Malpractice Reforms That Enable Malpractice [ez_date] It appears that many malpractice-prone doctors flee to nearby states that enact laws that purport to “reform” medical malpractice by capping non-economic damages patients may receive. That, at least, is the conclusion of a recent malpractice report in the Journal of Law and Economics. This means doctors guilty of […]
Doctor-Centered Healthcare
Healthcare’s Archaic Delivery Model Much of the failure of our healthcare system lies in the office-based “medical model” itself – doctor-centered, transaction-driven, intervention-oriented, and largely unaccountable.[1] The shortcomings of this archaic model have become more evident with its failure to stem the growth in chronic diseases like diabetes and obesity. Even reductions in heart disease […]
A New Year’s Resolution for Smart Patients
Resolve to Be a Smarter Patient With the first deadline for complying with Obamacare’s insurance requirements looming large, it may be hard for many Americans – especially patients in our broken healthcare system – to think about anything else. But the start of this new year may be a better opportunity than most to refocus […]
Patient Engagement Improves Safety and Quality of Care – For SOME
Patient Engagement Helps Doctors Provide Better Care [ez_date] There are a couple of interesting and seemingly unrelated articles in the May 2013 issue of Health Leaders magazine that address patient engagement at entirely different levels and with entirely divergent results. The first (“Opening Up to Patients“) is about the 12-month trial of the OpenNotes program […]
Hospital Charges and the Art of Obfuscation
Hospital Charges Even CFOs Can’t Explain It’s no secret that hospital charges in America are an indecipherable mess. Researchers at the Dartmouth Atlas Project – who I cite in Our Healthcare Sucks – have been documenting hospital charges and treatment disparities among hospitals and their medical staffs for decades. But this week’s announcement by the U.S. […]
Medical Errors Start With Misdiagnoses
Medical Errors of Diagnosis Harm More Than Treatment Mistakes Another report on medical errors in America’s healthcare system cautions that these early-stage medical errors account for more medical harm – both preventable deaths and disability – than treatment errors. In this study, Johns Hopkins researchers reviewed 25 years of medical errors – reflected in medical malpractice payouts […]
When Healthcare Turns Dubious
Healthcare You May Not Need For those who doubt the evidence cited in Our Healthcare Sucks, here’s another example of the arbitrary nature of many medical procedures routinely performed across America. This one concerns a cardiac procedure called left ventriculography that involves inserting a catheter across the aortic valve to the heart and injecting a […]
Patient, Heal Thyself – Because “Patient Engagement” is Unlikely
Patient Engagement Will Follow The Money “Patient activation” is the new buzzword threatening to replace “patient engagement” – long before many patients have actually been, you know, engaged. Apparently, we no longer bother to to wait for our terminology to take on meaning before we feel compelled to replace it. As it stands, neither term […]
Medical Uncertainty & Patient Engagement
Medical Lessons From The Trenches So I got the lab results for that colonoscopy exam I discussed in last week’s post (see “Navigating Medical Uncertainty – Disease, Un-ease & Uncertainty“). And while they weren’t a completely clean bill of health, they could have been much worse as well. Having gone on the record about this […]
Medical Greed’s Newest Poster Boys
Greed Before Need If you’ve read Our Healthcare Sucks, you might think we’ve fully exhausted the examples of medical greed, unethical practices, and conflicts of interest in American medical practice. But we’re not done YET. And neither are our doctors, who keep inventing new and nefarious ways to separate you from your money. “Gimme More, […]
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