A man came into the Denver VA hospital complaining of a painful hernia near his stomach. His doctor knew he needed surgery immediately but another doctor had ordered a chest-ray, which is standard practice. The X-ray revealed a shadow, possibly a mass (cancer) or more likely a harmless cluster of blood vessels. A follow-up CT scan showed his lung was fine but found something suspicious on his adrenal gland. A second CT scan cleared his adrenal gland but by this time two months had gone by. It would be another four months due to scheduling conflicts before the man finally got his surgery. This “cascade of care” is what results when one test is ambiguous resulting in additional tests that ultimately find nothing was wrong in the first place. These unnecessary tests and procedures are what medical research refers to as “low-value care.” There are no clinical benefits from low-value services and potential for harm.
Category: Health Reform
Has CMS Gone Totally Woke?
On April 18, 2022, CMS issued a proposed rule that will force medical providers to advance a divisive and potentially discriminatory agenda. As explained by Do No Harm:
- CMS wants to collect a wide variety of personal data from patients in order to create more precise categorizations of patients along race, gender, and other demographic lines.
- CMS wants hospitals to report confidential patient information to highlight potential gaps in care between groups of patients. By labeling these differences as disparities, CMS could use this information to reward or punish certain healthcare facilities.
- The proposed rule would distract medical professionals from providing care to patients and instead saddle them with a new mandate focused on politicized and non-medical issues.
What Sweden Got Right
Swedish students under the age of 16 didn’t miss a single day of school to COVID closure and were never masked. According to this study:
- No COVID-19 related learning loss in reading in Swedish primary school students.
- The proportion of students with weak reading skills did not increase during the pandemic.
- Students from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds were not especially affected.
HT: Committee to Unleash Prosperity
Monday Links – 13 June 2022
- In addition to Obamacare’s “family glitch” there is also a “rural glitch.”
- Why don’t the Chinese use a highly effective mRNA vaccine as a booster? Because that would be tantamount to admitting that their homegrown Sinopharm vaccine was inferior.
- State of Virginia to foster kids: turn over your Social Security benefits or else.
- Improved prevention, screening and treatment has helped to avert 3.5 million cancer deaths in the US over the past 3 decades. However, the cancer death rate among Blacks is almost twice the rate for Whites.
- Cancer cure breakthrough: personalized treatment that relies on the patient’s DNA. HT: Tyler