NPR and Propublica both had articles about Dr. Lars Aanning who has admitted to lying underoath for a colleague. This happens all the time. Doctors don’t squeal on doctors. It is similar to the thin blue line for police officers. Should Dr. Aanning be commended for telling the truth now? The South Dakota surgeon had been
As discussed before, the real drivers of healthcare costs are not lawsuits, which studies by Johns Hopkins Medicine found are less than 1% of healthcare costs. The big costs are a result of fraud. Kindred Healthcare, a large for profit chain of nursing homes, will pay $125 million to settle allegations that it billed Medicare for
McKnight’s had the below article discussing CMS’s arbitration related proposals. A coalition of consumer groups and lobbyists, boosted by former U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), are calling upon the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to “do the right thing” and end pre-dispute arbitration agreements. AARP, the Fair Arbitration Now coalition and the National Consumer
The Boston Globe reported the pattern of problems with the care provided by Synergy Health Centers. State inspection reports of Synergy’s nursing homes routinely show striking increases in problems since the company arrived in Massachusetts. Synergy’s expansion in Massachusetts has been rapid — the chain has purchased 10 nursing homes since December 2012 — and with the
The New York Times had an interesting article about the emergence of nursing homes replacing hospitals in providing basic medical care. Certain procedures and treatments require hospital admission, of course. But “the push is to reduce unnecessary hospitalization for things that can be handled in skilled nursing facilities,” said David Siskind, the medical director at
Kaiser Health News had an interesting article about the medical profession. The idea of the “15 Minute Visit”, where doctors spend a short amount of time with patients after waiting months for an appointment, sometimes hours in the waiting room, and have a list of complaints for their doctor, are becoming increasingly more common. Though
Recent Comments