The opioid crisis has grown exponentially – ravaging communities and taking an estimated 64,000 lives each year – escalating into a public health epidemic. In response to the increased availability of synthetic opioids like oxycodone and fentanyl, the Surgeon General called for expanded access to the opioid overdose antidote, naloxone, by using the slogan: Be Prepared. Get Naloxone. Save a life.
Recently, a jury in Oklahoma City ordered insurance giant Aetna to pay $25 million to the family of Orrana Cunningham, an Aetna customer who died of cancer after the company refused to cover radiation therapy. “The jury ruled that Aetna recklessly disregarded its duty to deal fairly and in good faith with Cunningham,” according to a Nov. 10 article by the Associated Press.
In July, 2009, the family of Massachusetts teenager Yarushka Rivera went to their local Walgreens to pick up Topomax, an anti-seizure drug that had been keeping her epilepsy in check for years. Rivera had insurance coverage through MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid insurance program for low-income children, and never ran into obstacles obtaining this life-saving medication.
Every child deserves the best possible start in life, and the statistics show that specialist neonatologists practicing at high-volume NICUs are in the best position to provide it. Just because smaller community hospitals that have invested in state-of-the-art equipment can, technically, deliver preemies, doesn’t mean they should.
Is USC defending “bad boys” with little regard for women? Or is there something else going on? One might argue that threatening your subordinate with visa revocation is borderline sociopathic. Are they being protected because they are physicians or simply because they are men?
Tapeworms represent third parties who have ingratiated themselves into the patient-physician relationship in the interest of the almighty dollar. As the distance has grown between patients and physicians, costs have spiraled out of control. By inviting extra layers of bureaucracy, CMS and other corporations are essentially slapping lipstick on the tapeworm and trying to make CPC look as attractive as Direct Primary Care, but that is an illusion.
Just over a year ago, I met Dr. Shulkin in his office while working in Washington DC on behalf of independent physicians. A highly esteemed colleague of mine previously worked at the same hospital with Dr. Shulkin and scheduled a meeting to discuss healthcare reform. My colleague asked for a “wing woman” and I happily tagged along. Knowing their shared history, an exchange of pleasantries seemed far more likely than the haranguing with insults that ensued. In my opinion, Dr. Shulkin was one of the most pompous men I have ever encountered.
While the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) argues MOC participation makes for better doctors, no credible proof supports this assertion; only initial board certification has been scientifically validated. Seven states already eliminated MOC compliance to maintain licensure, physician hospital employment, or insurance contracting, however this same freedom must be extended to the other 43.
Mayo has fractured trust by misrepresenting operating losses in Albert Lea to justify hospital closure, Dr. Noseworthy condoned prioritizing patients based on their pocketbooks while third quarter earnings went through the roof, and hospital leadership condescendingly compared driving 23 miles in labor as being equivalent to buying ice cream.
Micro-hospitals are best suited to handle short-stay admissions anticipated to be less than 48 hours. Costs are slightly higher than for an urgent care center, yet lower when compared to traditional hospital settings. Micro-hospitals can meet 90 percent of patients’ basic healthcare needs and tend to flourish most in markets with critical service gaps by preventing at-risk populations from falling through the cracks. Ideally, micro-hospitals should be located within 20 miles of a full-service hospital, to facilitate transfer of patients to larger institutions should higher acuity healthcare needs arise.