As many as 42% of Medicare beneficiaries in 2009 underwent unnecessary medical treatments, costing the federal government as much as $8.5 billion, according to a study published yesterday in JAMA Internal Medicine. The analysis is the first large-scale examination into what Medicare spends on procedures that are widely considered to be unnecessary, such as advanced imaging for lower back pain and placing stents in patients with controlled heart disease. (KHN)
Simply put: the preponderance of empirical evidence indicates that, compared to physicians, NPs provide as good — if not better — quality of care. As I’ve written previously, patients are often more satisfied with NP care — and sometimes even prefer it.
The Institute of Medicine is unambiguously clear about this:
No studies suggest that APRNs [Advanced Practice Registered Nurse] are less able than physicians to deliver care that is safe, effective, and efficient or that care is better in states with more restrictive scope of practice regulations for APRNs.
More.
Some hospices decline to treat the dying.
Paper: 90,000 Nevada residents could lose health insurance due to ObamaCare…
72 percent of physicians say their peers order at least one unnecessary test per week.
U.S. is one of only eight countries where maternal deaths in childbirth rose, 2003-2013.
Massachusetts is ditching its ObamaCare exchange, replacement to cost $100 million.
Patients — and physicians — say they feel the time crunch as never before as doctors rush through appointments as if on roller skates to see more patients and perform more procedures to make up for flat or declining reimbursements. It’s not unusual for primary care doctors’ appointments to be scheduled at 15-minute intervals. Some physicians who work for hospitals say they’ve been asked to see patients every 11 minutes. And the problem may worsen as millions of consumers who gained health coverage through the Affordable Care Act begin to seek care — some of whom may have seen doctors rarely, if at all, and have a slew of untreated problems. (KHN)
This is from Chris Conover:
Since the evidence is equivocal at best, let us — for purposes of discussion — average the point estimates from 4 studies…and compare this relative mortality risk (1.22) to other factors that elevate the annual probability of death.
Federal government has seven different definitions of “health information technology“.
More evidence that medical homes don’t work.
A $295 spoon can detect and counter tremors in patients with Parkinson’s disease.
$175 million worth of worker output lost during first two days of college hoops’ “March Madness“.
Patients who are hospitalized for pneumonia at a low-scoring facility were 67 percent more likely to die within 30 days of admission than pneumonia patients at a top-scoring hospital, according to the Consumer Reports analysis. Of 1,000 surgical patients who develop a serious surgical complication in a top-rated hospital, 87 or fewer die, compared to more than 132 in a low-rated one — a 52 percent higher fatality risk. (Reuters)
Hint: Don’t get care at Bolivar Medical Center in Cleveland, Mississippi.
