- Tomas Philipson: My calculations suggest that Medicare price controls will actually increase total health care spending by at least $30 billion over 20 years.
- More than 50,000 hospitals now qualify as “safety net” institutions that qualify for 340B status.
- A 2022 survey estimated that 100 million Americans carry medical debt, and nearly 80 percent of medical debt is held by households with zero or negative net worth.
- While increases in profits and cash reserves of nonprofit hospitals grow, charity care does not.
- KFF: health insurers operating through the federal exchanges denied 1 in 5 claims in 2023.
- “The cash price for a colonoscopy within a ten-mile radius of midtown Manhattan ranges from a low of $580 to a high of $4,355.”
Category: Direct Primary Care
Small Towns Recruiting Physicians are Offering Cash and Free Office Rent
What do people do, who live in small towns or rural areas, when they need medical care? They drive to where there are doctors and hospitals. A family member sent me a text the other day saying he was in a regional town 200 miles from his home for a checkup regarding the surgery he got a year ago in that same town.
Senior Retirement Communities in Short Supply Due to Aging Boomers
By 2030 the U.S. population 80 years of age and older will increase to nearly 19 million people, up 21% from today. Experts say 80 is about the age when seniors begin to need help with daily living activities and will begin looking for senior housing. While recently there was a glut of senior living facilities, this will turn into a shortage by 2030.
Nurse Practitioners are a Recent Invention; Founder Dies at 104
It’s easy to forget that seeing an NP was not common until the past 20 years or so. The first NP students enrolled in 1965. It took between 30 to 40 years before NPs gained the authority to do more than work as glorified nurses.