Despite health professionals’ efforts at conveying the effectiveness of immunization, many African Americans remain skeptical about the COVID-19 vaccine. Getting to the root of this distrust is critical as the Delta and Omicron variants stoke up …
Category: Public Health & Policy
Crowdfunding to pay health bills [PODCAST]
“Crowdfunding models of paying for health care maximize the probability that all members’ eligible bills will be paid in full each month. These models come without the burdens of skyrocketing premiums and deductibles. Unlike traditional mo…
Skin-in-the-game doesn’t have to be scary
When I entered the field of medicine, the goal was clear; to make patients “better.” Through my hospital-based training and practice as an internal medicine physician, I developed a strong interest in illness prevention — how can we keep patients from …
It is time to make the unvaccinated pay their fair share
Massachusetts is again experiencing a COVID-19 surge and our hospitals are overwhelmed, mostly with unvaccinated patients. As a practicing physician who takes care of many high-risk diabetic patients, I ask all my patients about their COVID-19 vaccinat…
Virtual organizations in health care
In almost all organizations, an employee has a supervisor responsible for guiding the employee in doing their job. This requires good communication between the two. Currently, in medicine, especially during stays in the hospital, there is a similar rel…
CPT coding changes: 5 proven methods of how to do more with less
It’s well known that coding changes drive provider behavior, and billing behavior drives provider decisions. For the last 30 years, little has changed in health insurance billing, which is why the standard of care within the payer system has rema…
The U.S. doesn’t have enough faculty to train the next generation of nurses
Despite a national nursing shortage in the United States, over 80,000 qualified applications were not accepted at U.S. nursing schools in 2020, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. This was due primarily to a shortage of nursin…
Climate change through the lens of an emergency physician [PODCAST]
“The worst part of the climate crisis is that our kids, my kids, may never get to witness the most beautiful parts of our world because they may, and will, cease to exist without our action and power. As I watch my own kids looking out over the o…
Emotional epidemiology of disease is as critical as clinical epidemiology
At this point in the COVID vaccination campaign, nearly all American adults who want the vaccine have gotten it, and are gratefully snapping up their boosters. Those who decline vaccination are largely impervious to public service announcements, commun…
Why health care delivery is an exceptionally different industry: Why does it matter?
Second in a series. Please read part 1 and part 2. We expect that most readers have noticed the differences we cite and have also noticed that these differences are negative, not positive differences. The big question is, why these structural and strat…
