Although some people in cardiac distress need invasive procedures to survive, some heart treatments are overused, and the cost continues to mount. As explained by patient safety advocate John James in his August newsletter, performing angiography on and inserting stents in patients with stable heart disease not only wastes money, but can be unsafe. An….
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Better Health Care Newsletter by Patrick Malone
Our newsletter helps patients and their families get the best possible medical care. We teach consumers how to become their own advocates for high-quality care and how to ask the right questions and get the best answers – from doctors, nurses, and other health care providers. The American medical care system can be intimidating and….
Continue ReadingJanuary 2010
Experience Counts: What you need to know before choosing a surgeon Dear Readers, Here’s the second in our occasional series of newsletters on getting better medical care for yourself and your family. Our first newsletter focused on the problem of conflicts of interest in medicine — what you need to know in general, and how….
Continue ReadingMarch 2011
When a Conversation Can Save a Life Dear Readers, Too often, we approach health care decisions like children. Understandably so: We’re scared, we are negotiating foreign terrain, and so we latch onto a parent figure, follow blindly whatever they say, and then learn, too late, that there were a lot of questions we should have….
Continue ReadingMay 2011
Talking to Your Doctor When You Can’t Speak Dear Readers, Unimaginable, isn’t it? The idea that we could be facing a life-and-death decision about our own health care — but we are mute, unable to speak or communicate in any way. Yet this scary, unimaginable event happens to millions of Americans every year. And because….
Continue ReadingDecember 2011
Saying No to Your Doctor: Sometimes Wrong but Always Right Dear Readers, Saying no to your doctor’s advice is sometimes “wrong” when you let fear and ignorance guide your decisions. You’re always “right,” though, in whatever you decide about your own body, because your health and how you sort out your choices is your own….
Continue ReadingBetter Late Than Never: Gynecology Guidelines Are Issued for Robotic Surgery
Although increasingly popular, robotic surgery has been shown to be risky and expensive, so guidelines for its use issued recently by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the Society of Gynecologic Surgeons (SGS) should be required reading for anyone considering the procedure. Promoted as a minimally invasive procedure for a wide range….
Continue ReadingToo Many Docs Prescribe Drugs Off-Label Too Often
Although drug companies are not allowed to promote or market their products for any use other than those approved by the FDA, doctors may prescribe drugs to some patients to treat conditions other than those included in FDA approval. It’s called “off-label” use, and can result in good outcomes. But Dr. Allen Frances believes that….
Continue ReadingHarmed Patient Deplores Failure to Investigate Bad Surgical Outcome
Medical mistakes are a fact of life, and they’re always troubling. But the problem’s compounded when an adverse outcome has been reported and no one bothers to investigate. That’s what happened nearly four years ago at the Cleveland Clinic when government inspectors investigating a claim threatened to sever the renowned facility’s right to receive Medicare….
Continue ReadingUnnecessary Surgery
See also: Informed consent Surgical errors Unnecessary surgery is an everyday occurrence in America. Powerful money incentives make it so. Fee-for-service doctors, especially surgeons and those who own their own testing equipment, are paid by the quantity of work they do, not the quality of care they provide. So patients in cities with more surgeons….
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