Headlines I Wish I Hadn’t Seen
Things don’t go as well when the wife earns more than the husband.
The costliest hospital in the nation is in New Jersey and it was bankrupt only a few years ago.
Tag: "hospital"
May 17, 2013 | 12 comments | by John Goodman
Doesn’t Sound like the Cost Curve is Bending
Hospitals hoping to attract patients and build their brands are teaming up with medical-screening companies to promote tests aimed at consumers worried about potentially deadly heart disease or strokes. What their promotions don’t say is that an influential government panel recommends against using many of the tests on people without symptoms or risk factors…
Such screenings “not only can raise [health care] costs, but also can lead to additional testing that is harmful,” [Steven] Weinberger and two co-authors wrote in the Annals of Internal Medicine journal in August, calling hospital involvement without disclosing potential downsides “unethical.” (Julie Appleby/Kaiser Health News)
May 15, 2013 | 12 comments | by John Goodman
Hospital Billing vs. Quality, and Other Links
Hospital marketplace: “price has nothing to do with quality.”
Republicans are refusing to appoint members to ObamaCare’s IPAB (“death panel”) board.
Can smoking prevent Parkinson’s disease?
Can marijuana prevent Aids? HT: David Henderson.
Is owning a dog good for your health?
May 10, 2013 | 13 comments | by John Goodman
Headlines I Wish I Hadn’t Seen
Does the government record and store every single phone call made in the U.S.?
California is refusing to tell anyone how much it is spending implementing ObamaCare.
Drug discovery has slowed down.
Can hospital price transparency make us worse off?
May 10, 2013 | 14 comments | by John Goodman
May 08, 2013 | 10 comments | by John Goodman
What Hospitals Cost; What Insurers Pay
Comparing Two Hospitals in Miami, Florida:
Heart attack with four stents and major complications
| Average cost | $166,174 | $89,027 |
| Average reimbursement | $27,397 | $33,129 |
Intestine procedures with major complications
| Average cost | $248,105 | $185,927 |
| Average reimbursement | $44,794 | $73,455 |
Permanent pacemaker implant
| Average cost | $127,038 | $66,030 |
| Average reimbursement | $20,836 | $28,668 |
Source: The Washington Post.
May 08, 2013 | 17 comments | by John Goodman
A Warning about Warnings
David Henderson had a perceptive post the other day about California’s Proposition 65, which requires a warning label on any product that contains carcinogens, no matter how small the risk. David’s point: if every product contains a warning label, warnings become irrelevant.
A similar problem occurs in medicine, where doctors and other health professionals are developing “alarm fatigue,” causing them to become desensitized and immune to alarm sounds set off by medical devices used for monitoring and treating patients:
According to the commission, between 85 percent and 99 percent of alarm signals do not require clinical intervention. As a consequence, hospital workers may respond by turning the alarms off, reducing their volume or even changing their settings to a level deemed unsafe for patients. Thus, those suffering from alarm fatigue may potentially ignore real emergencies — a circumstance that could have very real implications for patients.
Source: Kaiser Health News.
Apr 19, 2013 | 10 comments | by John Goodman
