Comments on: Quality Competition

By: Essential Feeling

Essential Feeling — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 16:13:19 +0000

I think this is fantastic, in the UK charities often fund this care & its a constant battle for funding – although you don’t then get billed for extras such as reflexology treatments that can really help with pain reduction

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 22:19:19 +0000

Additionally, CTCA most certainly does bill patients for non-covered and ‘extra’ services – this recent article in Chicago Tribune states CTCA billed the patient’s wife $160K (for “failed cancer treatment”)

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2009-11-17/news/0911160491_1_gastric-cancer-blue-cross-avastin

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 22:13:43 +0000

Yes, let’s stick with the FACTS…apparently CTCA does accept Medicaid – as evidenced by the fact that they over-billed and had to refund almost $300K to Medicaid, see link:

http://oig.hhs.gov/oas/reports/region6/60800087.pdf

CTCA was also fined over $500K for Medicare fraud:

http://www.bioethicswatch.org/lex1/02cv02257_gorumbadeclaration.pdf

By: Jackie Malena

Jackie Malena — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:22:34 +0000

John Thank you for your blog and including CTCA. I have read the comments posted and felt strongly to post a comment. It seems I am the only cancer patient posting and also a patient of CTCA. I am 9 year surviving Hepatocellular Carcinoma( HCC) patient. I am a 35 year old, married, caucasian,mother of 2 small children, with no hepatitis, never a drinker. I have always felt that even those statistics aren’t on my side I would survive. I researched hospitals that had dealt with HCC and then became a patient at KUMED, MD Anderson, Stanford Cancer Center, and Siteman Cancer Center. I was amazed at how cattle like treatment was in most of those centers. Some of these centers were renowned as the “best”. In one of the “best” teaching/research hospitals I was referred to my face by the doctor as my patient number and not my name. After surgeries and some chemos all of the facilities didn’t have anything left for me. They sent me home to make my arrangements to die but instead I went home researched more on how to live. I saw the CTCA commercial researched them and called all my past oncologists for thier feelings and all of them said not to go. Even though they had nothing for me nor any stories of patients of why CTCA wouldn’t work. I am driven to survive so I went to CTCA anyway and so happy I did. Because of them I am still alive. At the rate my disease was growing I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for CTCA. Everyone from the owner of CTCA, the president of the hospital to the housekeepers are there for the patient and are passionate about healing patients however they can.
For one of the commenters to say the non-traditional treatments are fluff couldn’t be farther from the truth. I have had a liver resection, A thorocotamy thru my back to remove a wedge from lung by taking out and replacing some of my ribs, a thorocatmy thru my chest where they sawed open my sternum and wired me shut and over time 2 ports. I have had 50 rounds of radiation and 13 combinations of chemotherapy. My body has been thru a lot. I do accupuncture,chiropractic services and reflexology at CTCA, at no charge, my body is helping itself heal and only take a little nasuea medicine and only a little pain medicine rarely as needed. Non-Traditional treatments have been around longer than traiditional treatments, I believe they know what they are doing.
For the doctor that said he is only a doctor and not a provider, that is the typical type of care most patients get. It saddens me. What you don’t understand is that cancer patients are looking for you to not only provide good news or bad, but to provide hope, to provide strength. What most doctors don’t remember is they are locked into a patients life story when they deliver the bad news. You always remember the instructor who gave you your college diploma at graduation, you remember the person who married you, you remember the doctor who delivered your kids and you always remember the doctor who told you you have cancer and may die. That is a big responsibility and I would hope being a provider of humanity could play into your role as a doctor. So much happens to a patient in the 30 days between most Oncologist 10 minute visits. In 30 days a cancer patient changes physically, mentally,spiritually, financially. I am so grateful that CTCA has all those services to support me in between visits. My team of Oncologist, Radiation Oncologist, Nutritionist, and Naturopathic Doctor and Care Manager are in weekly contact about my care. I travel 500 miles round trip every other week for this great service. When I am home my care manager checks on me weekly to make sure I am ok physically, mentally, emotionally and financially. No other facility has ever showed me “care” unless I was in the building. CTCA has the latest equipment, and traditional medicine. I stay very informed on my disease and what is available to me. My Oncologist here has always been open to discussing what is new in my disease and helped me researched more if it is something I wanted to consider. It has never been about her ego or what she says it the only way. She realized my survival makes me part of my team.
The last thing I want to point out is some of the commenters are more worried about the statistics than what John was trying to convey. Speaking as someone who fits no statistical knowledge of HCC you may need to visit one of the CTCA facilities and see the walking talking amazing stories of survival instead of relying on statistics. As one of the doctors said in above comment he had no first hand knowledge of CTCA but sure has a lot to say about it. I would like to challenge any doctor that is telling there patient not to come to CTCA, visit for a day. There are facilities in different parts of the country, visit any of them. Do your patients a favor. You wouldn’t want people saying not to come to you as a doctor even though they had no reason why. CTCA is great with helping Stage 3 and Stage 4 patients in having a better quality of life and/or survival. Most facilities and doctors forget that live or die the quality of your life after your diagnosis has a lot to do with your outcome. Thank you John for writing about CTCA and thank the readers for thier time. Jackie

By: artk

artk — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:36:52 +0000

John: Why don’t you publish the CTCA risk adjusted survival rates and compare them to the risk adjusted survival rates at the teaching/research hospitals, which exist in many more locations then CTCA.

By: Phil Williams, MD

Phil Williams, MD — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:16:57 +0000

Always enjoy your writings, but please don’t fall in the trap of the demeaning term “provider.” I went to Tulane medical school not Tulane health care provider school. I am a doctor, not a provider. Cheers.

By: John Goodman

John Goodman — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:13:13 +0000

One more thing. In Europe there are more of these kinds of “feel good” treatments. In principle, I don’t object to that (unless my tax dollars are footing the bill). What would be bad is if the feel good therapies were substituting for the latest cancer drugs. That is not happening at CTCA.

By: John Goodman

John Goodman — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:10:27 +0000

Lots of wrong information here. CTCA does accept Medicare, but they cannot accept all Medicare — otherwise, they could not cover their costs.

Patients are generally not billed for the extra services. These are nonbilled extras (what I think of as part of quality competition).

Nobody said, and I don’t think CTCA claims, that acupuncture, natureopathy and spritual counseling prolong life. So there is no need for a double blind test. They do seem to increase patient comfort, however — something that traditional medicine (all too often?) ignores.

Just because a service does not prolong life does not mean it should not be part of the patient’s regimen of care.

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:42:43 +0000

CTCA are “for profit” cancer businesses – process this with that understanding, as well as with the understanding that the Founder/owner of CTCA has been on the same committees with Mr. Goodman and (as disclosed) CTCA reps have donated to Mr. Goodman’s organization along with others he supports.

If you do not have insurance or you are on Medciare, do not bother calling CTCA – as they likely will not accept you – unless you have the cash to cover expensive cancer treatment.

Buyer beware.

By: Kenneth A. Fisher, M.D.

Kenneth A. Fisher, M.D. — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:00:55 +0000

Regarding end of life care, to me the major issue is, will continued attemps at curative therapy do more harm than good? Will the patient receive better care in a hospice setting? Thus the issue is, what is best for the patient? Pratice thoughtful, beneficial medicine, appropriate care is worthy of any cost, inappropriate care is harmful and costly.