December 29th, 2011 by Peggy Polaneczky, M.D. in Opinion
Tags: 16 & Pregnant, Advertisement, Big Pharma, Birth Control Pill, Contraception, Family Planning, IUD, Mirena, MTV, Patch, Product Placement, Promo, Ring, Side Effects, Teen Mom, teen pregnancy
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In this week’s episode of Teen Mom 2, Kailyn heads to her gynecologist for birth control and leaves with a Mirena IUD in her uterus.
The entire encounter, obviously edited, ran more like a commercial for Mirena than a contraceptive counseling session. Other contraceptives were mentioned generically only -”a patch”, “a ring”, “the pill” – but when it came to the IUD, all we hear is the word Mirena – six times, to be exact, during the entire 2 and a half minute encounter with the doc.
DOC: If you don’t like the birth control pill, you do have other options. You know that there’s a birth control patch.
KAILYN: (suspiciously) Yeah
DOC: There’s a once a month vaginal ring. The ring itself is not uncomfortable. (Hands her the ring) They’re one size fits all – Right Isaac? (Baby plays with Nuvaring) They’re cool, right?
KAILYN: I just feel like me putting something in myself is all that much more room for error.
DOC: There’s also the Mirena.
KAILYN: Whaaaat is Mirena? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Blog That Ate Manhattan*
December 27th, 2011 by GruntDoc in Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: Expenditure, Health Insurance, Hole, medicaid, Medicare, NEJM, New England Journal of Medicine, Percentage, Physician Payment, Policy, SGR, Specialities, Sustainable Growth Rate, Washington Post, Wonkblog
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This article and its graph (from the NEJM), and its interesting, informative but probably useless graph, was referenced today on twitter, via the Washington Post’s Wonkblog,
Recently, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services announced a scheduled cut in Medicare physician fees of 27.4% for 2012. This cut stems from the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula used by the physician-payment system. …
To illustrate the level of inequity in this system, we broke down the national spending for Medicare physician services by state and by specialty and determined which states and specialties have contributed most to the SGR deficit between 2002, when the program was last balanced, and 2009. Although SGR spending targets are set on a national level, we computed state targets by applying the SGR’s national target growth rate to each state’s per capita expenditure, using 2002 as the base year. Our analysis is an approximation, because, unlike the SGR, we do not adjust for differential fee changes. …
We compared the state targets for the years 2003 to 2009 to actual state expenditures and added the annual difference between these figures to get a cumulative difference between the state’s spending and the SGR target. This cumulative difference was Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
December 27th, 2011 by BarbaraFicarraRN in Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: Accountable Care Organizations, Adults, Cloud Computing, Doctors, Gaming, Health, health care, Health IT, HIMSS, Hospital Care, Insurance, mHealth, Microsoft, Mobile Apps, Mobile Health, Mobile Technology, Nurses, Patient Engagement, remote monitoring, Seniors, Social Networking, Telehealth, Telemedicine, Women's Health, Young Adults
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Bill Crounse, MD, Senior Director, Worldwide Health, Worldwide Public Sector Microsoft Corporation shares his insights and describes four leading trends and technologies that will transform health and health care in 2012 and beyond.
These leading technologies include: cloud computing, health gaming, telehealth services and remote monitoring/mobile health.
Telehealth, Remote Monitoring, Mobile Health
I’d like to focus on telehealth and remote monitoring/mobile health since I feel telehealth is the nucleus of patient care, and telehealth can help reduce health care costs, and improve quality health care for patients. Telehealth technology combined mobile technology such as smartphones will make monitoring patients conditions easier and more efficient, and “cheaper and more scalable.”
Patient Quality Health Care
Through the Accountable Care Organizational Model (ACO), the core concept is to Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*
December 27th, 2011 by Stanley Feld, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: Benefits, Healthcare Insurance Industry, Healthcare System, Incentives, Insurance Companies, Marketplace, medicaid, Medical Care System, Medicare, Obamacare, Stakeholders, Vested Interests
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The difference between the healthcare system and the medical care system is very clear to me. The stakeholders in the healthcare system are patients, physicians, government, hospital systems, pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies, pharmacy middlemen, and healthcare insurance companies.
Government, hospital systems, pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies, pharmacy middlemen, and healthcare insurance companies are secondary stakeholders in the healthcare system.
The primary stakeholders are patients and physicians. They also comprise the medical care system. Without the primary stakeholders there would be no need for a healthcare system.
The secondary stakeholders have long ago taken over the healthcare system. All businesses and the government deal with the hand they are dealt using their best judgment. The people running the business or government pursue their vested interest. The difference between businesses and government is businesses work to make as big a profit as possible. Government, depending on the political party in power, pursues fulfillment of its ideology.
Since 1942 and the Economic Stabilization Act of President Roosevelt Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*
December 27th, 2011 by John Di Saia, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: Capitation Medicine, Cost, Fixed fee, HMO, Incentive, Insurance Coverage, Mangled care, Money, Money For Nothing, non-provider, Payments
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My dad’s wife called to ask if I could see a friend of my brother’s. This 30 year old woman had been “put through the ringer” by her HMO dermatologist. He looked at her nose diagnosed a “pre cancer” and treated her with freezing. Then he put her on a cream. The “wart” is still there and she can’t get in to see the doctor (actually a physician’s assistant) for 2 months.
Welcome to capitation medicine.
This evil creation of your local managed care plan pays a doctor Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Truth in Cosmetic Surgery*
