During the COVID-19 pandemic, heroic clinician narratives have been a prominent feature of media coverage. Health care professionals who worked ceaselessly in intensive care units, sacrificed time with their families to travel to severely affected areas to care for patients with COVID-19, and put themselves in harm’s way have been acknowledged and rightly celebrated. More
UnitedHealthcare's new policy, which could reject as many as 1 in 10 claims, was labeled as "dangerous" by the American Hospital Association. More
Medical subscriptions, a $199 million CEO payday and the race to fix primary care in the U.S. One Medical is betting big that a subscription model can fix primary care. More
The American Board of Pediatrics counts maternity leave as part of its 20-weeks-leave-over-three-years policy. That needs to change. More
STAT’s findings provide an unprecedented look at drug industry influence in state capitols across the 2020 election cycle. More
Many physicians' bonuses, 73% per data from 2019-2020, are tied to relative value units (RVUs), which measure time, skill and effort for each patient a physician sees. Fewer physician bonuses are tied to quality-of-care measures, or protocols and processes that encourage increased patient safety measures and decreased death rates. More
When estimating how well a patient’s kidneys are working, doctors frequently turn to an equation that depends on a question: Is the patient Black? More
The covid-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the challenges facing rural health care, such as lack of broadband internet access and limited public transportation. For much of the vaccine rollout, those barriers have made it difficult for providers, like community health centers, to get shots into the arms of their patients. More
“Hospitals reside in communities and are part of communities. Our view is they shouldn’t just serve a community, they should genuinely be part of a community,” said Vikas Saini, a physician and president of the Lown Institute. “A lot of the contemporary rankings that look at reputation or mortality, surgical complications, don’t capture that dimension. We set out to create a lens through which to view the hospital system that’s different.”
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Pressure is mounting on Congress and the Biden administration to make permanent pandemic-inspired rules that fueled telehealth growth. Some fear fraud and ballooning costs. More
A survey of 164 New York physicians found that one in five were severely distressed during their first COVID-19 triage decisions and last-minute training did not appear to alleviate stress, according to a study yesterday in Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness. More
People don’t trust an industry known for bureaucratic traps and surprise billing to save them from the pandemic. More
It’s called the “history of present illness,” or HPI, and it often includes a patient’s race—which is more likely to detract from care than to improve it More
A new study challenges the conventional wisdom on why many doctors refuse to take Medicaid patients. More
Older adults often take more medications than they need, or than is safe. Increasingly, geriatric experts and their patients are exploring the benefits of “deprescribing.” More
Federal immigration officials failed to monitor medical treatment at a South Georgia detention center where dozens of women say they underwent unwanted procedures, including hysterectomies, newly released documents show. More
Attempt to hold a worker criminally liable for the spread of Covid resulted in Josefina Brito-Fernandez losing her license to work, fearing deportation More
Through the years, we’ve learned not to underestimate the lengths to which institutions and individuals will go to protect their bottom lines. We like to think that no bad behavior can surprise us anymore—but then we learn better. Last year, we found a pharmaceutical company seeking the financially advantageous “orphan” drug designation for a drug it said was for a rare disease. The disease was COVID-19.
When we put all the examples of Shkreli-like behavior together, they stop looking like anecdotes and start looking like evidence. That’s the point of the awards: to highlight the structural weaknesses in health care that allow this kind of behavior to occur.
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The lack of paid sick leave for all disproportionately impacts women and exacerbates the disparities they already face in the workplace. More
This cohort study examines the frequency of use and persistent use of benzodiazepines among patients undergoing major and minor surgical procedures. More