Have you called your primary care provider lately asking for an appointment? If so it was probably farther away than you had hoped. The national average wait to see a physician is 26 days. Once you see your doctor he or she is probably cordial but somewhat hurried. The average doctor-patient encounter lasts from 10 to 15 minutes, but that figure is probably skewed by Medicare patients who require longer appointments than average. There is a significant shortage of physicians.
Category: Consumer-Driven Health Care
FTC Cracking Down on Drug Company Consolidation
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is scrutinizing mergers more carefully than in the past. The federal agency is currently trying to block a merger between Amgen and Horizon Therapeutics.
In its lawsuit, the FTC said that if it allowed Amgen’s $27.8 billion purchase to go through, Amgen could pressure the companies that manage access to prescription drugs — pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs — to boost the two extremely expensive Horizon products in a way that would inhibit any competition.
Fraud Alert: Unsolicited Covid Tests Sent to Seniors, Bill to Medicare
When Covid first began to spread it was difficult for patients to obtain Covid tests without going to an emergency room. When tests first became widely available there were drive-through testing centers with lines that snaked for blocks. When my wife began to feel ill in January of 2021, I made her an appointment for a Covid test at a Walmart Neighborhood Market pharmacy. The soonest appointment available was eight days away. We pulled up to the drive-through window and a pharmacy technician gave us the sealed swab and instructed my wife how to use it. My wife sealed it in the appropriate bag and deposited it in an adjacent laboratory collection box outside the drive-through. The results were relayed to us by phone a day or two later.
The Durham Report
Why are the mainstream media outlets so intent on convincing us there is no there, there?
Maybe it’s because the report invites us to review not just the behavior of the FBI and the intelligence community during the Trump presidency, but also the behavior of the media during all that time.
Here is a brief review of all the times Donald Trump was called a “traitor” on the editorial pages of the New York Times and elsewhere. This was not just schoolyard name calling. In column after column, writers encouraged readers to believe that Trump might actually be the agent of a foreign power.