Medical Advocates Can Help Guide Patients On Difficult Care Choices
Hired advocates help patients develop treatment plans, meet with doctors and explain options, among other services.
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Hired advocates help patients develop treatment plans, meet with doctors and explain options, among other services.
Hospitals increasingly view violence as a health concern and are developing initiatives designed to improve long-term community health.
Doctors, insurers and others are kick-starting experiments to broaden access to direct primary care, a service long associated with only wealthy Americans.
CT scans, which are administered more than 85 million times a year, are an important diagnostic tool, but just one can be equivalent to 200 X-rays. Some doctors warn that health providers are not considering possible consequences when ordering the tests.
California is one of several states to pass laws intended to involve caregivers in discussions when patients are hospitalized or discharged.
The plans can help workers cover their high deductibles, but the policies also have limitations.
Some insurers are betting that lowering the barrier to seeing a doctor will encourage people to get needed care sooner. If it works, the health plans could save more than they spend on the benefit.
Stricter oversight is required to ensure employers comply with labor standards, says worker advocacy group.
Twenty new schools opened in the past decade; but some doubt whether so many new doctors are needed.
Kaiser Permanente CEO Bernard Tyson says the new school is part of the HMO's effort to transform the "health care ecosystem" in the 21st century.
When Gov. Dannel Malloy pushed to tax Connecticut hospitals in 2012, he said the money would come back to the institutions through state funding. Now the hospital association says he is reneging, and they are threatening a lawsuit.
Overcrowding in the emergency department can lead to worse outcomes for patients but too few hospitals implement successful programs.
More than half of these hospitals were also punished last year as the government tries to leverage taxpayer money to improve the quality of care.
Studies find many medical students and residents often are so traumatized by training experiences they test positive for depression.
In a recent interview, Cordani discussed the evolution of exchange health plans as well the proposed merger between Cigna and Anthem.
More scribes are joining doctors in exam rooms with patients to assist with electronic health records, but not everyone is sold on the practice.
The federal report estimates that 12 of every 100 hospital stays included an infection or other avoidable complication in 2014, about the same rate as 2013. Still, that was 17 lower than 2010.
Doctors who minister to seriously ill patients say the flurry of aid-in-dying laws show just how afraid people are of a painful death, and how important it is to ease their suffering.
The Krispy Kreme Challenge Children's Specialty Clinic gets its name from a student-run charity race in Raleigh, N.C., that has already raised $1 million for kids. Still, some find the name unhealthy.
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