Tag Archive | economics
Building a New Marcus Welby To Cut Costs
Marcus Welby, M.D. was a popular TV drama that ran from 1969 to 1976. The titular character was a symbol of a traditional physician archetype that was already fading from reality — the cradle-to-grave general practitioner that took care of patients in the clinic, in the hospital and at their homes. In the very first […]
The Price Tag on a Patient-Centered Medical Home
Everyone in the health care world has one eye on Washington this week, as the Supreme Court is expected to finally hand down their ruling on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. Commonly known as the “health care reform bill” or “Obamacare,” depending on your political leanings, the legislation contains both immediate changes (the […]
The Many Faces of Medical Professionalism
Every patient wants their doctor to be a professional. But the broader concept of “medical professionalism” is not a cut-and-dry matter, as it opens the door to debates over how physicians interact with politics and society, the regulation of doctors’ ethical and legal behavior, and the role of the physician in the new world of […]
Cancer Treatment Dollars and Sense
In a typical clinical trial, the results are reported in purely medical or biological terms. Did the patients in the treatment group live longer than those in the control group? Did the drug shrink the tumor or reduce symptoms? Were clinical measures such as blood pressure or cell counts affected? These are the details that […]
The History of Health Insurance, Rashomon-Style
In Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 film Rashomon, the story of a crime is told three times from the perspective of three different witnesses/participants. Due to the biases of each storyteller, the details of the three accounts fail to align, ultimately leaving the film’s narrator – and the viewer – unsure about what truly happened in the […]
Hospitalists, Specialists, and a New Model of Care
In the Norman Rockwell past, patients had one doctor who followed them from home to clinic to hospital, managing their health care over a significant portion of their lives. That sort of doctor-patient relationship in today’s medical world seems about as outdated as a family gathered around the fireplace listening to the radio. Now, patients […]
Linkage 3/4: Budget Backlash, Overprevention, Mass Extinction
In Washington, the fight over budget cuts is well underway, as a Republican majority in the House and a Democratic majority in the Senate tussle over the best way to reduce a multi-trillion dollar federal deficit. The first bill of the new House, H.R.1, set federal appropriations for the rest of fiscal year 2011 (ending […]
Linkage 2/25: AAASing From Afar, NOVA Venom, Magnetic Turtles
I’ve said it before, but the AAAS Meeting is my favorite scientific conference, a cross-disciplinary feast of research that’s perfect for omnivores of science. As I wait for the meeting to return to Chicago (2014!), I spent the week attending from afar through the many online recaps. Depending on your preferences, you can get your […]
The Personalized Medicine Bargain
The future of medicine, we are told time and time again, is genetic and personalized. Someday, physicians will call up the genetic code of a patient and determine their genetic risks and which treatments will work most effectively with the fewest side effects. That information can be organized into individual, unique medical plans for each […]
The Off-Label Antipsychotic Surge
If you watch enough football games, you might come away with the impression that today’s most profitable drugs are for erectile dysfunction, cholesterol, and allergies. But far less public attention is paid to one of the most expensive classes of drugs : the antipsychotics, drugs designed to treat certain mental disorders. From 1995 to 2006, […]
