Escalating health care costs are one of the greatest financial concerns in the United States and 10% of these costs are likely eaten up by fraud, likely because private health insurers preside over about $1.2 trillion in spending each year! Earlier this year, David Williams, with a PhD in Kinesiology, was sentenced to prison for…
In the United States the most profitable business is healthcare. It’s the only country where the wholesale cost of medication ranges from pennies to a few dollars and the sale cost the same medications is increased exponentially, and it’s all due to middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers. This article isn’t about these legalized criminals, but rather…
When it comes to HIPAA violations, physicians are quick to be held accountable fined or imprisoned. Those whom violate HIAPA, purposefully, deserve the punishment that is due on them. However, it’s clear that physicians serve as scape goats. It’s similar to the NFL quarterbacks: win a game and you’re a hero, lose a game and it doesn’t matter…
Every physician, administrator, insurer knows that burdensome prior authorizations delay patient care and indirectly are contributing to physician burnout. This burden has likely made it impossible for physicians to continue their private practices and perhaps has contributed to the merger of practices and systems trying to streamline this process for themselves. When you have a…
Are rules good or bad? Well that depends on how good your medicine is, and whether you’re involved in the business of healthcare. Its easy to order a test than rely on a physical examination finding, is it not? What compensates a physician more, even if she is just an employee? The several minutes performing…
The Claim In November 2018, a Chinese researcher He Jiankui, claimed to use Crispr-Cas9 to genetically modify baby twins. He made the announcement on the eve of the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong, a fitting venue. By directing Crispr-Cas9, he claimed to have used in vitro fertilization to create human embryos…
Yes, Yes it can. It’s simple, really, fund the Health Care Savings Account Deductible and as Walmart or Whole Foods, or any other company as a matter of fact, does, put real prices on everything. It’s that simple? What? You don’t believe me? Look at what Singapore has done with its healthcare system? Wait, what?…
Unfortunately, one of the largest Electronic Health Records vendors gets a fine to resolve civil and criminal liability due to its business practices with Practice Fusion that it acquired in 2018. If anyone recalls, and I don’t think we do, in early 2018 the government shutdown diverted everyone’s attention from another fiasco that involved Allscripts: medical information…
As I sit here, at 5am, staring at my screen, trying to absorb random medical knowledge from a set of board review questions, I wonder whether this, “board exams”, will ever end. Like many physicians, I have been taking one big board exam after another. It was USMLE Step 1, COMLEX level 1, followed by USMLE…
Recently, I read an article on the ACP internist about a Street Medicine Fellowship program located in University of Pittsburg Medical Center (UPMC). The article is written eloquently and does a phenomenal job explaining what Street Medicine is and what the fellowship pertains. Brief Summary of the Fellowship Dr. James S. Withers MD founded the…