I often warn patients to avoid the emergency room (ER) at all costs – mostly because it will cost you a fortune. I also advise patients to avoid hospitals in general unless they are too sick to go anywhere else. Hospitals are the most expensive place to have medical care done that can be done elsewhere. It turns out, the ER is not just dangerous for patients financially, but also a dangerous place to work.
Category: Consumer-Driven Health Care
Thursday Links
- The latest on Fentanyl deaths.
- “Using published data from the Netherlands and Belgium, where medically assisted death is legal, we estimated that…Medical assistance in dying could reduce annual health care spending across Canada by between $34.7 million and $138.8 million, exceeding the $1.5–$14.8 million in direct costs associated with its implementation.”
- Why are we still funding the WHO?
- Why we need “right to try”: family had to travel to Italy for life saving drug for their daughter that the FDA was slow to approve in the US.
- More than half of eligible physicians received a payment from a pharmaceutical drug or device maker over 10 years.
Bad Deal: Hospitals Discover Concierge Medicine
I just read about a troubling trend: Hospital-owned concierge medical practices. This is where hospitals establish a concierge practice for the purpose of attracting a few hundred wealthy members (I mean patients) willing to pay $2,000 to $4,000 apiece to be able to get quick access to their physician.
Wednesday Links
- Cancer phobia: In 2017, 21.3 million American women had cancer screening tests even though they were outside the age ranges for recommended screening. 10.1 million men outside the recommended age ranges had a PSA test.
- People with Obamacare health insurance are being switched to other plans without their knowledge or consent by rogue agents.
- Why are expensive cancer treatments excluded from Medicare’s price negotiations?
- Henry Miller: “The vaccines saved 2.9 million lives, prevented 12.5 million hospitalizations, and saved $500 billion in hospitalization.”