David Cutler, an adviser to the President stated in his analysis that “it costs far more to prolong the lives of the elderly ($145,000 per year gained) than the young ($31,600), and the rate of spending on the oldest Americans has grown the fastest.” While it would be politically difficult to tell the elderly that we [...]
Two bills have just been put forward regarding Medicare- #2170 in the Senate and #4452 in the House. Each requires healthcare providers including doctors to accept 110% of Medicare rates for health insurance or risk loss of their license. Besides Medicare, doctors would be forced to accept all patients from other insurance plans offered by [...]
Part II: Solutions Standardized Language While investigating, examining, and evaluating multiple ontologies and coding languages, software designers and certification agencies have lost sight of the fact that clinicians transfer information in medicalese, for want of a better term. Computer to computer transmission requires transmission protocols for efficient readable transfer of data. Clinician to clinician transmission requires [...]
Today’s article is written and brought to you by Dr. Drussia of Medisyn Part I The single most important tool in the clinician’s arsenal-access to other attending to other attending clinicians’ clinical information- has been lost in the debate about increased spending, stimulus packages, interoperability, the definition of EHR and the meaning of “meaningful use”. [...]
I thought these were some interesting and fun facts about sex that I wanted to share with you today from OMG Facts. Having sex can reduce a fever because of the sweat produced. Sex is also a pain reliever, ten times more effective than Valium: immediately before orgasm, levels of the hormone oxytocin rise by [...]
The American Medical Association sponsored a study of health insurance premiums and blames the rise on market control by a few, large insurance companies. Republicans propose to allow the public to buy insurance coverage across state lines in order to expand competition. Critics believe that this would foster a loss of state oversight but supporters [...]
Please take a moment to read this (and act on it!) MASTECTOMY LAW CHANGE Written by a surgeon. I’ll never forget the look in my patients eyes when I had to tell them they had to go home with the drains, new exercises and no breast. I remember begging the doctors to keep these women in the [...]
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius called a meeting to discuss escalating premiums with state insurance regulators. Ms. Sebelius proposes that insurance companies post online explanations of their rate hikes. She would also like to see spelled out where the premium revenue is meted out between marketing and administrative expenses in comparison to patient [...]
There are 200,000 physicians who have implemented electronic medical systems thus far. Many are in the investigational phase. The vast majority are still pacing, considering the pros and cons and sitting on the fence. However, for those of you who are on the fence- it’s time for you to come down. The sensible question is [...]
Why is it that the huge varieties of electronic medical systems for healthcare providers can’t “talk” to each other? Vendors and IT developers have created systems that are distinct from one another and due to proprietary laws and ownership, can not interface or communicate with each other. Can you imagine if the person that developed [...]
