More and more doctors and patients are recognizing the link between affordability of medical care and safety. One problem that plagues fee-for-service medicine is that doctors are rewarded financially for ordering excessive tests and treatments, which are both dangerous and wasteful. Geoff Berg, an internist in Rhode Island, put it this way in a letter….
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Questions Patients Must Ask Before an MRI or CT Scan
It’s always intimidating to undergo an MRI scan or CT scan. The machines are loud and enormous and seem to swallow your body. For all the trouble and expense, patients deserve the very latest scanning equipment and should have their images read by only the most highly qualified doctors. Alas, there is a quiet scandal….
Continue ReadingStudy: Uninsured Pay $30 Billion for Health Care
A new report from George Mason University of Virginia and the Urban Institute finds that the uninsured pay $30 billion each year out of pocket for health care costs. Others who provide for the uninsured are the government, physicians who donate time and forgo profits, and private charity. The lead researcher points out that failure….
Continue ReadingInsurance Companies Deny Doctors’ Orders; Patients Suffer
The Toledo Blade has a good article with stories from patients whose crucial treatments, ordered by doctors, have been denied or delayed by insurance companies. It begins with the harrowing story of Randy Steele, who died after the kidney-liver transplant that could have saved his life was stalled by his insurer. Even if patients do….
Continue ReadingCancer Survival Depends on Country and Race
Unsurprisingly, there are wide global disparities in survival rates of cancer patients. This is partly because of the relative wealth of different countries. However, there are huge disparities within the United States as well: In the United States, the lowest survival rates are in New York City, except for rectal cancer in women, where Wyoming….
Continue ReadingCalifornia Orders Insurers to Reinstate Policies
In California, regulators ordered insurers to reinstate the policies of 26 patients who allegedly lied on their applications. As Michelle Andrews notes in the linked article, insurers will often claim that a patient “lied” about something that was either an honest mistake or the result of the insurer using strange definitions. For instance: …one woman….
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