The quality of medical-scientific information is strained — and patients should know this, be warned, and watch for ways to protect themselves from bungled communication, bluster, hype, misinformation, and disinformation. Although regular folks may have unprecedented access via the internet to resources on medical services and developments, a trio of recent news articles underscore the….
Continue ReadingDoctor-Patient Relationship
Ask the doctors and they’ll fess up: MD misbehavior occurs too often
Patients may be reluctant to think ill of their doctors or to imagine that highly educated, rigorously trained professionals could mistreat or cause them harm. Doctors themselves know this picture is way too rosy for some of their colleagues. In a survey of 1,500 practicing MDs, all of whom voluntarily responded to an online questionnaire,….
Continue ReadingU.S. nears next health insurance cliff with affordability crisis growing
Even as Congress lumbers into creating the next crisis for millions of Americans and whether they can access and afford health insurance, the giant, built-in flaws in the current coverage system keep sending far too many patients and their loved ones into a financial morass with which politicians and policymakers refuse to reckon. Successive Democratic….
Continue ReadingHealth insurers start to join hospitals in giant disclosure of data on prices
If patients can benefit from price transparency by hospitals, shouldn’t employers and health insurers post online what they are paying for medical services? Yes, say federal regulators, who started requiring this effective July 1. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has ordered parties that act as health payers to make public a wealth….
Continue ReadingSenators kill big plan to modernize VA care but offer no alternatives
One of the nation’s largest health care systems had its ambitious plans to reshape itself for the 21st century torpedoed by a dozen members of the U.S. Senate, with taxpayers and veterans left in the lurch with great uncertainty about the future medical care for those who valiantly have served this country. Just a few….
Continue ReadingFor UCLA and Southern Baptists, sexual abuse scandals exact big toll
The University of California has agreed to pay yet more to hundreds of women patients who have credibly accused a UCLA gynecologist of sexual wrongdoing, with the now $700 million in approved settlements setting what is described as a national record for the largest such payouts involving a public university. The UC system, one of….
Continue ReadingHedge funds under fire as doctor wins $26 million case on short-staffing
Medical leaders and politicians carp endlessly about medical malpractice suits, but when an emergency medical specialist diagnosed staffing shortfalls that threatened patient safety, guess what legal mechanism became crucial to his corrective crusade? Why, yes, of course, it was a lawsuit. A big one over wrongful termination. Let’s not over-focus on the irony of a….
Continue ReadingPatient safety’s new perils: Lack of medical staff and their mental wellness
The coronavirus pandemic and the wrenching demand this public health nightmare has put on the U.S. health care system and its people have become such a worry that staffing shortages and workers’ mental health have become top safety concerns in 2022. That is the evidence-based view of ECRI, aka the nonprofit, independent Emergency Care Research….
Continue ReadingFor Dept. of Veterans Affairs, an overhaul and time of reckoning on care
One of the largest, most important health care systems in the country has plans in the works for a huge revamp, including shutting down many of its big, aging hospitals or slashing services there, shifting to smaller clinics, and refocusing its caregiving to parts of the country where its patients live. Taxpayers will want to….
Continue ReadingMedical debt mires millions in a flood of red ink
Medical debt, one of the most shameful aspects of the U.S. health care system, has only become more so in recent times, drowning patients in an ever-rising flood of red ink now climbing past $195 billion. The money owed by millions of Americans to doctors, hospitals, labs, Big Pharma and others in healthcare and big….
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