- In just eight years, nearly 78 million Medicare beneficiaries will face an automatic 11% payment cut in their hospital insurance benefits.
- GOP bill would prohibit the use of quality-adjusted-life-year (QALY) and similar measures for health insurance coverage and payment determinations.
- Related concept: The “value of a statistical life” appears to vary by income. In essence, being wealthier equates to being more willing to buy what might make one “healthier.”
- Reason magazine investigation: woman in federal prison dies of medical neglect.
Category: Direct Primary Care
Hospital Employment of Physicians is a Pain for both Doctors and Patients
When I was young physicians were an independent bunch. Most were self-employed males, who were either sole proprietors or in small group practices. In the past 20 or so years it has become increasingly common for doctors to work for someone else. According to Merritt-Hawkins nearly three-fourths (74%) of physicians now work for hospitals, health care systems or corporate entities. Of physicians accepting new work assignments today, 90% are accepting positions as employees rather than owners or partners.
AI Chatbot Judged More Empathetic than Physicians
The human language artificial intelligence ‘chatbot’ ChatGPT scored higher on empathy than its human counterparts in a recent study of medical questions and answers. When compared to human doctors the AI chatbots answers were preferred 80% of the time. The study appeared in JAMA Internal Medicine. The study used questions from Reddit’s AskDocs social media forum. One possible weakness about…
Dental Therapists are Key to Dental Care in Underserved Areas
I’m seeing my dentist tomorrow for a cleaning. I go two or three times a year. Last year I even wrote about going to Costa Rica for a dental visit to have an implant finished. While I was there, I had some aging veneers that were deteriorating replaced with crowns. I see my dentist far more than I see my primary care physician. Whereas I can have lab tests performed even if I don’t see my physician, the same is not true of dental visits. Dental visits are hands-on. There are no substitutes for dental examinations or dental hygienist cleanings. Yet, many people neglect dental care due to the cost, often made less convenient by a lack of dentists in their immediate area.