January 4th, 2012 by BarbaraFederOstrov in News
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Health Costs: In an unusual stance, a leading doctor’s group has issued ethical guidelines that include taking cost into account when recommending medical treatments for patients, Rob Stein reports for NPR’s Shots blog.
BioMed Jobs: A Texas biomedical research center that was supposed to create 5,000 jobs with a $50 million state grant has fallen far short of those goals, and the private company that received 70 percent of the money has pulled out of the project, Matthew Watkins reports for The Eagle.
Health Reform: What’s happening in health reform this year? Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post lays out some key dates for 2012.
Medicare: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Reporting on Health - The Reporting on Health Daily Briefing*
December 31st, 2011 by Toni Brayer, M.D. in News, Opinion
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| Kwashiorkor in Niger |
Is it plausible that one small hospital in rural Northern California treated 1,030 cases of Kwashiorkor within a two year period?
Before you answer that, let me explain what Kwashiorkor is. It is a severe form of protein malnutrition…starving to death actually. It is the type of starvation you see in African children. It is so severe that the patient needs special nutritional support including special re-feeding with vitamins and it occurs mainly in children ages 1-4. Adults can starve to death, but they do not develop classic Kwashiorkor.
Medicare pays hospitals a flat rate based on diagnosis codes for patients. Patients with more severe coded illnesses get paid at a much higher rate. Shasta Regional Medical Center, located in Redding, Shasta County, California is under the microscope for billing Medicare (our tax dollars at work) for 1,030 cases of Kwashiorkor to the tune of $11,463 for each diagnosis. This medical center is Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*
December 29th, 2011 by BarbaraFederOstrov in Health Policy, News
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ER Waits: Hospitals’ marketing claims of short waits for emergency room care aren’t backed up by any evidence, John Dorschner reports for the Miami Herald.
Chronic Fatigue: The editors of prestigious journal Science have retracted a controversial paper linking chronic fatigue syndrome to the XMRV virus; critics of the study believe contamination of samples was to blame for the results, which have not been replicated by other scientists, Ivan Oransky reports for Reuters.
Environmental Health: Tough new EPA rules on mercury emissions from oil- and coal-burning power plants are being Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Reporting on Health - The Reporting on Health Daily Briefing*
December 29th, 2011 by BobDoherty in Health Policy, News
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Last week, Speaker Boehner announced that the House and Senate have agreed on a two month extension of current Medicare payment rates, the payroll tax cut, and unemployment benefits.
My understanding is that the agreement has the House accepting the Senate’s proposal to extend the payroll tax break, unemployment insurance benefits, and current Medicare payment rates through the end of February, along with an agreement with the Senate to appoint a House-Senate conference committee to begin negotiations on a longer-term extension. It remains unclear exactly when the votes in the House and Senate will take place, and at least in the Senate, it will require unanimous consent by all Senators. If it passes both the House and Senate, Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*
December 28th, 2011 by RyanDuBosar in Research
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The vast majority of U.S. physicians are moderately to severely stressed or burned out on an average day, with moderate to dramatic increases in the past three years, according to a survey.
Almost 87% of all respondents reported being moderately to severely stressed and/or burned out on an average day using a 10-point Likert scale, and 37.7% specifying severe stress and/or burnout.
Almost 63% of respondents said they were more stressed and/or burned out than three years ago, using a 5-point Likert scale, compared with just 37.1% who reported feeling the same level of stress. The largest number of respondents (34.3%) identified themselves as “much more stressed” than they were three years ago.
The survey of physicians conducted by Physician Wellness Services, a company specializing in employee assistance and intervention services, and Cejka Search, a recruitment firm, was conducted across the U.S., and across all specialties, in September 2011. Respondents Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Hospitalist*
