Expectant parents, doctors, and regulators need to reconsider the rising use of gee-whiz genetic testing as doubts emerge about popular blood screenings to detect rare prenatal disorders and a costly test relied on by couples undergoing in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment. This is what the New York Times reported about what researchers have found about preimplantation….
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Specialized cancer hospitals hike drug costs by up to 630%, study finds
While patients often seek treatment at big, fancy hospitals, in part because they are designated as National Cancer Institute centers, these institutions provide a sticker-shock surprise for those receiving their specialized care: They jack up the already sky-high cost of prescription cancer drugs with markups going up from 120% to 630% above what they pay….
Continue ReadingU.S. economy really feeling financial crunch of caregivers staying home
A glaring gap in the U.S. health care system — the giving of care at home — is burgeoning into a costly chasm. Pretty much everybody involved needs to pay close attention and finally act to deal with the nation’s failure to support home caregiving for the sick, injured, debilitated, and aged. The consequences of….
Continue ReadingNursing homes in desperate need of giant overhaul, experts say
The nation’s nursing homes and other long-term care facilities are in dire need of drastic overhaul to dramatically improve the quality and safety of their treatment of the aged, sick, and disabled. They too often now get what one expert has described as “ineffective, inefficient, inequitable, fragmented, and unsustainable” care. To repair the glaring, longstanding….
Continue ReadingCDC, battered by pandemic, will undergo major rethink of its work
A public health agency once held up as the world’s gold standard will put itself under the microscope and try to diagnose swift, appropriate remedies for the relentless criticism it has received for months of faulty performance in dealing with one of the most lethal infectious disease outbreaks in a century. The federal Centers for….
Continue ReadingMedicare angers patient groups with limits on Alzheimer’s drug coverage
Although Medicare officials have slammed the door for now on paying for widespread use of a drug targeted for Alzheimer’s treatment, patient advocacy groups have thrown themselves into the battle over Aduhelm and whether taxpayers should pay its hefty price. Aduhelm is the risky, costly prescription medication with sparse evidence of its purported benefits for….
Continue ReadingEven if pandemic lull lasts, more health care challenges are coming
The coronavirus pandemic does not have a magical on-off switch, and even if its current lull turns out to be longer lasting — and signs suggest this may not be so — the lethal infectious outbreak will keep sending shocks through the U.S. health care system that will affect us all. Experts are expressing growing….
Continue ReadingGood news for patients on credit reports and maybe that Medicare hike
Patients battered by sky-high health care costs are getting a bit of promising news: One set of federal regulators may have jawboned the leading credit reporting agencies to deal better with how they tell lenders about individuals’ medical debt and its significance for their hiring, renting, borrowing, and more. And another set of federal regulators….
Continue ReadingMedical debt mires millions in a flood of red ink
Medical debt, one of the most shameful aspects of the U.S. health care system, has only become more so in recent times, drowning patients in an ever-rising flood of red ink now climbing past $195 billion. The money owed by millions of Americans to doctors, hospitals, labs, Big Pharma and others in healthcare and big….
Continue ReadingBillionaire clan assailed as ‘scum of earth’ in unusual opioids hearing
Three members of a plutocratic clan finally got a direct, bitter earful from those who suffered grievous harms from the opioid crisis which was fostered, critics say, by their family business — Purdue Pharmaceutical and its powerful prescription painkiller OxyContin. As part of prospective $10 billion settlement of thousands of lawsuits by states, counties, cities,….
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