The recently released study was conducted by the Boston-based Lown Institute, an independent healthcare think tank. The organization examined 1,800 nonprofit hospitals in 20 states, using average numbers from 2020, 2021 and 2022.
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“If we’re really going to grapple with the problems of health care, which are so expensive, unaffordable, driving medical debt — all the things that everybody knows about and are problematic — I think this is a moment to rethink some of that and ask: can we have more transparency?" Saini said. “Can we really try to understand what the hell is going on, how the money is flowing?”
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The Lown institute keeps an eye on fraud, waste, and dysfunction in American healthcare, and every year they present the Shkreli awards, named for infamous pharmabro Martin Shkreli. Here we summarize the top 10 terrible operators of 2024.
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"The whole idea that that there's a functioning market is a fantasy," Saini said "Given that fact, the way money flows is not at all rational, and that's why we get what we get in terms of the prices of everything."
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From selling deceased patients' body parts to denying cancer treatment over upfront payments, the Lown Institute's annual Shkreli Awards spotlight the most egregious examples of profiteering and dysfunction in American healthcare. Dr. Vikas Saini, President of the Lown Institute, walks us through 2024's "winners" and what they reveal about the state of our healthcare system.
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We’re bringing you highlights from this year’s ceremony – featuring things like human bones for sale without the consent of the deceased or their families, phantom urinary catheters, and so much more – and some reflections from the Lown Institute’s president, Dr. Vikas Saini.
“Showing all these stories together paints a picture of a health care system in desperate need of transformation,” Saini said at the ceremony. “Not just because the stories are shocking, but because often what they're depicting, like Martin Shkreli's infamous price hike, is perfectly legal.”
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his is the eighth year in which the awards have been given. Winners are chosen by a panel including doctors, public health experts, journalists, and patient advocates. The awards are named after Martin Shkreli, the “pharma bro” who became infamous when he bought the maker of the anti-parasitic drug Daraprim and increased the price 50-fold.
Speaking at the ceremony, Lown Institute president Vikas Saini said, “All these stories paint a picture of a healthcare industry in desperate need of transformation. Doing these awards every year shows us that this is nothing new.”
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"Every year we are dumbfounded by the amount of profiteering" that candidates for these awards engaged in, Vikas Saini, MD, president of the Lown Institute, told MedPage Today. "It's always a mixture of out-and-out fraud as well as just general venality and grasping."
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This set of Shkreli Award winners is the institute's eighth installment, but the level of outrageousness in the actions of this year's candidates is the most disturbing, Saini said. There are "regulators and people in positions of authority whose jobs they are supposed to do, but instead they turn and look the other way. A lot of this stuff that happens is because there's no cops on the beat."
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