When Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan (AmBerGan) announced their health care partnership, Berkshire CEO Warren Buffett declared “the ballooning costs of health care act as a hungry tapeworm on the American economy.” He is right. Our broken system is infested with tapeworms. Tapeworms are parasites; they exploit their hosts, drain resources, and suck the […]
“I love what I do. I hate what I have to do.” It’s a quote that doctors attribute to their profession behind closed doors. As patients, we are so overwhelmed with our own problems. We fail to notice that our doctor may be battling her own problems with a complicated system. But what do we […]
American physicians dole out lots of unnecessary medical care to their patients. They prescribe things like antibiotics for people with viral infections, order expensive CT scans for patients with transitory back pain, and obtain screening EKGs for people with no signs or symptoms of heart disease. Some critics even accuse physicians of ordering such services […]
I am a terrible coder. I think I am a pretty good doctor, but when it comes to coding, the process of figuring out which billing code to pick to assign to a bill for an office visit, I am hopeless. No matter how many times I have had the rules explained to me, or […]
“Better patient care” is the reason hospital and health systems usually give when they merge or acquire one another. Our research suggests that mergers and affiliations might, paradoxically, increase the risk of harm to patients in the short run. Improving the safety of patient care is possible during mergers and affiliations, but requires intentional efforts. […]
It’s easy to get excited about technological advances such as nanobots that swim in blood to deliver drugs or 3-D printers that print human tissues. However, in our enthusiasm to find the next fix, we are failing to notice the ground slipping underneath the health care industry. Here are four trends that are changing health […]
Health care is buzzing as Atul Gawande has been selected as CEO of the Berkshire-Hathaway/Amazon/JP Morgan strategic venture. I was thrilled they picked a physician, like myself, in the trenches to run their gig. After hearing the news, I remembered Gawande’s TED Talk from 2012 and decided to catch up on it during my flight to the Healthcare […]
The health care system has never been so complex as it is today. As doctors, we’ve seen the struggles that happen just trying to help patients get the medical care they need. Patients are now ladened with high deductibles and often are the victims of baseless denied coverage for diagnostic tests and medication. Insurance companies […]
As more doctor pay is being tied to patient satisfaction and “outcomes,” a recent Forbes article argues that “It’s only a matter of time before physicians will see the bulk of their compensation tied to quality measures.” To prepare for this pay-for-performance apocalypse, the article cites Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) CEO Haylee Fischer-Wright, MD, […]
I remember visiting my pediatrician as a child, and even at a young age I was in awe of his degrees hanging on the wall. Looking back, I think I may have looked like the kid in Norman Rockwell’s Doctor with my behind in the air waiting to get a vaccination while staring in fascination […]
