Category: Healthcare Providers
Book Review: Two Critiques of America’s Ailing Health Care System
Two recent books explore a truth that is obvious to nearly everyone who works in health care and surprising to almost everyone else: Through no fault of their own, doctors often don’t know what they are doing and, even when they do, America’s patchwork way of paying for health care may prevent them from doing it.
Doctors Emerge as Political Force in Battle Over Abortion Laws in Ohio and Elsewhere
Doctors who previously never mixed work with politics are jumping into the abortion debate by lobbying state lawmakers, campaigning, forming political action committees and trying to get reproductive rights protected by state law.
In the “Wild West” of Outpatient Vascular Care, Doctors Can Reap Huge Payments as Patients Risk Life and Limb
To move vascular procedures out of expensive hospitals, the government turbocharged payments to doctors’ offices. Instead of saving money, it started a boom that is making doctors rich and putting patients in danger.
Rural Health Clinics with ‘Head-to-Toe and Womb-to-Tomb’ Care
Rural health clinics are safety net providers whose original mandate was primarily to increase access to care for those on Medicaid or Medicare. They provided primary care and perhaps a few other services. But the Rural Health Clinic program has evolved over the years, and some clinics, like Primary Care Centers of Eastern Kentucky, have expanded their roles quite considerably.
After Idaho’s Strict Abortion Ban, OB-GYNs Stage a Quick Exodus
Later this month, the hospital, founded in 1949 near the shores of Lake Pend Oreille, will stop providing services for expectant mothers, forcing patients across northern Idaho to travel at least an additional hour for care. In June, a second Idaho hospital, Valor Health, in the rural city of Emmett, will also halt labor and delivery services. Those decisions came within months of Idaho’s abortion ban, one of the nation’s strictest.
Unconscious biases continue to hold back women in medicine, but research shows how to fight them and get closer to true equity and inclusion
Implicit bias is any unconscious negative attitude a person holds against a specific social group. These unconscious biases can affect judgment, decision making and behavior. Implicit bias is often one of the underlying issues that leads to discriminatory practices or harassment that diversity, equity and inclusion policies are meant to address.
Addiction Treatment May Be Coming to a Pharmacy Near You
new study showed patients who receive the medicine at pharmacies rather than at doctor’s offices stayed in treatment longer.
Doctors Are Disappearing From Emergency Rooms as Hospitals Look to Cut Costs
This staffing strategy has permeated hospitals, and particularly emergency rooms, that seek to reduce their top expense: physician labor. While diagnosing and treating patients was once their domain, doctors are increasingly being replaced by nurse practitioners and physician assistants, collectively known as “midlevel practitioners,” who can perform many of the same duties and generate much of the same revenue for less than half of the pay.
States Strive to Reverse Shortage of Paramedics, EMTs
To stave off longer 911 call wait times and the closure of ambulance services, many states are rethinking how they recruit and retain both paid and volunteer EMS workers. Nearly 40 state legislatures and Washington, D.C., considered bills in 2022 related to various aspects of emergency medical services, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
For Many Disabled Patients, the Doctor Is Often Not In
In one study, only 56 percent of doctors strongly welcomed patients with disabilities into their practice. Less than half were confident or very confident that they could provide the same quality of care to people with disabilities as they could to other patients.
How primary care is poised to support reproductive health and abortion in the post-Roe era, UW doctors say
Emily M. Godfrey, University of Washington and Adelaide H. McClintock, University of Washington Just over a month after the Supreme Court struck down 50 years of federal protection of abortion rights in the U.S., at least 43 abortion clinics in…
An online life coaching program for female physicians decreases burnout, increases self-compassion and cures impostor syndrome, according to a new study
The doctors who participated in this program went from highly to only mildly burned out, while their peers who were not in the program became even more burned out.
Frustrated With Delays, Doctors Take Aim at Prior Authorization
Doctors have long asserted that prior authorization — the need to get approval from the patient’s insurer before proceeding with treatment — causes delays that can hurt patient care. Prior authorizations also exact a toll on doctors, who say the paperwork has gotten out of hand.
‘Almost Like Malpractice’: To Shed Bias, Doctors Get Schooled to Look Beyond Obesity
Research has long shown that doctors are less likely to respect patients who are overweight or obese, even as nearly three-quarters of adults in the U.S. now fall into one of those categories.
Automated Medication Dispensing May Cause Drug Mix-ups
Computerized medication cabinets are used in nearly all U.S. hospitals. Safety advocates say they’re primed for error.