Dr. Sandeep Jauhar, whose recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine didn’t sit too well with me, published a great article in the New York Times earlier this week on the pitfalls of pay for performance (P4P) schemes, where doctors are given financial incentives to practice cookbook medicine. Stating that “doctors have seldom [...]
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A new study published in JAMA shows that only 2% of medical students are considering being primary care physicians, citing the bad lifestyle as one of the main factors. I don’t blame them. Primary care physicians are overworked and underpaid. Why should any medical student with over $100,000 of debt settle such an under-appreciated job? [...]
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Two recent reports present differing views on the status of consumer-driven health plans, i.e. high deductible plans that are often paired with health savings accounts (HSAs). One report shows increased adoption of these plans by 43% over 2007 accounting for about 13% of all plans offered by employers. The opposing perspective is presented by a [...]
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In the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Sandeep Jauhar opposes the recent trend of admitting older (aka nontraditional) students to medical school. His article, entitled “From All Walks of Life- Nontraditional Medical Students and the Future of Medicine” is a mouthful of jargon from the dusty vaults of the academic [...]
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An ongoing survey of practicing physicians on Sermo has revealed important data on the implications of the proposed Medicare cuts on patients and medical practices. Over 1100 physicians have so far responded in to the survey. Here are the highlights:
90% of physicians say that the proposed decrease in [...]
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Respect for individual liberty is the basis of an ethical society and should be the prominent feature of the ideal healthcare system. The main problem with our healthcare system today is that both doctors and patients have lost their freedom of choice. Third party control of healthcare financing with their cartel-like price fixing behavior and [...]
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If your dog gets sick and need a bronchoscopy, you would have to shell out about $2500 for the procedure, according a couple of veterinary price lists that I found online. The same procedure done in a human is reimbursed by Medicare $156.29 to $377.45 (for a CPT code of 31622 in New York City).
Human [...]
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Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation, on a 355 to 59 vote, to postpone a July 1st 10.6% cut in payments to physicians treating Medicare patients. They instead recommended trimming the government’s funding of the wasteful Medicare Advantage programs, a proposition that the White House has threatened to veto.
The Medicare cuts can [...]
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Here’s an update on where our healthcare dollars are going (placed next to the profits of the “evil” Halliburton types).
You decide who is more evil.
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There is nothing wrong with making money unless it’s at the expense of retarding innovation, competition, and delivery of apporpriate services, as it’s the case with our health insurance system which is operating according to principles set forth by the mafia and third world dictatorships (I’ll write more about this befitting analogy later).
So here’s the [...]
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