Editor’s note: The blog will shift in ’23 to more episodic publication. Just a reminder: 2023 will begin what could be consequential changes in aspects of older Americans, notably those age 65-plus and covered by Medicare. As part of law of the Inflation Reduction Act passed by Democrats in the Congress and pushed by the….
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Patients may need to take steps to optimize time with harried doctors
In recent times, one of the issues most complained about by patients comes down to this: Why does my doctor zip through my office visit and fail to give me the attention I need and deserve? To be sure, doctors these days struggle ever more with “efficiency” pushes in medicine by profit-obsessed business interests and….
Continue ReadingCongress races to snowy holiday exit, spending $1.7 trillion on the way out
Editor’s note: The blog will shift in the days ahead to more episodic publishing. Members of Congress raced at the year’s end to avoid the consequences of a brutal snowstorm battering huge swaths of the country. Before hitting the holiday exits, lawmakers approved a whopping $1.7 trillion bill to fund the federal government through the….
Continue ReadingIn hospitals’ struggles with staffing crises, lessons on reaping and sowing
Big hospitals and hospital chains have wailed, with considerable justification, since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic about financial damages they have suffered due to costly shortages of desperately needed health staff. But the institutions fostered this staffing crisis, with profit-ravenous suits in executive suites boosting hospital bottom lines in flusher times by slashing one….
Continue ReadingMisdiagnoses lead to 250,000 ER patients’ deaths annually, U.S. study finds
Doctors working in hospital emergency departments face chaos, violence and high stress every day, and usually they get the diagnosis and treatment right. But, and it’s a big but, as often as one in seventeen ER visits ends with a misdiagnosis, which can have deadly consequences. Those medical misdiagnosis are newly estimated by Johns Hopkins….
Continue ReadingWhile surgeons operate often on the elderly, studies are just starting to detail the risks
Seniors and their loved ones should take note of new and increasing data that researchers are developing about the risks undertaken by elderly patients who choose to undergo significant surgeries — procedures that make up a little less than half of costly operations performed in this country. The numbers about invasive medical work can be….
Continue ReadingPandemic and respiratory ills are taking a broad and terrible toll
The coronavirus pandemic may not hold the iron grip it once held on newspaper front pages and lead stories on broadcast and online news outlets. The infection, however, keeps inflicting major harms — taking a disproportionate and lethal toll now on older Americans, wreaking sustained havoc on the credibility of public health information and medical….
Continue ReadingGiving many thanks on yet another holiday fraught with health concerns
Millions of us will have much to give thanks for during the annual holiday, which, like several of its recent versions, again will be a time of health wariness and uncertainty, too. The seasonal feast — which brings so many the joy of not only a grand meal but also the pleasure of gathering with….
Continue ReadingHospitals assailed for Emergency Department crush, causing long, risky waits for patients
Almost three dozen leading groups representing a range of doctors, specialists, and other health workers have called on the Biden Administration to deal urgently with the long-running but increasing and dangerous practice of hospitals allowing their emergency care facilities to be overwhelmed because they also are parking patients waiting for rooms and treatment. This “boarding”….
Continue ReadingFor beleaguered consumers, key health information is deceptive or scant
Already sick, injured, and debilitated by age and other circumstance, U.S. patient-consumers get battered with misleading information from shady firms about insurance coverage under the Medicare program and with too little word from hospitals about too spare charitable care that could help the beleaguered with bankrupting medical bills. Democratic investigators for the U.S. Senate Finance….
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