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“Behavioral Medicine” To Prevent Skyrocketing Healthcare Costs?

Educating individuals about the costs of healthcare could save money and lead to a more efficient use of the healthcare system, report policy researchers at Tufts University School of Medicine and Boston University School of Public Health.

You mean that people, when faced with facts about cost (and their end of it), choose the less-costly option? When did this start? Oh, yeah — we do it all the time — except in medicine, where our costs will bankrupt the country.

*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*

A “Dream” For Healthcare Reform

Lucien Engelen, organizer of Medicine 2.0 (Maastricht, November 2010) and TEDxMaastricht (March 2011) sent us a video message about reforming healthcare when we attended the Healthcare Social Media Camp in Berlin last week:

*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*

Doctors’ Opinions And The Impending Physician Shortage

By Stanley Feld MD, FACP, MACE

Sixty three percent of physicians are unhappy with the implications of President Obama’s healthcare reform plan. The government has reduced reimbursements arbitrarily over the last decade.

Physicians have had an underlying mistrust of government healthcare policy. Congress and especially Pete Stark mistrust physicians. Pete Stark feels all physicians game the healthcare system.

I believe there is some abuse of the healthcare system by a small percentage of physicians. I also believe congress has a lack of understanding of medical practice expenses, the value of physicians’ intellectual property and skill sets. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*

Healthcare Reform: The State Of The States

States are varying in their reactions to healthcare reform:

Wisconsin is creating an office of healthcare reform to develop its health insurance exchange and explain changes to constituents.

Tennessee won a court ruling to remove 100,000 from its Medicaid rolls.

— Leaders in 18 states vow to challenge the new law in court. But in Idaho, a challenger for the governor’s office proposes instead taking advantage of a federal waiver that exempts states that enact reforms that control costs and improve access better than the federal laws do. (Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, Kaiser Health News, Reuters, Idaho Reporter)

At the federal level, President Obama and supporters continue to try to sell the reforms to Americans while the opposition tries to figure out its next steps. “Soak the rich” might be one phrase to revive, but they’d do best to distance themselves from the tea-baggers, who have spiraled out of control. (The Hill, Los Angeles Times, USA Today)

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

Dosage Disclosure Denied For Sleep Remedy’s “Perfect Blend”

A new product, Dream Water, is designed to help one relax, fall asleep and improve the quality of sleep using the “perfect blend” of all-natural ingredients melatonin, GABA and 5-HTP (tryptophan).

A single-dose 2.5-ounce bottle retails for $2.99. They also offer a more dilute formulation in an 8-ounce bottle. They suggest drinking half a bottle, keeping it at your bedside, and drinking more if you wake up during the night.

What dosage will you get from half a bottle? From a whole bottle? There’s no way to know. They offer a money-back guarantee, free shipping, free samples, and lots of testimonials. But they refuse to disclose how much of what is in their product. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*

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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