Category: KevinMD

Who actually owns your medical records?

I was in a discussion with a group of patients about how difficult it is for patients to get access to their own medical records. It was initiated after one of my patients was refused copies of her recent hospitalization. There is much confusion out th…

Black market pharmaceuticals target immigrants

The bootleg medications were smuggled across the border and sold to mostly Latino immigrants in public spaces throughout Los Angeles — at swap meets, parks, beauty salons and makeshift stands outside mom-and-pop grocery stores. The drugs were cheap, an…

In medicine, find the beauty in what is common

“The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.” – Osler, “Aequanimitas” Recently, my family and I were leaving a restaurant, and in so doing, we crossed a large parking lot filled with a seemingly en…

An important health care safety net is at risk

EMTALA is born The machine beeps alarmingly as it breathes for your child. The various numbers on the monitor are foreign to you, but you know something isn’t right because the nurse briskly walks away from the stretcher to grab the doctor, who then or…

Your bone fracture, my cash flow: the consequences of private equity in health care

A recent article in Modern Healthcare describes how private equity firms are starting to snatch up specialist physician groups that promise rich revenues, such as orthopedists, dermatologists, and ophthalmologists. Naturally, this is about adding value…

How emotional intelligence makes you a better physician

In the early evenings after work, I thoroughly enjoy taking brisk walks. Walks are a great opportunity to exercise, of course, but I also cherish making time for myself to process the many thoughts that can occupy the mind of a busy physician. My walks…

When patients die, physicians mourn as well

I was driving to work one morning, and as part of my new routine, I listen to The Moth podcast. If you do not know it, it’s a wonderful community of storytellers — compelling stories, told by people from every walk of life. I often find myself dr…

How pneumatic tubes symbolizes our health system

About once or twice a day, everyone on our hospital’s computer network gets an emergency message that scrolls across the bottom of our screens, highlighted in the colors of danger and warning. They include things like a notification that a partic…

Let’s end surprise billing without a Trojan Horse

With August recess at a close, Congress has yet to find a solution to end balance (or “surprise”) billing, where patients are charged the remainder of their medical bill for out-of-network (OON) expenses not reimbursed by their health plan….

It’s time for AI-enabled solutions in health care to live up to their buzz

Artificial intelligence is incredibly buzzy in health care right now, and for a good reason. Other industries are already experiencing AI-enabled radical transformations, like real-time fraud monitoring and detection in banking and finance and instanta…