Health Reform – Page 327 – The Goodman Institute Health Blog

Should Medicare Pay for Cancer Screening in Healthy People? No but Seniors May Want to

Posted on August 11, 2023August 11, 2023 by Devon Herrick

A while back I wrote about Galleri, the holy grail of cancer screening tests, saying:

Cancer is usually treatable if caught early. The cancers that are the deadliest (such as pancreatic cancer) are lethal because they are difficult to catch early. Many deadly cancers have no symptoms until they’ve spread. About 90% of cancer deaths are due to metastatic cancer, that is cancer that has spread beyond the original location. In theory most cancer could be treatable if only it could be caught sooner, before it has a chance to spread.

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What Covid Public Policies Got Right

Posted on August 11, 2023 by John C. Goodman

COVID forced all states, including Connecticut, to grant far greater leeway to patients and providers in managing care. Physicians could practice across state lines, restrictions on telehealth were dropped, nurse practitioners and other nonphysician providers were granted greater power to treat patients, and hospitals no longer had to beg the permission of states to offer…

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Pharmacies Put More OTC Drugs Behind the Counter to Avoid Retail Theft

Posted on August 10, 2023 by Devon Herrick

Over the years I’ve written a lot about shopping for drugs, using price comparison and other techniques like pill splitting, asking for a generic or all the above. The best deal in health care (almost the only deal in health care) is over-the-counter (OTC) drugs. Almost all OTC drugs were once available only by prescription.

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Coworking Clinics Tailored to Physicians are the Next Big Thing (I hope)

Posted on August 9, 2023 by Devon Herrick

Coworking spaces go back decades even if the name was changed to give the idea an aura of originality. One thing that is new is the concept is now being tailored for physicians. This is where an old idea gets interesting. Increasingly, physicians are opting to work for hospitals, large practices they don’t have a stake in and other employers whose interests may not align with their patients’. The reason many physicians are becoming employees rather than self-employed is because the financial cost of setting up an office is prohibitive, not to mention the headache of managing a small clinic.

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