We’ve discussed the fact that despite the population’s increasing resistance to antibiotics-and therefore their diminishing ability to beat infection-pharmaceutical companies aren’t exactly eager to develop new antibiotics because there’s little profit in it. But antibiotics aren’t the only class of drugs lagging in development. As described on MedPage Today, innovative drug development lags, according to….
Continue ReadingArchives for August 2012
Supplement Alert—Don’t Take Reumofan!
Our August newsletter about dietary supplements included some cautionary advice about some so-called “natural” supplements that can cause significant harm. One was Reumofan, a product manufactured in Mexico and marketed as a remedy for pain. The FDA had issued a warning earlier this year about it after receiving several adverse event reports, including stroke, gastrointestinal….
Continue ReadingMedical Providers Make You Look Sicker on Paper to Increase Profits
Anyone who has ever reviewed, inquired about or disputed an itemized medical charge has been introduced to the arcane world of bill coding. Every procedure, from the administration of an aspirin in the hospital, the use of a surgical sponge or the blood draw for a lab test, is assigned a code number. As reported….
Continue ReadingSix Ways to Rate Your Ob/Gyn
Like reviews of restaurants and plumbers, these days doctors can be rated six Internet ways from Sunday. Some sites are fair, useful and worth your time; some provide more opportunities to vent than to advise. We looked at the doc-rating phenomenon in “The Ups and Downs of Patient Ratings of Doctors.” When it comes to….
Continue ReadingA Good Conversation between Patient and Doctor Is the Foundation for Better Care
In medicine, there is no one-size-fits-all. Every patient deserves care uniquely tailored to that patient’s needs and wants. But how can this happen when patients are terrified and doctors are awkward in their approach to communication? The New York Times has a Sunday dialogue among readers this week on the important topic of how patients….
Continue ReadingGonorrhea Resistance to Antibiotics Could Become a Public Health Crisis
Until last week, you didn’t hear much anymore about gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted infection formerly known as a “venereal disease.” It’s back in the limelight because the news is all bad. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that gonorrhea is getting dangerously close to being untreatable. The problem, as outlined by NPR, is….
Continue ReadingNew Tool for Finding Flaws in Nursing Home Care
The public-interest investigative news agency ProPublica has introduced a website to enable consumers to search government inspection reports of nursing homes throughout the country. Nursing Home Inspect offers thousands of recent reports from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Until recently, consumers, researchers and journalists had to file formal Freedom of Information Act….
Continue ReadingTests Done on Last Day of Hospital Stay Need Closer Attention
Hospital patients yearn most of all to shed the label of patient and go home. But the day of discharge carries some special dangers for last-minute testing, according to a new study. The takeaway lesson: Don’t let the joy of new freedom cloud your watchfulness as you’re on the way home. The study published in….
Continue ReadingGrapefruit and Drugs: The Good, the Bad, the Unknown
A couple of recent news reports support the notion that the more we know medicine, the less we know about health. The latest yes/no/maybe answer to a health question concerns grapefruit, a fruit long known to affect how our bodies process drugs. As reported by U.S. News & World Report, patients with incurable cancer who….
Continue ReadingThe Impossibility of Asking Patients to Control Health Care Spending
Health-care business writer Merrill Goozner recently analyzed a report from the National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM). It showed that in 2009, half the U.S. population (150 million people) spent an average of $236 per person on health care, or $36 billion of the $1.3 trillion in personal health-care expenditures. Only 5 percent of….
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