Category: Public Health & Policy

What medicine can learn from the antiwork movement

A record number of Americans are choosing to quit their jobs. This phenomenon has been termed The Great Resignation by economists. The reasons for the Great Resignation are multifactorial and a subject of great debate, but some insight can be gleaned f…

How advanced analytics can help social determinants of health

Health care costs in the U.S. have increased dramatically over the past five decades, from $74 billion in 1970 to $3.8 trillion in 2019. This trend has been fueled in large part by an increase in the number of people who struggle with chronic condition…

Health care has crossed into a realm of moral injury and systemic collapse

Recently I have been more quiet than usual. Less writing. Less fire and brimstone. Quiet, at least for me. But anyone who is paying attention knows that when the most passionate and the most invested get quiet, something is truly amiss. Whether it be a…

“Take it or leave it” is not negotiation but coercion

“Take it or leave it” is not negotiation but coercion. Physicians have been subject to this tactic for much too long. As an ophthalmologist in clinical practice for nearly four decades, I experienced too often what a recent author on KevinMD described …

How to address the mental health fallout of climate change

An existential crisis On August 9, the 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report made public what many had feared. Global temperature warming to 1.5 C is all but inevitable by 2040 — even by the most optimistic scena…

Open enrollment: It’s time to leave your insurance plan behind

Research shows inadequate health insurance accounts for nearly 67 percent of all bankruptcies. This statistic is staggering, and illustrates a difficult reality for the many American families navigating today’s insurance market. Not only can medi…

How did we let insurers run health care?

How did we Americans allow health insurers to dictate how physicians practice good medicine? The hypocritic oath says, “Do no harm.” We should not allow insurance company profits to prevent proper care for patients. Our insurer is now telli…

Direct primary care is an answer to volume-based insurance reimbursement models

An excerpt from Medical Answers Now!: How Direct Primary Care Guarantees Fast Access to Your Doctor. Health care costs are out of control and volume-based insurance reimbursement models are felt to be contributing to the problem. Medicare and most majo…

Direct primary care is an answer to volume-based insurance reimbursement models

An excerpt from Medical Answers Now!: How Direct Primary Care Guarantees Fast Access to Your Doctor. Health care costs are out of control and volume-based insurance reimbursement models are felt to be contributing to the problem. Medicare and most majo…

Getting messy in the game of health care [PODCAST]

“Many patients, doctors, nurses, and health care administrators appear to have a seat on the blimp with little concept of how the game has evolved over the years and is being played now. They may have attended the game in the past, but they likel…