The ‘101’s’ of Being Hospitalized
By Julie Kliger, May 16, 2022. Do you know what you need to know? Most people, it turns out, have no idea what to do when one of their family members (or themselves) lands in… Read More
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At US Hospitals, a Drug Mix-Up Is Just a Few Keystrokes Away
Article Summary: Many hospital medication cabinets can be searched by inputting only a few letters which results in a drug mix-up and causes patient harm. By Brett Kelman, KHN, Apr 29, 2022. More than four… Read More
Health Care Paradox: Medicare Penalizes Dozens of Hospitals It Also Gives Five Stars
By Jordan Rau, Kaiser Health News, February 8, 2022. . The federal government has penalized 764 hospitals — including more than three dozen it simultaneously rates as among the best in the country — for… Read More
Study Claims Hospitals Charge Double for Specialty Drugs Compared to Pharmacies
Article Summary: A new study conducted by AHIP shows hospitals and doctors’ offices charge patients more for specialty drugs compared to specialty pharmacies. By Robert King, Fierce Healthcare, Feb 17, 2022. Hospitals on average charge… Read More
An $80,000 surprise bill points to a loophole in a new law to protect patients
Article Summary: An insurer refused to pay bills related to the premature birth of the Bull family’s twins because it said their delivery wasn’t an emergency and their stays in the NICU weren’t medically necessary…. Read More
The hidden epidemic: Medical errors are the leading cause of death in the U.S.
I’ve got a friend, I’ll call him George, who, for several months, experienced an intense pain on his side. Turned out to be a kidney stone. George had dealt with them before and passed each… Read More
Medi-Cal Patients Struggle to Fill Prescriptions – ‘Somebody Is Gonna Die’
Article Summary: Problems with California’s new Medicaid prescription drug program is preventing thousands of patients from getting their medications. By Samantha Young, KHN, Feb 09, 2022. A month into its debut, California’s new Medicaid prescription… Read More
Health insurers may be using biased machine learning models.
Article Summary: Researchers have identified potential sources of bias in predictive models for disease onset, likelihood of hospitalization and medication adherence. By Rebecca Torrence, Fierce Healthcare, Feb 08, 2022. Machine learning has numerous potential applications… Read More
A High-Risk Medical Device Didn’t Meet Federal Standards. The Government Paid Millions for More.
Article Summary: Federal inspectors found serious problems with the HeartWare heart pump, but agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services continued paying to implant it in patients. By… Read More
Refusal of Emergency Care and Patient Dumping
By Jeffrey Kahntroff and Rochelle Watson, AMA Journal of Ethics, Jan. 2009. Gabino Olvera is a 42-year-old man who is mentally ill, paraplegic, and homeless. He was dropped off by Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in… Read More