“Doctors help patients, and they love us for it. We fix bones, replace joints, cure killer infections, and control diabetes with insulin. We use painless scans for diagnosis. Liver, kidney, and heart transplants are now routine. Some patients get…
Category: Public Health & Policy
A call schedule to fix the Supreme Court
Though pushed to the back-burner by the never-ending orange election drama, the Supreme Court, with its significant conservative majority earned against the run of play, (to borrow a metaphor from sport) is one decision away from potential political ir…
Health care is making progress on the “social” in the biopsychosocial model
In his seminal 1977 Science magazine article, “The Need for a New Medical Model: A Challenge for Biomedicine,” Dr. George Engel outlined the biomedical model’s limitations and proposed a new model, which he termed the biopsychosocial …
How health insurance affects patients: That means the transgender community too
Coming into Columbia University as a pre-med first-year student, I expected to be studying anatomy, biology, psychology, and many other subjects. I would have never thought that I would encounter gender and sexuality studies. Interestingly, this led to…
Racist. Anti-racist. Microaggression. Institutional racism. The power of a definition.
I find my body tenses at the word “racist.” It also tenses at the word “earthquake.” I ask you to be aware of your body as you read this essay. I suggest wiggling your toes, shrugging your shoulders, and taking slow abdominal breaths. 7:18 a.m. Shift c…
To Dr. Biden from an MD: Please keep using your deserved title
A recent op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal, “Is There a Doctor in the White House? Not if You Need an M.D.,” has sparked a lot of controversy and immense backlash. The author Joseph Epstein, a former Northwestern University professor, first ad…
Primary care faces a very difficult winter
Primary care is in trouble again. Last summer, as government assistance programs expired or wound down, primary care practices across the country were struggling to stay afloat because of lost business. By October, patient visits had rebounded in most …
New Medicare documentation and payment changes starting next year that deliver relief for clinicians
Starting on January 1, 2021, clinicians across the country can expect new Medicare rules on billing, documentation, and payment for evaluation and management (E/M) services — or common office/outpatient visits – to go into effect. These historic …
Why eliminating health care disparities is easier said than done
Those of us in health care understand that the pandemic represents just one more example of the disproportionately negative impact of health issues on people of color. As stated in a 2017 National Institutes of Health report, “For racial and ethnic mi…
Proponents of independent non-physician practice make a dangerous assumption [PODCAST]
“Most Americans have remained dangerously unaware of this revolution in health care. Being treated by a non-physician is not on the radar of the average patient, most of whom assume that anyone in a white coat is a physician. If patients do wonde…
