Miles J. Varn is chief executive officer, PinnacleCare, and can be reached on LinkedIn.
Prior to this, he was chief medical officer for the company, where he was responsible for bringing new medical advances to the PinnacleCare team. He also built PinnacleCare’s network of top centers of excellence and top physicians around the world and was the chief contact with the distinguished PinnacleCare Medical Advisory Board.
Dr. Varn joined PinnacleCare after 15 years of innovation and leadership at Inova Fairfax Hospital, a level 1 trauma center with 75,000 patient visits per year. In 2004, Dr. Varn was awarded the Inova Health System’s Service Excellence Legend Award for extraordinary patient care.
Dr. Varn is a member of the American College of Emergency Physicians and American Academy of Family Physicians. He earned his medical degree from the University of Virginia School of Medicine in 1988.
Miles J. Varn is chief executive officer, PinnacleCare, and can be reached on LinkedIn.
Prior to this, he was chief medical officer for the company, where he was responsible for bringing new medical advances to the PinnacleCare team. He also built PinnacleCare’s network of top centers of excellence and top physicians around the world and was the chief contact with the distinguished PinnacleCare Medical Advisory Board.
Dr. Varn joined PinnacleCare after 15 years of innovation and leadership at Inova Fairfax Hospital, a level 1 trauma center with 75,000 patient visits per year. In 2004, Dr. Varn was awarded the Inova Health System’s Service Excellence Legend Award for extraordinary patient care.
Dr. Varn is a member of the American College of Emergency Physicians and American Academy of Family Physicians. He earned his medical degree from the University of Virginia School of Medicine in 1988.
During the pandemic, the already significant number of people living with substance use disorder increased. According to data gathered by the CDC, in June 2020, 13 percent of Americans surveyed said they had started using substances (not including alcohol and tobacco) or increased their use in response to the stress of the pandemic.
The number of people who died as a result of an overdose …
At some point, most of us will take on the role of caregiver. You may be caring for your parent or older family member, a spouse or partner, or a close friend. As the population ages, the number of people in the U.S. who are caregivers is growing significantly. Caregiving in the U.S. 2020, a report from The National Alliance for Caregiving, found that the number of …
While everyone faces some risk of experiencing a delayed diagnosis or misdiagnosis, some studies have found that the problem is more common for women. Women are 50 percent more likely than men to receive an incorrect diagnosis when they’re having a heart attack and nearly 30 percent more likely to receive an incorrect diagnosis for stroke. They are also diagnosed with cancer more than two years later …
The stress and hardship of the ongoing pandemic caused an increase in the number of adults, teens, and children who have sought mental health care recently. More than 23 million American adults received mental health care last year and the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Children’s Hospital Association, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry warned of a mental health crisis among children and adolescents.
Of course, the need …
Anyone can make a mistake — even your health care provider. And sometimes, those mistakes end up in your medical records. That can cause a variety of issues, including misdiagnosis, medication interactions, missed follow-up testing and care, duplicate testing and billing errors. Fortunately, HIPAA gives you the right to request a copy of your medical records from any health care provider who has treated you so that you can review …
After a minor bike accident, you go to the emergency room with a broken wrist. While you’re being triaged, you tell the nurse you take blood thinners because you had deep vein thrombosis a few years ago. The doctor treating you says he’s read your medical records, so you assume he knows what medications you take.
When you tell the doctor about the blood thinner, however, your doctor says that’s not …
There are many reasons why you should seek a second opinion. A second opinion can help you:
One study conducted by …
When the COVID-19 pandemic began in the U.S. in 2020, most hospitals and physician’s offices paused elective and preventive care services to focus on treating large numbers of COVID patients, preserving medical supplies and bed space in hospitals, and reducing the risk of non-COVID patients being exposed to the virus. Cancer screenings were one of the services that were paused. In 2020, this pause resulted in an Read more…
The pandemic has made the difficult work of recovering from alcohol or substance use disorder even harder. To deal with the heightened anxiety, depression, and stress caused by the pandemic, more people have turned to alcohol and substances. In addition, it’s been harder for people in recovery to stay on track when many in-person treatment options were limited, and they had to rely on online resources and meetings.
The National Center …
When the COVID-19 pandemic began in the U.S., and states issued stay-at-home orders, many people vowed to use their time at home positively, learning new skills, virtually volunteering, and getting into shape. Now, more than a year into the pandemic, many of those plans to better ourselves have fallen by the wayside, and people have developed less healthy habits in response to sustained stress and uncertainty.
These pandemic bad habits are …
Although people think of medicine as a science—the facts reveal the diagnosis, the diagnosis dictates the treatment—most physicians acknowledge that medicine is as much an art as a science. It’s not like a simple math equation with one undeniably right answer. Even when the diagnosis is clear, there may still be multiple appropriate treatment paths that deliver similar outcomes. And there are many cases where the diagnosis is not definitive, …
If your 85-year-old mother was rushed to the hospital, would you be able to get the information you need about her condition from the doctors treating her? If your college-age son showed signs of severe depression, could you talk to his therapist? What if your spouse or partner was in a car accident? Would you be able to make important medical decisions on his or her behalf?
To ensure you can …
If you’ve been diagnosed with a condition and the recommended treatment is surgery, there are proactive steps you can take to lower the risk of post-surgical complications and improve the likelihood of a good outcome. First, before deciding to undergo surgery, which always carries some risk, seek a second opinion from a physician who has experience treating the specific diagnosed condition. In most non-emergency cases, undergoing surgery immediately after diagnosis …
If you’ve been diagnosed with a serious, rare, or complex health condition or your doctor has recommended surgery as a treatment option, your next step should be to get a second opinion on both your diagnosis and treatment options. There are several reasons to seek a second opinion. First, it’s important to understand all the treatments that are appropriate for your condition. A second opinion can also lower your risk …
After skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in men in the U.S., with one in eight men at risk of being diagnosed with this cancer during his lifetime. If you or a man you care about is undergoing prostate cancer treatment, you may be living with treatment-related side effects. These can vary depending on the type of treatment, including hormone therapy, radiation, surgery, immunotherapy, cryotherapy, and …
Even if you have a great health insurance plan, you may be faced with large unexpected medical bills that can significantly impact your finances and may lead to medical debt. High deductible plans, the rising cost of care, and high-cost treatments for conditions ranging from cancer to COVID-19 can put almost anyone at risk for medical bills that put strain on their budget. In fact, about a third of adults …
If a family member or friend asked you to serve as his/her medical power of attorney, what would your answer be? Many people agree to assume this role without a second thought, but you should take some time to understand what your responsibilities as a medical power of attorney would be, why the person has chosen you to do this, and what potential complications and conflicts may arise. With that …
Back pain is one of the most common reasons people see their physician and one of the most common causes of missed days at work. Approximately 60% to 80% of adults experience low back pain during their lives, and for 10% of them, the pain lasts for more than three months. And although nearly 500,000 Americans have surgery for back pain each year, in most cases, …
A second opinion can be a powerful tool. It can help lower your risk of experiencing a medical error or misdiagnosis, allow you to explore all treatment options and their benefits and risks, connect you with physicians who have experience and success treating people with your diagnosis, and provide peace of that mind that your diagnosis and treatment plan are appropriate.
Research from the Mayo Clinic highlights the value of second …
The stresses of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic are taking a significant toll on not only physical health but also mental health and wellbeing. A recent study published on JAMA Network Open found that symptoms of depression were three times more prevalent among the U.S. adults surveyed during the pandemic than before it. Those with lower income, less money in savings, and exposure to more sources of …
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