April 10th, 2010 by RamonaBatesMD in Better Health Network, News, Opinion, True Stories
Tags: Aetna, Assurant Health, Denied Coverage, Doctors, Health Insurance Policy, Health Insurance Rates, Health Insurance Reform, Health Savings Accounts, Healthcare Policy, Healthcare reform, House Committee on Energy and Commerce, HSAs, Humana, Medical Coverage, Medical Training, Personal Health Insurance, Physicians, Premium Increases, UnitedHealth Group, Wellpoint
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Physicians aren’t exempt from the struggles with personal health insurance coverage, affordability, denied coverage, etc.
When I finished my medical training and opened my practice 20 years ago, I had to buy individual coverage. All options included a rider that excluded coverage on my uterus and ovaries due to fibroid surgery during my training, so when I had my TAH & BSO a few years later, the entire cost came out of my pocket. Fortunately I knew how to ask for cost reductions, but still.
My husband and I are both small business individuals. I have always carried our health insurance under my name (office). Over the years we have gone to a health savings account with a high deductible to keep the cost reasonable. Fortunately, we have been mostly healthy. Last month we received a letter from Assurant Health. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*
April 10th, 2010 by Peggy Polaneczky, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Opinion, Research, True Stories
Tags: American Diet, Basal Metabolic Rate, Caloric Intake, Calories, Cardiovascular Disease Risk, Cholesterol, David Kessler, Diet and Nutrition, Dieting, Dietitian, Food and Nutrition, General Medicine, High-Protein Diet, Mediterranean Diet, Primary Care, Research Diet Study, The End of Overeating, Weight Loss, Which Diet Is Best, Zone Delivery Diet
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I’ve been waiting for this soup for weeks. Eleven weeks, to be exact. That’s how long I was enrolled in a research diet study, and unable to eat anything other than the food they provided me, which was nowhere near as delicious as this soup.
The study is designed to compare the effects of three different diets — the American Diet, the Mediterrnean Diet, and a high-protein diet — on weight loss and cardiovascular disease risk.
I randomized to the American Diet, meaning that Thursday’s lunch was a slice of pizza with potato chips and an afternoon snack of Oreos and chocolate pudding, Saturday’s lunch was hamburger and fries, and the most veggies I ever saw at one sitting was a measly stalk of broccoli.
Despite this, I lost 30 pounds over the 11 weeks of the study, primarily because my caloric intake was only 1,200 calories per day, carefully calculated based on my basal metabolic rate. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Blog that Ate Manhattan*
April 10th, 2010 by David Kroll, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Opinion, True Stories
Tags: Academia, Addiction Medicine, Addiction Recovery, Addiction Therapy, Alcoholic, Alcoholism, Bloggers, Blogging, Cocaine, College Admissions, Criminal Record, Drug Addict, Drug Addiction, Drugs, Felony, General Medicine, Graduate School, Higher Power, Homeless, Morphine, Opiates, Primary Care, Substance Abuse, Substance Dependence
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Last July we wrote about the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing and spoke of Buzz Aldrin’s autobiography about his battle with alcoholism in the years following. The post drew a comment from a reader who I’ve renamed “Anon.” It read:
Thank you so much for this post.
I am a recovering drug addict and am in the process of applying to graduate programs. I have a stellar GPA, have assisted as an undergraduate TA, and have been engaged in research for over a year. I also have a felony and was homeless for 3 years.
I don’t hide my recovery from people once I know them, but I sometimes, especially at school, am privy to what people think of addicts when they don’t know one is sitting next to them. It scares me to think of how to discuss my past if asked at an admissions interview. Or whether it will keep me from someday working at a university.
I’ve seen a fair amount of posts on ScienceBlogs concerning mental health issues and academia, but this is the first I’ve seen concerning humanizing addiction and reminding us that addiction strikes a certain amount of the population regardless of status, family background or intelligence.
I really appreciate this post. Thank you.
While I’m not a substance abuse researcher, many drugs of abuse come from my research area (natural products) — think cocaine, morphine and other opiates. I also have special compassion for folks with the biochemical predisposition to substance dependence, as I come from a long line of alcoholics, including my beloved father who I lost way too early.
With that said, I’m sure you understand how Anon’s comment hit me and how grateful I was for her appreciation. So moving, in fact, that I raised her comment to its own post. Since many of you are in academia and serve on graduate admissions committees, I figured you’d have some good advice for her. Well, you did. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Terra Sigillata*
April 10th, 2010 by Toni Brayer, M.D. in Better Health Network, Opinion, True Stories
Tags: Cost of Medical Care, Expensive, General Medicine, Healthcare Costs, Healthcare Policy, High Cost, Primary Care
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The cost of medical care is high because the human body is complicated and doctors and patients hate ambiguity. The cost is high because a missed diagnosis can lead to death and a large lawsuit. The cost is high because we have many specialists who view the human body in their own tiny pieces and they want to feel 100 percent correct about their piece. Let me give you a real-life example. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*
April 9th, 2010 by KevinMD in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, True Stories
Tags: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Doctors, Emergency Medicine, Emergency Physicians, ER, General Medicine, Gun, Healthcare Workers, Injury, Law Enforcement, Nurses, Patient Attacks, Physical Violence, Police, Press Charges, Primary Care, Rahul Parikh, Slate, Victims, Violent Act At Work, Weapon, Workplace Safety
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With the attention rightly focused on patient safety, what about healthcare workers? It’s somewhat of a hidden phenomenon, but attacks on doctors and nurses are on the rise.
Rahul Parikh writes about this in a recent Slate piece. He cites data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which found “healthcare workers are twice as likely as those in other fields to experience an injury from a violent act at work, with nurses being the most common victims.”
In the article, Parikh goes on to detail an attack on a physician who initially refused to give his patient opioid pain medications. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
