How would you like to be kept alive in a permanent vegetative state for a year just so your hospital can continue to make money?  That is what happened to at least one patient at a hospital in New Jersey and probably to others as well.  Their stories are horrible examples of doctors and hospitals gaming the system to keep the dollars flowing.  If you think this hospital and these doctors are the only ones doing this, you are incredibly naive. Darryl Young, 61, a veteran and former truck driver, needed a heart transplant.  After four years with a mechanical…

Pity the poor carbohydrate.  Carbohydrates, also known as saccharides or carbs, are sugars or starches. They are a major food source and a key form of energy for most organisms.  We need them to survive.  Unfortunately, like people, there are good carbs and bad carbs.  Also, just like hanging out with bad people can land you in jail, running with a bad crowd of carbs can cause you lots of trouble. Most of the foods pictured above are examples of good carbohydrates.  They are complex carbohydrates and have a low glycemic index.  That means that they slowly release their energy into…

Last month, I blogged on the alarmingly high rate of preventable medical injuries occurring in hospitals.  The blog post was based on a well-designed study of randomly-selected Medicare patients discharged from hospitals over a one month period of time.  The study was done by the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services at the request of Congress.  The study used a team of doctors and nurses to identify injuries which were preventable.  The doctors found that almost 12% of all of the Medicare patients experienced a preventable medical injury.  Most of those injuries were serious and some…

We are all familiar with non-profit hospitals.  They are pillars of the community.  They may provide free or nearly free care to the needy or they may do free medical research for the public good.  The one thing they don’t do is make money for themselves.  That is why they are called non-profit.  Sadly, very little of what we think we know about non-profit hospitals is true. Banner Health is a large non-profit hospital chain with its headquarters in Phoenix.  It operates 28 hospitals, urgent care facilities, clinics, and other health care facilities in six states.  In 2017, it had…

Here we are, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. If there is one thing we hear over and over again, it is the importance of washing our hands. While this is undoubtedly important in the current situation, it obscures the fact that personal hygiene among medical providers has long been honored more in the breach than in the observance. It hasn’t been that long since medicine discovered what is called germ theory: that bacteria exist and cause infections.  In 1846, germ theory was still unknown and an obscure Hungarian doctor, Ignaz Semmelweis, was puzzled. His hospital had two maternity…

Doctors and hospitals win 85% to 90% of the medical malpractice cases tried across this country.  This percentage holds true even when the facts strongly favor the patient.  Why can’t patients get a favorable verdict from their fellow citizens?  There are a number of likely explanations. One of the likely explanations is the successful campaign by the health care industry and its insurers to persuade the public that most medical malpractice cases are frivolous.  National and state legislators believe this, especially if they are Republicans.  They pass restrictive laws to take away patients’ rights in the name of saving the…

Florida is one of the states in which the state legislature fell for the argument that there was a medical malpractice crisis that required taking away the rights of patients in order to protect doctors, hospitals and their insurance companies.  Millions were spent lobbying the legislature and, for those seeking special treatment at the expense of their fellow citizens, it was money well-spent.  Florida passed a number of laws which restricted patient rights in an attempt to end the “crisis.” One of the laws prohibited the adult children of people who died because of medical malpractice from seeking damages arising…

I was going to give this post a title about getting what you pay for in medicine as in many other walks of life.  Then I thought better of it.  The pricing of medical care is so crazy and opaque, you often end up paying more for poorer care.  Better to focus on quality of care than cost. First, a warning about recommendations.  It never ceases to amaze me how some of the worst doctors I encounter get good reviews on line or have patients or even other doctors who recommend them.  Just because your neighbor or bridge partner received…

There is often a debate about just how much medical malpractice there is.  Advocates for the medical industry and their insurance companies would have you believe that there is very little malpractice and that lawsuits claiming malpractice are almost always frivolous.  Patient advocates on the other hand, point to estimates of malpractice causing hundreds of thousands of deaths each year.  Each side accuses the other of not having proof to support their claims. Much medical care takes place in hospitals.  Malpractice in hospitals makes up a large part of the medical malpractice in the United States.  This year marks the…