- How big a problem are counterfeit drugs?
- Republicans don’t like Biden’s new budget.
- Biden gaffes: “We added more to the national debt than any president in American history.” And “Send me to Congress.”
- Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and the Netherlands allow doctors to commit [euthanasia], so have become as permissive as realistically possible.
Category: Direct Primary Care
More Physicians Messaging Patients by Email (and Billing for it)
Probably around 50 years after telephones made their arrived in doctors’ offices physicians stopped using them to communicate with patients. The reason was because health insurance enrollment was growing and third-party payers were not willing to reimburse for phone consultations, while few doctors wanted to work for free. That has been changing over the past few years (the former, not the latter).
Wednesday Links
- Claude 3 gets 101 on an IQ test — beats all the other AIs.
- First OTC birth control pill arrives. Something our health economists have been promoting for years.
- In addition to Neanderthal DNA, billions of people have Denisovan DNA. (NYT)
- Does poverty affect decision-making in a way that may cause one to remain in poverty? The evidence is weak – despite many attempts to establish it.
- More than 80,000 Americans die of opioid overdose each year despite the availability of lifesaving medications like methadone and buprenorphine. Barely one-fifth of Americans with opioid use disorder receive either drug.
Annual Exams are Often a Complete Waste of Time and Money
There has long been a belief that preventive medical services save money. The theory holds that if Americans’ primary care physicians ordered more preventive medical screening services we would not only be healthier but the cost of the preventive care would be more than offset by the savings from more serious care avoided. In other words, the cost of a colonoscopy would be offset by not getting colon cancer. The only problem with the theory is that it is wrong.