Elisabeth Rosenthal, a reporter with the New York Times, is doing American doctors a favor. Her series, Paying Till it Hurts, is forcing us to face our role in the US healthcare problem. That’s a good thing, because, as it goes in the practice of Medicine, the first step to achieving good outcomes is identifying […]
Category: Health Care Reform
If you had to write a one page memo to a Senator/Representative detailing the one thing they could do to improve US healthcare, what would it be? For me, it’s improving the wastefulness of our system. Here is my attempt at a memo: Comparative Effectiveness Research is a win-win: Knowledge always is. US healthcare is […]
When the editors of Medscape asked me to write a Top Ten article on the best Cardiology stories in 2013, I jumped at the chance. I spent a lot of time thinking about Cardiology this year. I was invested. Plus, 2013 was a year for pivoting–big time pivoting. What made news in 2013 was not […]
Some things are hard to see until one leaves his or her normal surroundings. For American doctors, especially procedure-based doctors, it’s easy to get used to the wastefulness and largesse of delivering care. Then you travel. You go to another healthcare system and are left to gasp. An AF ablation ‘costs’ 100,000 in the US, […]
Reform of healthcare in the United States is infinitely complex. Millions of words have been written. The noise drowns out the signal. It’s rare therefore that one paragraph could sum up the problem so concisely. It came from Edward Davies, an editor at the British Medical Journal. He was quoting journalist Owen Dwyer who was […]
On day 1 of ObamaCare, the headline in our paper said “SHUTDOWN.” It’s here; it’s really here. You might be wondering what’s been going on in the hospital or office–the contact points where healthcare actually happens. The funny thing is: nothing seems any different. And…this is the problem with ObamaCare. It hasn’t, won’t, or perhaps […]
Flexibility… -Bend easy without breaking. -The ability to be easily modified. -Willingness to change or compromise. Social media physician leader Dr. Bryan Vartabedian wrote a post last week in which he called flexibility a necessary skill of the 21st century doctor. He got the idea from another physician leader, Dr. Eric Topol. I’ve been thinking […]
Earlier this year a famous group of researchers did a careful study on the relationship between surgical complications and hospital finances. Their findings should jolt you: The average hospital makes money when patients suffer complications from procedures. This is outrageous. It is fee-for-service at its worst. The first thought that popped into my mind after […]
This morning I awoke to a picture of myself in the Wall Street Journal. I was asked to comment on the effects of the coming Sunshine Act. Respected health care journalist Peter Loftus found me through social media channels. What follows are some thoughts about how the Sunshine Act might play out. — Every Thursday […]
After reporting recently on how current healthcare reform efforts are extracting humanity from the patient-caregiver interaction, I decided to review other posts I have written on the matter. I found this guest post by Dr. Edward J. Schloss (Twitter ID @EJSMD), medical director of cardiac electrophysiology at Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, OH. It was originally […]
Be sure: what follows are not complaints; these are just the facts. — Here’s a recent exchange from an enlightened physician leader, one who has yet to give up: “My colleagues are discouraged and frustrated every day, leaving the office defeated and fatigued. There are other ways to practice.” High healthcare costs get most of […]