March 31st, 2010 by Davis Liu, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, Primary Care Wednesdays
Tags: General Medicine, Good Health, Health Insurance, Healthcare Policy, Healthcare reform, Healthy Lifestyle, Primary Care, Right or Privilege, uninsured
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Is healthcare a right or a privilege? Depending on how you view this determines how you feel about the recent healthcare reform which was signed by President Obama. As a doctor, I firmly believe that having healthcare is a right.
As a nation, we agree that individuals should be accountable for their actions. People often argue that those who are reckless with their bodies by ingesting chemicals via cigarettes or drug use and who subsequently develop cancers shouldn’t be subsidized by others’ insurance premiums as the latter group works hard at staying healthy by exercising, maintaining a healthy weight, and eating generous portions of fruits and vegetables. Some how it isn’t fair. Unfortunately, life and good health aren’t quite that easy or predictable. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Saving Money and Surviving the Healthcare Crisis*
March 31st, 2010 by Happy Hospitalist in Better Health Network, Humor, News, Opinion, Primary Care Wednesdays
Tags: AMI Diagnosis Kit, China Sky One Medical, Coronary Arteries, Emergency Medicine, European Union, General Medicine, Heart Attack, Heart Muscle Damage, Heart Muscles Die, Job Security, Myocardial Infarction, Primary Care, Self-Test Kit
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“Am I having a heart attack?” From the files of the strange and unusual comes this self-test kit for myocardial infarction, otherwise known as a heart attack.
For the lay people out there, a heart attack occurs when bloodflow to the heart muscle stops, usually because of a blockage in the arteries around the heart (coronary arteries). (It’s what happened to Bill Clinton, although his heart muscle didn’t die, as it likely had collateral bloodflow from other arteries.) When bloodflow stops, the heart muscle dies. When the heart muscle cells die, they release compounds into the bloodstream which can then be detected on blood draws.
That is the basis for detecting a heart attack by drawing blood. There are some compounds that are specific to the heart, such as troponins that will only go up when the heart muscle is dying. Other enzymes, such as the CK go up with any muscle damage, including the heart.
That is the basis of this new self-test kit for heart attack testing from China Sky One Medical that tries to answer the “Am I having a heart attack?” question at home. It was approved in China in 2007 and recently received European Union clearance as well. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*
March 31st, 2010 by DrWes in Better Health Network, Opinion, Primary Care Wednesdays, True Stories
Tags: Atrial Fibrillation, Cardiology, Dronedarone, General Medicine, Multaq, Pharmaceutical Companies, Pharmacology, Physician Advisor, Primary Care, Sanolfi-Aventis
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It’s very generous of Sanolfi-Aventis’s marketing department to make this offer for me to serve as an “advisor” for dronedarone (Multaq), but seriously–I was a bit skeptical that they wanted my “feedback on the reasons for and against utlilization of Multaq® in the appropriate patient as well as to understand communication and educational needs with regard to Multaq® and the atrial fibrillation state in general.”
Where were they when the drug launched? Might it be because this drug hasn’t quite been the blockbuster they’d hoped for?
But, of course, I’d never be swayed to use more of this drug by such important consulting work. No, really.
P.S. Sanolfi-Aventis marketers: Please update your prescriber database with my correct workplace.
–Musings of a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist.
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
March 31st, 2010 by Edwin Leap, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Health Tips, Opinion, Primary Care Wednesdays
Tags: Difficult To Treat, Drug-Seeking, Emergency Medicine, General Medicine, Health Insurance, Healthcare reform, Non-Compliant, Patient Entitlement, Primary Care, Unpleasant Patients
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In the practice of medicine, as in any human endeavor, we encounter a wide variety of human beings. While thinking about this recently, in light of the passage of the healthcare reform act, I realized something startling that supporters of the bill may not realize: There are some patients that nobody wants to see.
This uncomfortable truth exists irrespective of the presence or absence of insurance. Sometimes physicians are accused of dismissing or avoiding certain patients on the basis of their finances alone. While that problem exists (and I have seen it), a great many of the patients who can’t find (or keep) a doctor simply aren’t much fun to be around, much less to treat. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*
March 31st, 2010 by KevinMD in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, Primary Care Wednesdays
Tags: Group Medical Practice, Hospital-Owned Practice, Imaging Facilities, Independent Primary Care, Loss Leader, Medical Profit Centers, Medicare, Physician Reimbursement, SGR, Surgical Services, Sustainable Growth Rate
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Medicare’s sustainable growth rate, or SGR, has been the bane of doctors for years now. To encapsulate, this is the reason for Medicare’s annual threat to cut doctors’ fees by 20% or more, only to be staved off at the last minute.
Emergency physician Shadowfax has a nice take on it, explaining why it has devastated primary care:
Primary care has many fixed expenses in addition to those we bear: they pay rent, nurses and techs and secretaries, healthcare costs for their employees, equipment, scheduling software, etc etc. The fixed costs portion of a typical office practice can be much higher, consuming 60-80% of gross revenue. Worse, many of these “fixed costs” for primary care are not truly fixed, but increase annually consistent with inflation.
I wrote several years ago that primary care is the “cheap DVD” of the medical profession — a loss leader to bring people in the door for more lucrative services. Shadowfax agrees, arguing that it’s unlikely there will be any independent primary care practices in the near future:
I predict that, if nothing else changes in the overall model of physician reimbursement, within a decade there will be almost no independent primary care left in existence — they will all have been subsumed into hospital-owned or group practices to serve as “loss leaders,” existing solely to drive referrals to profit centers like surgical services and imaging facilities.
Bingo.
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
