Charles Dinerstein is a surgeon.
They are the foundation of the CDC’s 2016 opioid guidelines, resulting in legislation limiting opioid prescribing in 36 states. Morphine milligram equivalents, or MMEs, are used to set arbitrary prescribing limits for opioids by physicians since many state legislators fail to understand — and translate into policy and law — the ’16 guidelines. If we had all known the history of MMEs, perhaps we would not have been so eager …
With the announcement of CVS Health HUBs, the synergy of data and business is rapidly coming to the health sector; health systems will become havens only for the severely acutely ill, the more complex, the expensive. In the same way that urgent care centers catered to low acuity, high financial margin problems that both financially supported and congested emergency departments, HealthHUBs will take similar problems away from primary …
Jimmy McMillan might have been right. Mr. McMillan ran for mayor of New York City as the founder and candidate of the “Rent Is Too Damn High” Party. And while he was talking about real estate rent, he might have made a similar complaint about health care’s rent — payments made for costs over what is needed to produce a good or product.
Rent is not …
Pay for performance (P4P) is all the rage in health care. Big Pharma led the way, and the popular press would have you believe that one can “incentivize” physicians and their clinical colleagues with as little as a sandwich and a bag of chips. Corporations have used bonuses, stock options, and commissions for years as motivators. And the government and insurance companies, although late to the party, are all in …
When we all lived in villages, knowing individual merchants allowed you to identify and avoid the cheats. As we urbanized, brand names became the reputational marker. But when you are dealing on the internet, where no one “knows you’re a dog,” what guarantee do you have? A case involving a Dutch physician who argued that her licensure suspension should be forgotten, highlight health care’s growing dilemma of privacy and reputation.
The …
Among the many recurring topics, this year has been the impact of machine learning in our lives, especially the implications for our future work life. Prophecies range from ubiquitous utopian machine servants to a dystopian ravaging, hollowing out the work and economic standing of the middle and lower classes. “What can machine learning do? Workforce implications” by Erik Brynjolfsson and Tom Mitchell in Science provides some perspective on machine learning …
Recently, there has been a number of articles on reducing the length of medical training to help ease the physician shortage. And our medical curriculum is due for a major overhaul. Its foundational document, the Flexner report, was released over 100 years ago, and our medical needs and knowledge have changed. Shortening medical education may provide a “bonus” in easing the anticipated shortage of physicians …
Take a moment to ask yourself the following:
1. Did I come to practice medicine because it was a calling, rather than a possibly lucrative career path?
2. Do I consider the practice of medicine primarily an art, a craft and the consistent application of evidence-based care?
3. Do I respond to inner measures of prideful work more than the appeal of external motivators?
4. Are there lines that cannot be crossed, even if …
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