Whether it’s depression or bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, people with mental illness often get medical treatment that perceives them less as whole persons than as a single body part. According to a survey recently published in the journal Diabetes Educator, more than half of patients who had symptoms of mental illness, and almost 1 in….
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Create a Family History
Because many health problems are rooted in your genes, it’s critical to know as much about your family’s cultural and medical history as possible in order for your doctor to make an accurate diagnosis. A handy tool provided by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) enables you to create a family history, and keep it….
Continue ReadingSuggested Reading: Hyping Hypothyroidism?
Twelve in 100 Americans will be diagnosed at some point in their lifetimes with a thyroid disorder. Hypothyroidism, or under-active thyroid gland, is treated with the drug levothyroxine, which has been called the second-most frequently prescribed drug in the U.S. As a long and interesting article in TheAtlantic.com discussed, one of the hottest controversies in….
Continue ReadingPatient Safety Organization Calls for Greater Transparency
The National Patient Safety Foundation recently issued a sweeping report strongly supporting transparency in health care. Transparency not only is ethical, according to the report, but it promotes accountability, leads to fewer medical errors, increases patient satisfaction and lowers costs. The foundation’s Lucian Leape Institute held roundtable discussions with a range of health-care stakeholders who….
Continue ReadingGetting What You Need — and No More — From Cold and Flu Medicine
A lot of people have colds and flu this time of year, and a lot them buy over-the-counter medicine to help them feel better. But the sheer number of remedies is overwhelming, as is the variety of symptoms they supposedly treat. What’s a consumer to do? A recent article in The Atlantic offered useful information….
Continue ReadingDeath to the Annual Physical?
Dr. Zeke Emanuel, opinionator and recent White House policy advisor, weighed in last week with his own New Year’s resolution: to skip the annual physical exam, a time and money waster that potentially does more harm than good. Emanuel’s op-ed in the New York Times made a lot of good points, mostly about the inability….
Continue ReadingMore Evidence that Vitamin D Tests May Not Be Needed
Although some people don’t get enough vitamin D, and a deficiency of it can cause problems, a federal panel has determined that the jury is out on whether routine testing for vitamin D level in the blood makes sense. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, (USPSTF) an independent body of experts in prevention and evidence-based….
Continue ReadingResearcher Is Surprised by Wild Disparity in Cost for Simple Blood Test
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….
Continue ReadingDo We Have a Winner in the Overtesting Games?
We’ve seldom seen a more shocking example of overtesting than the one identified by Harriet Hall on ScienceBasedMedicine.org. In an article called “An Egregious Example of Ordering Unnecessary Tests,” Hall describes the adventures in primary care experienced by a friend’s healthy 21-year-old son who sought a routine physical. He had no complaints, no past history….
Continue ReadingWhy Medical Providers Ignore Disabled Patients
People with physical or mental disabilities have disadvantages the rest of us can only imagine, and when it comes to the delivery of health care, the insult is compounded. Disabled patients have a harder time than other people in finding a doctor, and when they do, they receive inferior health care, less information about prevention….
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