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Monitor Blood Glucose (And Look Cool) With A Nano-Tattoo

Millions of people with diabetes are forced to endure multiple finger pricks daily — an unpleasant practice that may impede compliance, and whose reliability is operator-dependent.

Now, Dr. Paul Barone and Dr. Michael Strano at the MIT Department of Chemical Engineering are developing a new approach to glucose monitoring.

Building on work they previously published in ACS Nano, the new technology employs a nanoparticle “tattoo” as a glucose sensor, which can then be continuously monitored by a device on the surface of the body. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*

Primary Care Doctors And The Medicare Boycott

I saw this interesting article linked to from a blog about angry doctors dropping out of Medicare in Texas. As one who shares the universal annoyance at congress’ failure to fix the SGR for more than 30 days at a time, I was kind of cheered by this. That’s what it will take to get the system fixed — a grassroots, full-scale rejection of the system! Good for them. And the opening lines of the article were encouraging:

Texas doctors are opting out of Medicare at alarming rates, frustrated by reimbursement cuts they say make participation in government-funded care of seniors unaffordable.

An “alarming” rate. Wow. Cool. So how many is that, anyway?

More than 300 doctors have dropped the program in the last two years, including 50 in the first three months of 2010, according to data compiled by the Houston Chronicle. Texas Medical Association officials, who conducted the 2008 survey, said the numbers far exceeded their assumptions.

That’s 300, right? Hmm, not too shabby. Not exactly going to topple the state with that, but it’s a start.

Hey, I wonder how many doctors there are in Texas, anyway? I hear it’s a pretty big state, though I seem to recall it consists mostly of scrubland and swamp. Maybe there are only like 500 doctors in the state to start with. Something is tickling my head about Texas, though, I vaguely remember that they had some nice tort reform law a few years ago that I was pretty envious of. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*

How Much Is A Primary Care Visit Worth To You?

How much is a primary care appointment worth? Not much, it appears.

Physicians in California decided to embark on an innovative idea, asking patients to simply pay them what they thought the visit was worth. Here’s how it worked:

On the day of the events, no insurance was accepted. Care was provided only to the uninsured, who were asked to pay what they could afford. Laboratory tests were provided at cost, and patients who needed additional services were referred to various public resources. Practices also handed out lists of generic medications available for reduced prices at large, discount pharmacies.

Physicians who accept Medicare are not allowed to include Medicare beneficiaries in any pay-what-you-can program.

Although patients did value the visit, they grossly underestimated its cost. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*

Doc Fix Blamed On Doctors

The American Medical Association will launch a multi-million-dollar ad campaign tomorrow to heighten pressure on Congress for a doc-fix bill. The American College of Physicians (ACP) reacted by calling for doctors to contact their member of Congress directly to let their voices be heard. Robert Centor, FACP, called for doctors to protest as well. (American Medical Association, American College of Physicians, DB’s Rants)

Meanwhile, a Florida medical society predicts a crisis in that senior-laden state. The society cited but did not name eight primary care doctors who’ve stopped accepting Medicare patients this year, and 12 cardiologists who left private practice for employment elsewhere because of already reduced payments. Unbelievably, business columnist Steven Pearlstein sorted through the issues around the doc fix, and concluded that it’s the docs that need fixing for paying themselves generous salaries. (Naples News, The Washington Post) Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

How To Deal With Unhappy Or Difficult Patients

There’s a nice article in the May issue of Plastic Surgery Practice that discusses how to deal with unhappy or difficult patients. No matter the area of medicine or surgery, you’re bound to have one or two of these patients over the years. It never hurts to learn or review tips in dealing with them.

In the article, Rima Bedevian interviews Julie Ann Woodward, M.D., chief of the oculoplastic and reconstructive surgery service at Duke University:

…how to successfully deal with them -– with compassion and humanity without allowing them to “run you over” or manipulate a difficult situation into a potentially litigious one.

Dr. Woodward provides a helpful checklist for doctors. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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