Most people pray that they remain healthy. Since we know it is unlikely we will always remain healthy, may I suggest a more practical prayer? Pray you only get common diseases.
Before a doctor can treat you, she needs to figure out what ails you. This involves the art of diagnosis, and it is an art. Misdiagnosis, either the failure to accurately diagnose an illness or the failure to reach a diagnosis at all, is one of the leading causes of injuries due to malpractice that I see in my work.
When a doctor is confronted with a sick patient,
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More On The Malpractice You Are Almost Powerless To Prevent
Last week I wrote about medication mistakes in hospitals and the factors that make them so common and so deadly. This week I want to write about the Tennessee nurse whose medication error killed a patient and who ended up being prosecuted and convicted in the death.
RaDonda Vaught was only two years into her nursing career in 2017 when she made a mistake that will haunt her for the rest of her life. She was assigned to administer a sedative, Versed, to an elderly patient who was about to undergo an MRI scan and who was anxious about the
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The Malpractice You Are Almost Powerless To Prevent
Over the years, I have suggested a number of strategies to prevent or at least reduce the risk that you will be the victim of medical malpractice. There is one form of malpractice, however, that is very difficult to prevent. It is the risk of a medication error while you are in the hospital.
Hospitals are complicated places. Patients are constantly coming in and leaving. Nurses are constantly coming on and off shift. Many medical specialists may play a role in the care of a single patient. All of these health care providers must communicate with each other in a
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The Medicare Advantage Trap
More and more eligible Americans are signing up for Medicare Advantage plans. And why not? Celebrity spokespeople promise low to no premiums and benefits not available under traditional Medicare. It sounds almost too good to be true. “Get the benefits you are entitled to. Call now and an insurance specialist will take your call and explain this wonderful offer to you.” Of course, as you should know by now, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
First, just a quick reminder of how Medicare Advantage works. The companies that participate in the Medicare Advantage market are usually existing
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Maybe, Just Maybe, Science Will Save Us From The Superbugs
Superbugs! That is the name given to antibiotic resistant bacteria. Because of our indiscriminate use of antibiotics, more and more bacteria are developing resistance to them and posing an ever greater threat that we will be forced back to the bad old days before antibiotics when bacteria killed wide swaths of the population, especially the young and the infirm. Already it is estimated that superbugs kill 5 million people a year and that this number will increase to 10 million by the year 2050. 10 million a year is one person every three seconds.
The rise of the antibiotic resistant
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The Impaired Physician
Doctors are only human. They are prey to the same frailties that plague the rest of us. Like the rest of us, some of them become addicted to alcohol or use narcotics or other substances that can affect their judgment and performance. Unfortunately, when this happens, their human frailty can affect the health of those of us who are or who become their patients.
If you think you are unlikely to encounter an impaired physician, you are wrong. Current estimates are that 10 to 15% of physicians will experience impairment due to alcohol or drugs at some point during their
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Medical Tourism – Almost Always A Bad Idea
As you can probably guess, medical tourism is the name given to the practice of going to a foreign country for medical treatment, usually because it is cheaper there. One of the most common treatments sought by medical tourists is cosmetic surgery and one of the most common places American medical tourists go is Mexico. There are always risks associated with cosmetic surgery but they are much higher in Mexico.
Americans are nothing if not cost conscious. Look at this advertisement. Who could resist? Affordable health care with a nearby beach and margaritas to boot. What could go wrong? The
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Doctors Who Steal
I have been writing lately about medical ethics, which are sometimes more ignored than followed. The following are instances of doctors being greedy and trying to steal from insurance companies or from Medicare and Medicaid. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you earn or what is your level of education. Money can be tempting and some doctors, for a variety of reasons, find the temptation to be irresistible. And remember, this is only the tip of the iceberg.
