I went to a urologist a couple years ago. He examined me and told me he was 85% sure what I had was not serious and would resolve on its own. However, if I wanted to be 100% sure, there was an in-office test ($450) and an MRI ($350) that he could order for me. I got the feeling he was probably really 95% sure I was fine. The urologist likely offered additional tests out of defensive medicine and the fact that some patients desire more care than others. I was cash pay so I opted out of it.
Category: Direct Primary Care
Do We Really Need Primary Care Physicians? What Do They Do?
Americans are constantly being told they need a primary care physician. Supposedly the key to good health is having a close relationship with your family doctor. According to a research paper from Stanford and Harvard medical schools we live longer in areas with high concentrations of primary care physicians:
Friday Links
- Launch price for a course of treatment for Type 1 diabetes approaches $200,000. We predicted the IRA bill would lead to higher launch prices. But even we are shocked by this one.
- Anthony Fauci to be deposed in a lawsuit against the federal government for allegedly colluding with social media companies to censor speech.
- Hospital care at home: outcomes are actually better, but it’s scheduled to go away when the (Covid) public health emergency goes away. (NYT)
- Rare and unusual Covid side effects: hairy tongues, purple toes, welts that sprout on the face, and more. (NYT)
- “Apparently, to the people that write [CDC] guidelines, more people dying of COVID is less of a concern if the deaths are more racially balanced.”
- Over half of Covid deaths are among people who have been vaccinated.
- Scotland is considering these reforms to the National Health Service:
An option to “Pause funding of new development/drugs” unless they can be proved to save the NHS money… Stopping care services altogether and instead sending patients home for care.
Monday Links
- Ross Douthat on Effective Altruism. (recommended)
- Sen. Cassidy becomes the ranking member of the Senate HELP committee. The Democratic Chairman is Bernie Sanders.
- How easy should it be to get an abortion pill?
- Food stamps account for 20% of Coke’s revenues. This is a program that was started, you may remember, as an effort to improve nutrition among low-income families.
- Do antidepressants really work? That’s debatable. (NYT)
- AMA president on Dobbs: “I never imagined colleagues would find themselves tracking down hospital attorneys before performing urgent abortions, when minutes count … asking if a 30% chance of maternal death, or impending renal failure, meet the criteria for the state’s exemptions…”
In fact, life and death decisions are made in hospitals all the time by physicians who know full well that lawyers will be looking over their shoulders. That’s probably not a bad thing.