June 11th, 2011 by StevenWilkinsMPH in Opinion
Tags: Doctor-Patient Communication, Empowered Patients, ePatients, Geriatrics, Osteoporosis, Participatory Medicine, Partnership, Patient Responsibility, Primary Care, Uncategorized
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When you or I visit an accountant, a lawyer or car mechanic, we know what our role is and have a pretty clear understanding of what the ” expert” is supposed to do. But when it comes to a trip to the doctor these days the roles and responsibilities of patients and physicians have become blurred and unpredictable…and the patient seems to generally be on the losing end.
Take my Mom’s case. My Mom who was 89 years old and evidently had severe osteoarthritis. She never knew that even though she was been seen every couple of months by her Internist for years and years. It’s too bad…because my Mom died last week from complications due to a compression fracture of her spine. Turns out her spine was very fragile according to her consulting Neurosurgeon but no one ever told her.
The first question that entered my mind when I heard of her condition was why didn’t her primary care physician “pick up” on the severity of her condition before she fell and fractured her spine? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Mind The Gap*
June 11th, 2011 by Shadowfax in Opinion
Tags: Costs, Defensive Medicine, Emergency Medicine, healthcare, Legal, Medicine, Tort Reform
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It’s ever so satisfying to be proven right. Well, maybe “proven” is too strong a word to use, but there is a bit of strong evidence that, as I have said in the past, the practice of defensive medicine is driven by powerful multifactorial incentives and is very unlikely to change even if the most often-asserted motivator, liability, is controlled. Today, Aaron Carroll guest blogs at Ezra Klein’s WaPo digs:
The argument goes that doctors, afraid of being sued, order lots of extra tests and procedures to protect themselves. This is known as defensive medicine. Tort reform assumes that if we put a cap on the damages plaintiffs can win, then filing cases will be less attractive, fewer claims will be made, insurance companies will save money, malpractice premiums will come down, doctors will feel safer and will practice less defensive medicine, and health-care spending will go way down.[…]
Health Affairs in December, estimated that medical liability system costs were about $55.6 billion in 2008 dollars, or about 2.4 percent of all U.S. health-care spending. Some of that was indemnity payments, and some of it was the cost of components like lawyers, judges, etc.; most of this, however, or about $47 billion, was defensive medicine. So yes, that is real money, and it theoretically could be reduced.
The question is, will tort reform do that? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*
June 11th, 2011 by Glenn Laffel, M.D., Ph.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: Astia, BlogHer, Gender Disparities, Girls In Tech, Health IT, Healthcare IT, Medicine, National Center For Women In Health IT, Solutions, Tech, Women 2.0, Women CEOs
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The appalling lack of women chief executives in today’s Health IT companies has been linked to a paucity of women in IT generally and the scarcity of female mentors and venture capitalists that could support them. Social norms regarding gender identity and child rearing also drive the disparity. In this post, I’ll briefly review these norms and some promising efforts to reduce the disparity.
Social Norms, Women and Tech
Many people believe social norms and expectations regarding women are the most important reason why there are so few female IT leaders out there today. As the father of 3 girls who are succeeding in tech, I don’t necessarily agree with this (I think the phenomenon is driven by these factors).
Still, there are some indisputable facts that have to be mentioned. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Pizaazz*
June 10th, 2011 by DavedeBronkart in Opinion, Patient Interviews
Tags: Cancer, Compliance, Engagement, ePatient Dave, ePatients, Health Decisions, Jessie Gruman, Outcomes, Patient Empowerment, Patient Participation, Treatment Success
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Ten days ago a post here mentioned the 14th ICSI / IHI Colloquium. I said the Society for Participatory Medicine was well represented, including:
- Jessie Gruman, four time cancer patient and founding co-editor of our journal, gave an important breakout session, about which I’ll be writing soon. (Jessie is founder and president of the excellent Center For Advancing Health.)
Jessie’s talk was so good it had me going nuts on Twitter – I couldn’t keep up with all the “tweet-worthy” things that came out of her mouth.
Well, I’ve just re-read her text, and it brought back why I went nuts. I was going to write about it, but I’m just going to post the full text.
For those who don’t know, last fall Jessie underwent surgery for her fourth cancer; she has some experience. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at e-Patients.net*
June 10th, 2011 by EvanFalchukJD in Opinion
Tags: Benefits, Health Insurance, Healthcare Benefits, High Deductible, Preventive Health, Primary Care, Screening Tests, Shared Responsibility
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Almost half of health plans in the US have deductibles of at least $1,000 according to a new study. It’s called “cost shifting” and it’s a big part of the future of American health care.
There are two major reasons why employers are doing this.
First, higher deductible plans are cheaper, since there is less risk to insure. Think of your car insurance – why would you make a claim for a ding on your door when it’s cheaper for you to just pay to have it fixed (or fix it yourself)? The higher the deductible, the lower the premium, even if it means more out-of-pocket cost for you for the small stuff.
Along these same lines is the second reason. If employees spend more of their own money on health care, maybe they’ll be smarter about how they spend it.
It sounds good – but does it work?
Yes. And No. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at See First Blog*
