New titles like “clinician,” “advanced practitioner” or “provider” are masking a stark reality. People will be able to practice medicine without ever attending medical school, performing rigorous residencies or be comprehensively and extensively trained as physicians. It's a frightening – and very real – trend.
Policy & Ethics
A politician seems to be filing lawsuits based on "green" donor agendas rather than on behalf of the public. That's a very bad thing.
John Noseworthy is politically incorrect as he speaks truth to power. He reveals the Ponzi scheme underlying the Affordable Care Act and its proposed replacement being offered by the Trump Administration, the American Health Care Act.
Will patients ever shop for health care the way consumers do for an iPhone? Pfizer's Dr. Robert Popovian asks this question in his latest contribution for Morning Consult. The answer? Individuals need much more information to make informed decisions. To that point, here's one way this could work.
The president's budget proposal for 2018 should raise some serious concerns. Cutting science funding, particularly that of the National Institutes of Health, is not aligned with his goal to "Make America Great Again."
John Ioannidis, noted for his critiques of the enterprise of science, makes a compelling argument about the misuse of patient experience and observational studies in clinical medicine. For the Stanford Professor the canary in the coal mine, that is medicine's scientific basis, is growing silent.
If we could spend pretend money, California savings due to regulations would end the budget deficit in 2 months.
Policy decisions should be based on evidence in order to provide the most benefit for the health and safety of the public. However, there are scant guidelines for making sound evidence-based policy focused on the intersection of science and society. The Brussels Declaration offers a 20-point blueprint for a set of principles to guide policy makers in this area.
United Healthcare, the largest provider of Medicare Advantage (MA plans) services, is being sued by the Department of Justice (DOJ) for fraud. I think they may be right. They are gaming a system designed to protect Medicare beneficiaries and taxpayers from excessive cost and they are very profitable. Did your revenue go up by 11.6% last year? Theirs did.
A doctor talking about gun safety is not advocating gun control. Let's get politics out of medicine.
A co-founder of the "March for Science" says that it's "time for everyone to get on board." Okay, sure. We'll get on board – pending satisfactory answers to serious science policy questions.
Science has its Napster. "Sci-Hub, a Pirate Bay-like site for the science nerd. It's a portal that offers free and searchable access ‘to most publishers, especially well-known ones.' and may incite a similar type of disruption "... For those who ...choose to pirate a paper instead, ask yourself whether it is worth risking the viability of a system..."