Women may need to double-up on their consultations with their specialists about treatment for serious gynecological concerns, as new studies have raised troubling questions about a much-touted minimally invasive surgery for early-stage cervical cancer. These concerns, in a more perfect world, also would prompt greater questioning and oversight by doctors, hospitals, regulators, and lawmakers of….
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Health care advocacy group to expand ratings to include surgery centers
A familiar health care advocacy group will expand its grading of 2,000 or so hospitals across the country to also provide new safety and quality information on 5,600 stand-alone surgical centers that perform millions of procedures annually. It may seem like a small step, and the devil will be in the details of the new….
Continue ReadingDoctors too readily provide dubious treatments to vulnerable seniors
Doctors subject older patients to risky, costly, invasive, and painful tests and treatments, perhaps with good intention but also because they fail to see that the seniors in their care are individuals with specific situations with real needs that must be considered. If physicians too readily accept conventional wisdom in their field, for example, they….
Continue ReadingChilling reprise of ‘Dr. Death’s’ bloody spree should shame hospitals and alarm lawmakers
It carries the plot line of a compelling crime story: A knife-wielding assailant works his way into exclusive institutions across a metropolis. There, time after time, he rips into victims, inflicting great pain and suffering. He acts under the noses of people who should know better. He gets stopped only when someone in law enforcement….
Continue ReadingWith a knee you can see: Yes, Obamacare helps to cut costs and improve care
Federal regulators may be forced to reconsider their plans to curtail a cost-containing experiment that affects some of the most commonly performed surgeries — knee and hip replacement procedures that hundreds of thousands of seniors undergo annually through their Medicare coverage at a cost to taxpayers of billions of dollars. Under the Affordable Care Act,….
Continue ReadingSo, it’s true: Hospitals set steep surgery prices just by ‘spitballing’ costs
Hip and knee replacements have become some of the nation’s most commonly performed surgeries with hundreds of thousands of Americans, many of them older, having their knees or hips replaced with metal, plastic or ceramic each year. Uncle Sam’s Medicare program is paying around $7 billion annually for all this work. But here’s a nasty….
Continue ReadingDoctors and hospitals tussle over surgery for less-invasive heart valve repair
When big hospitals and their doctors jostle with competitors in smaller and medium-sized facilities over who gets to perform an important and booming kind of surgery, it’s not a pretty sight — nor might it be obvious with which institutions patients ought to side. Phil Galewitz of the independent, nonpartisan Kaiser Health News Service does….
Continue ReadingLax oversight and safety nightmares burgeon with boom in surgical centers
An innovation in medical treatment — which was supposed to offer more affordable, accessible, and even convenient care — instead may be getting swamped with safety problems that long have plagued hospitals and academic medical centers. USA Today and Kaiser Health News Service deserve credit for digging into patients’ nightmares with specialized surgical centers, not….
Continue ReadingWatch this documentary before you let a surgeon use a robot to cut inside you
Robots are the shiny new toys of surgery in American hospitals. They promise ultra-precise, tiny cuts that give patients faster healing and better outcomes. Wherever you live, your local TV news outlets have likely run uncritical, gee-whiz stories about hospitals and surgeons bringing in these robots, featuring glowing patient testimonials. So what’s not to like?….
Continue ReadingNo surgery is free of risks or complications, as breast reconstruction study reminds
Cancer and surgery — it’s little wonder that even the most resilient patients can buckle a bit when their doctors talk to them about these two issues together and urgently. That’s why new research may be valuable to women with breast cancer, providing them with better evidence-based insight about challenges in their reconstructive options. The….
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