The authors of the New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst article urge countries to allocate 1 percent of their health care budgets toward establishing standards and processes for assessing the value of health outcomes. What matters most to patients is the fundamental principle of value-based health care. The cost of unnecessary care amounts to billions [...]
Are you satisfied with your health benefits plan? That’s one of the many questions asked of over 2,000 employers, running large and small businesses, by the annual survey from KFF. Approximately 153 million workers and their families receive health benefits from employers in the U.S. Therefore, the survey results offer a window on the current [...]
Harvard researchers who recently wrote an essay analyzed data from Medicare to draw conclusions about hospitalists and surgeons who treat hospital in-patients for non-elective admissions. The researchers grouped the physicians by age to determine which groups performed better. The yardstick by which they were measured was mortality within 30 days of admission. The sample size [...]
Join Paul Pender, ophthalmologist and author of Standing Up & Speaking Out for Patients & Doctors, as he discusses the need for a change in mindset and a willingness to adopt new concepts in health care. Paul believes that building unique relationships within a cooperative framework is necessary for success, but that alone is not [...]
On the podcast Rx for Success (episode 144) I discuss my new ebook, Standing Up & Speaking Out for Patients & Doctors, as well as my role as an advisor to Vxtra Health. My interview with Dr. Cook speaks to the values that attracted us to healthcare in the first place, part of what I [...]
Patients may find themselves caught in the middle between their health insurance company and their oncologist when it comes to selecting the drugs used to treat their cancer. Why is this? The American Cancer Society explains biologic drugs (derived from living organisms such as yeast, bacteria, or animal cells) and biosimilar drugs, which behave similarly [...]
Our perfectionism is often worn like a badge of honor. It signifies our complete commitment, at times at the expense of others. Wanting to do your best job is what drives “good” perfectionism. Woody Allen quipped, “80 percent of life is just showing up.” And the other 20 percent is reserved for perfectionists. Success often [...]
An essay posted by Fareeha Kahn, MD (“A hospitalist’s struggle to find teamwork in academic medicine“), raises an important issue. The problem of lack of collaboration is not unique to academic medicine. The problem is the result of misaligned incentives. Having read the work of Harvard Business School professor Michael E. Porter, I better understand [...]
“My take on the Task Force statement is that clinical judgment should rule as to whether or not screening is indicated for glaucoma. Family history, race, diabetes, and other risk factors should be considered for such screening, especially in the face of potential asymptomatic damage. How often have doctors said, ‘If you had only come [...]
In a published statement in JAMA Network on May 24/31, 2022, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force found that there was insufficient evidence for screening for primary open-angle glaucoma in adults. They could not find a way to balance harms versus benefits for screening in general. But is this reasoning faulty? It is well known [...]