File this under “irrational”: At one hospital, a blood cholesterol test cost $10, while another in the same state charged $10,169. That’s a multiple of more than 1,000. Wildly divergent costs for similar lab tests was the subject of a recent report in the journal BMJ Open, which looked at charges for routine blood tests….
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Seniors: Beware of Drugs That Present a Fall Hazard
The older you get, the higher the probability that you take a prescription drug, or several. What’s supposed to help you, however, can pose a risk – half of the 20 most prescribed medications taken by older people might increase the risk of a fall. And falls in older people can be deadly. According to….
Continue ReadingSurgery Often Doesn’t Work on Worn Out Knees
As they age, a lot of people have knee pain from osteoarthritis, and a lot of them undergo arthroscopic surgery to relieve it. But several studies find that the procedure offers neither improved function nor less pain for many. A meta-analysis – one in which the data from many different studies are crunched – published….
Continue ReadingRobotic and Traditional Bladder Surgery Show Similar Rate of Complications
For all its techno-wonder and new-age appeal, robotic surgery has racked up a host of problems, including unacceptable incidents of tears and burns to internal organs. Now, a new analysis of robotic versus traditional methods showed no difference in the rate of complications for surgical removal of the bladder. Robotic surgery is a minimally invasive….
Continue ReadingFDA Falls Asleep in Reporting Faulty Surgical Device
The FDA’s Medwatch program is supposed to enhance patient safety by publicizing adverse medical events, but you have to wonder how effective it is when the feds wait more than four months to post a serious problem with a medical device. Although a recall was issued in mid-April for a faulty jaw implant, it wasn’t….
Continue ReadingHarms Usually Exceed Benefits of Cancer Screening for Older People
Minimal benefit in exchange for considerable cost, discomfort and the possibility of complications — clearly that’s a losing proposition, but that is exactly what’s happening with cancer screenings and people over age 65. A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine looked at screening rates for four types of cancer. Each rate declined as a patient’s….
Continue ReadingExposè Shows Military Hospitals Are Huge Providers of Substandard Care
In a sweeping and horrifically detailed indictment, the New York Times called out the U.S. military hospital system for its shockingly substandard care. The paper looked at the records of the 40 hospitals across the country run by the armed forces that provide care for 1.35 million active-duty service members and their families, among other….
Continue ReadingCourt Nixes Litigation Standards Set by Pathologists
What if a truck drivers’ union tried to set standards for when juries could conclude that a driver was negligent in causing a motor vehicle wreck? Or what if a trucking company could defend its driver falling asleep at the wheel by showing that its other drivers had impeccable driving records? That’s about the situation….
Continue ReadingFalse Move From ‘Urgent’ to ‘Emergency’ Care
When a woman asked Trudy Lieberman, a professor of public health, if urgent care centers affiliated with hospital emergency departments “ever try to escalate patients to the ER when it is not medically necessary,” the answer, in a nutshell, was “Yes.” In many other industries, persuading a customer to buy more than what he or….
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