

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How to take money out of health care, and is a single-payer system inevitable?

October 22, 2009

by Bruce Douglas, MD
I’ve been practicing my health care specialty for sixty years and have enjoyed almost every minute of it. The minutes I have not enjoyed all have to do with “money.”
Financial transactions in doctors’ offices are the root of most evils in the relationship between doctor and patient. Along with that [...]

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What health reform can learn from Regina Holliday

October 19, 2009

by Rahul Parikh, MD
If you want to get insights into the problems of our health care system, look at a mural by Washington DC resident Regina Holliday.

Holliday is a 37-year old mother of two and an art teacher. Last summer, her husband, Fred, died from kidney cancer at the age of 39. The Hollidays’ experience [...]

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How the patient-centered medical home can improve our health care system

October 17, 2009

by David Harlow
Dr. Paul Grundy is on a mission — a mission to promote the patient-centered medical home model that he has been instrumental in developing and rolling out, in his dual role as Director of Healthcare, Technology and Strategic initiatives for IBM Global Wellbeing Services and Health Benefits, and President of the Patient-Centered Primary [...]

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Doctors need to fix the health care system that they had a hand in breaking

October 16, 2009

by Daniel A. Graubert, MD
Medicine has changed so dramatically since I graduated medical school in the 1980’s, that it is hardly recognizable.
Certainly, there has been an enormous growth in knowledge which is often beneficial, but has often led us down the wrong path. For example, when advanced imaging techniques such as CT scans and [...]

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