Larry Bauer, who is a leader in family medicine education in the northeast U.S., sent out a link to a piece written by teacher who complained about the over-emphasis on standardized tests in secondary education. He felt so bad about it, he quit teaching.  Here is the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/04/06/teachers-resignation-letter-my-profession-no-longer-exists/ Larry asked...
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I admit I can be naïve at times. But all I could do was shake my head in disappointment after watching Meet the Press today. The topic was the impact of the nomination of Paul Ryan on the national debate on the economy, Medicare, and the role of the government in...
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A report by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) found that the Medicare Advantage option wastes $8 billion per year. This option was started under the 2nd Bush administration under the belief that an HMO-like product operating as a for-profit insurance option could lower costs through care management, wellness, and prevention. Medicare...
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I admit I’m drawn to articles in the medical literature that question conventional practices, especially expensive ones. But the implications of a recent editorial in JAMA were even more profound than most. I won’t repeat the entire article here, but these were some of the most important points: There has been...
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A normally very respectable and reliable source of healthcare observations, the Center for Studying Health System Change (CSHSC), had a bad day recently. A report by one of its fellows for the Commonwealth Fund modeled “real-world” parameters found that if primary care physicians were paid more, Medicare could save 2%. Two...
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Last week I wrote about the comparison between the average hospital costs of U.S. hospitals compared to other developed countries. The bottom line is that U.S. hospital average length of stay and total hospital days per adult per year compare very favorably to the rest of the world. But the cost...
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First, let me acknowledge that many billions of dollars are lost by Medicare each year for outright fraud. I have heard that drug kingpins in Florida have looked at this enterprise as being just as lucrative as selling drugs, but with less potential prison time. A RAC is a Recovery Audit...
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Now that the “supercommittee” of Congress has failed to reach a compromise to restore some fiscal sanity to our national debt, let us consider for a moment what a monumental failure of leadership this waste of time turned out to be. For starters, their task was to reduce the federal deficit...
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As the August 2nd deadline approaches, many Americans are mad at Congress and/or the President for this game of budget brinksmanship. A few commentators have talked about healthcare costs being an important factor in the debt, but I don’t think they emphasize it enough. Let’s spend a few moments getting our...
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It’s been interesting watching the political maneuvering since Newt Gingrich criticized the plan to reduce the federal budget deficit proposed by the House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. After receiving push back from fellow Republicans, Gingrich spent the week backpedaling from his earlier remarks. Many pundits have recognized Ryan...
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