February 22nd, 2010 by Stanley Feld, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: Braly, Finance, Health Insurance, Offensive, premiums, Profits, Wellpoint, WSJ
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Ann Braly, WellPoint’s CEO, launched a new offensive to protect the vested interests of the healthcare insurance industry now that Obamacare seems to be dead.
The healthcare insurance offensive began with her op-ed article in the Wall Street journal on February 7, 2010. Readers will have a deeper understanding of the offensive if they follow the underlined historical links in this article.
It will destroy President Obama’s credibility, the practice of medicine, patient access to care and increase the number of uninsured. It will bankrupt the country if her offensive is successful.
The healthcare insurance industry is killing the goose that laid its golden egg.
Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*
February 21st, 2010 by KerriSparling in Better Health Network, Humor, True Stories
Tags: Billing, Coding Error, Diabetes, Endocrinology, ePatient, Exasperation, Health Coverage, Health Insurance, Patient
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Yesterday, the mail arrived. There were catalogs for clothes (mmmm, can’t wait until May!), letters from friends, the crappy bills that keep arriving even though we didn’t forward them to our new address, and oh yeah, that one bill from my mail order pharmacy.
For a thousand dollars.
Dated January 30, 2009.
So, being the rational and patient woman that I always am, I ripped up the envelope it came in, cursing under my breath like my temperamental buddy, Yosemite Sam. Punctuated each tear of the paper with “fricka-frakin’ insurance bill dagnabit …”
And then I called the mail order pharmacy company.
“Thank you for calling Byram Health Care. Your call is important to us.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*
February 21st, 2010 by GruntDoc in Better Health Network, Opinion, True Stories
Tags: button, Emergency Medicine, Emotions, Game Face, Handling Sadness, Psychiatry, Psychology
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I’m going to make a button to wear at work. t’ll say “I’m really only a dick at work”.
I’ve written before about my ‘game face‘ and how it’s not me, not really. It’s a Business Me, and it’s how I get through life at work.
(Is that a cop-out? Do I do it because it makes me more efficient, a better doctor, smoother, faster, or do I do it because it builds a bit of a wall between me and my real self and lets me get through the day without getting emotionally attached to every patient and their family?) Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
February 21st, 2010 by Edwin Leap, M.D. in Better Health Network, Opinion
Tags: Anger, Career Balance, Emergency Medicine, healthcare, Medicine, Personal Life, What's Important, Work-Life Balance
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Paging Dr. Mortis, Dr. Rigor Mortis!
This is a sample section from a new book I’m writing on the transition from residency to practice.
When you die:
A) The house of medicine will collapse, and only recover by remembering your compassion and sacrifice.
B) Patients and staff will wail in sack-cloth and ashes
C) Someone may name a procedure or drug in your honor
D) People will walk over your dead body, take your vacant day-shifts and go through your pockets for change.
The answer is D. Although I’m using some hyperbole, the point is that when you die, some people will be sad; your loved ones will miss you. But life will go on. The hospital will not close, and the sick will not stop being sick. So conduct your life with this in mind. Medicine, for all it’s wonder and value, must not be a rock on which you wreck yourself. Let it enhance, not overwhelm, your life. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*
February 21st, 2010 by Happy Hospitalist in Better Health Network, Humor, True Stories
Tags: Crickets, Critical Care, Doctor Humor, ICU, Internal Medicine, Physician Humor
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It’s 2:00 am in the emergency room. That’s when the real doctor humor stories comes out to play. By now I’ve sent two patients home from the ER, one of which I spent 90 minutes discussing why chronic abdominal pain management needed to involve an outpatient supratentorial component and why coming into the hospital would be a highly disappointing experience. By now I’ve also admitted two patients to observation status, one of which is a guy with uncontrolled diabetes who remembered me from a year prior and thanked me for telling him nobody else was going to live his life for him and he needed to take responsibility for his poor actions in life. By now I’ve also brought two patients in for full hospital admission, one of which was placed immediately on end of life cares for end stage COPD, the other of which who’s son got the wrath of my smoking lecture.
Once the work was done, the doctor humor came out to play. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Happy Hospitalist*
