March 19th, 2011 by BobDoherty in Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: Concierge Medicine, Health Insurance, Medical Home, Patient-Centered Primary Care, Primary Care, Reimbursement, Technology
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A few days ago I received an email from a general internist about my posts about concierge practices. I have known this physician for over 20 years, and he has great insight into the challenges facing health care. This email was no exception; he had this to say how his group took the “middle way” of pursuing private funding for the Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH):
“My practice includes 3 primary care physicians and has invested heavily in IT infrastructure. We have re-engineered our workflows and have achieved benchmark levels of quality and service. We have won NCQA certification for our PCMH. Yet so far no payer has stepped up to underwrite our investment. So we have joined Privia Health in forming a ‘membership practice.’ Patients are asked to pay a small monthly membership fee. In return they receive some special attention . . . Plan sponsors and payers are invited to pay the fee on behalf of their employees. . . Patients like having same day access. They like secure email communication with their doctor. They like having a personal health record. They like having a case manager helping them navigate the system. And they like going online in the evening to make their own appointments. ACP policy supports the medical home but is silent on the question of what a medical home is to do before local payment realities catch up. I owe my patients my efforts to assure that when I retire an eager young internist will welcome the opportunity to take over my practice. Absent public or private funding for the medical home that is just not going to happen.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*
March 19th, 2011 by DrWes in Opinion, True Stories
Tags: Cardiology, Doctors, Fear, Feelings, High Risk Patient, Psychiatry, Psychology, Surgery
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Every day, doctors do risky things for their patients, often because they have no other options. Today is such a day for me.
I don’t know how it will go, and because of privacy laws I really can’t tell you about the case, I’m sorry. (Nor will you get an epilogue, that’s not the point of this post). But let’s just say that any normal person would consider the case I’m about to perform very high risk because of the patient’s condition. Even though you tell people they could die and take care to mention that fact time and time again, you wonder if they really can comprehend the significance of what you’re saying – after all, there is a fine line between being reassuring in a time of crisis and telling it like it is. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
March 18th, 2011 by GarySchwitzer in News, Opinion
Tags: Errors, Health Journalism, Health News Release, Health Reporting, Influence, Journalism, Press Release
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A new post on the Embargo Watch blog, “The power of the press release: A tale of two fish oil-chemotherapy studies,” addresses an issue that had me running around in circles for hours last week.
Some news organizations were reporting on a paper in the journal Cancer, reporting that it had been published in that day’s online edition.
But it hadn’t been – not when the stories were published.
Instead, all I could find was a study by the same authors on the same topic that had been published in the same journal two weeks prior.
What apparently happened, as Embargo Watch surmises as well, is that many journalists simply covered what was in the journal’s news release – not what had already been published two weeks prior – which was a more impressive article. And they rushed to publish before the new study had even been posted online – all over a very short-term study in a small number of people. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
March 18th, 2011 by Emergiblog in Humor, Opinion, True Stories
Tags: 911, Customer Service, Emergency Medicine, ER Abuse, Nursing, Online Booking, Real Emergencies, Reservations
1 Comment »
This is so wrong.
You can’t make this stuff up.
It seems an emergency department in Memphis, Tennessee is now taking online reservations for their services. Yes, you heard that right, you can now hop online and select the time you would like to be seen for your “emergency”. Just pay $15.00 and you can give your chief complaint, your medical history and your list of medications ahead of time, saving you time and trouble when you pop in with your pesky problem!
What if the problem is serious?
The computer won’t let you register and flashes a “Call 911″ sign at you.
But wait! There’s more!
If you are not seen within 15 minutes of your scheduled time, you money is cheerfully refunded!
I’m not kidding. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Emergiblog*
March 18th, 2011 by Harriet Hall, M.D. in Opinion
Tags: Cannibalism, Eating Placenta, Iron, Nutrition, Obstetrics And Gynecology, Placenta, Placentophagia
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After giving birth, most mammals eat the afterbirth, the placenta. Most humans don’t. Several hypotheses have been suggested as to why placentophagy might have had evolutionary survival value, but are there any actual benefits for modern women? Placentophagy has been recommended for various reasons, from nutritional benefit to preventing postpartum depression to “honoring the placenta.” In other cultures, various rituals surround the placenta including burial and treating it as sacred or as another child with its own spirit. Eating the placenta is promoted by some modern New Age, holistic, and “natural-is-good” cultural beliefs.
Some women eat it raw, but many women have a yuck-factor objection to eating raw bloody tissue. It can be cooked: recipes are available for preparing it in various ways. For those who don’t like the idea of eating the tissue, placenta encapsulation services are available, putting placenta into a capsule that is more esthetically acceptable and that can even be frozen and saved for later use in menopause. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