- A Michigan doctor has been charged in a scheme along with a pharmacist to create fake prescriptions for specialty drugs
The Private Equity Investor Will See You Now, But Only For A Few Moments
On the whole, capitalism has been good for the United States. Lately, however, the rise of private equity companies and their incessant search for centers of profitability has put the medical profession under great strain and our health at risk.
Illustration: The Smash And Grab Economy – Courtesy of Mother Jones
The basic rationale for private equity is that, through the choosing of wise investments, it can achieve returns substantially higher than those of the stock market. Sometimes their tactics can be ruinous. For example, a private equity company may buy a business with substantial assets, but which is not
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Universal Health Care, Please
The United States is the only major developed nation in the world not to have universal health care. We are the richest nation in the world. Other nations can afford it and so can we. It is not only a the right thing to do, it makes good economic sense as well.
No one should die because they cannot afford health care. No one who works hard at a job and pays their bills should be forced into bankruptcy or into homelessness because of unexpected or large medical bills. Seniors should not have to choose between the medicines they need
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Those Entrusted With Patient Care Need to Put Patients First
Over the past few years there have been an increasing number of stories about doctors who sexually abuse their patients. Almost all are serial abusers. They don’t just abuse one patient; they abuse multiple patients over the years until they either retire, die, or are caught. What is truly troubling, and is the subject of this post, is that many of them are well-known, well-respected doctors, who work at leading hospitals or universities. In many cases, the hospital or university has had complaints or reasons to investigate the doctors, but have done nothing. Why not, you ask? If you have
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Hospital Secrecy Hurts Us All
Hospitals are complex business and healthcare organizations. In large hospitals in metropolitan areas, there are teams of healthcare providers working around the clock and communicating with each other through the patient’s medical chart. The wonder is not that errors in communication occasionally lead to a preventable error, the wonder is that it does not happen more frequently than it does. In my experience, you cannot be in the hospital for three days without a preventable medical error occurring in your care. Fortunately, most preventable medical errors do not cause significant harm to the patient.
Sadly, we have very little hard
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Our Broken Health Care Delivery System: Example 355
Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) are a major source of dysfunction in the distribution and pricing of prescription medications. PBMs negotiate prices with drug manufacturers on behalf of insurance plans and determine what drugs go on the plans’ drug formularies, the list that determines what drugs the insurance plan will cover for its insureds. It is important for a drug manufacturer that its products be on as many plan formularies as possible. The more formularies your drugs are listed on, the more you will sell.
PBMs came into existence as a way for the health plans to control the amount they
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When Hospitals Choose Your Doctor For You
I have often written about the importance of doing some homework when choosing a new doctor. There are a lot of resources out there and it is foolish not to take advantage of them. A poorly-qualified doctor, or one who is just not very good, can cause you or a loved one severe injuries, including death. Unfortunately, many times when we need a doctor, we don’t get to choose. We must accept whomever the hospital has selected to provide our care. While we may technically have a say, as a practical matter we are stuck with whoever the hospital has
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The You Tube Trained Surgeon
You Tube and social media are recognized disrupters of almost everything. Now you can add surgery to the list.
Hernia is the general name given to the protrusion of something through a retaining structure into an area where it does not belong. There are all kinds of hernias: brainstem, inguinal, stomach, diaphragmatic and so on. Today, I want to discuss stomach hernias.
A stomach hernia occurs when there is a tear in the muscles of the abdominal wall and organs push through. They can be small or large. Small hernias may not need to be repaired and, if they are,
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State Medical Boards Are Not Protecting The Public
In October I discussed the case of Dr. Christopher Dunstch, a Texas neurosurgeon, who was so incompetent that he injured or killed 33 of the 37 patients upon whom he performed spine surgery. One of the surgeons who was called treat some of Dr. Duntsch’s injured patients reported him to the Texas Medical Board. The Board opened an investigation, but refused to suspend Dr. Duntsch’s medical license while it investigated the charges against him. Due to the Board’s inaction, he was allowed to continue to operate and injure patients for another six months. At the end of the six
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