Dr. Bradley Flansbaum blogs about his irritation with ads and news stories that advise patients – just “consult your health professional” and all will be well. He addresses health illiteracy and numeracy issues when he writes: “Politicians, society, the WSJ op-ed page, they all assume the verdict of treatment certitude is between the doctor and [...]
That’s a phrase used by Rita F. Redberg, MD, University of California San Francisco cardiologist and the editor of Archives of Internal Medicine, in her New York Times opinion piece, “Squandering Medicare’s Money.” Excerpt: Medicare spends a fortune each year on procedures that have no proven benefit and should not be covered. Examples abound: • [...]
See New York Times story, “Huge Profits for Health Insurers as Americans Put Off Care.” Then see Pioneer Press story on Twin Cities hospitals reporting their highest profits in a decade. Then check how your own personal finances stack up.
The following is a guest post submitted by Harold DeMonaco, director of the Innovation Support Center at the Massachusetts General Hospital and one of our most active expert story reviewers on HealthNewsReview.org.————————————————————————————————————————Last week’s New England Journal of Medicine had two rather provocative and thought provoking perspectives. The first relates to a decision by the Center [...]
Larry Husten, on his Cardiobrief blog, reports: Drug-eluting stents (DESs) cost Medicare an additional $1.57 billion per year, according to a study published online in the Archives of Internal Medicine.…In an editor’s note, Rita Redberg wrote that “it is time to clearly define what the value of this extraordinary investment has been in terms of [...]
Beyond just evaluation and constructive criticism of news stories, we want to reach out to help journalists. We know they often struggle with reporting on the costs of treatments, tests, products and procedures. It’s reflected in the facts: after 5 years and nearly 1,500 stories reviewed, we don’t like to report that more than 70 [...]
Rachel Zimmerman tells a story that many people must be able to relate with – “Medical Sticker Shock: An Infuriating Encounter With A Cost Calculator.” The guy delivers the nut graf: “Here I was trying to do the right thing by figuring out the cost. But clearly, the system isn’t ready for prime time when [...]
In the same week that some journalists reported that “many don’t take prescriptions because of cost,” other journalists gave us reminders of how inconsistently they help readers think about drug costs. Yesterday, for example, the NBC Nightly News reported its second story on the high costs of Makena, the first FDA-approved drug to prevent premature [...]
Maggie Mahar’s Health Beat blog tipped me off about a Bloomberg opinion piece by an Oregon urologist that begins by stating: “The decision to opt for medical care that relies on the most costly technology is often based on blind faith that newer, elaborate and expensive must be better.” Later, he focuses specifically on robotic [...]
Anthony J. Montagnolo, executive vice president and chief operating officer at ECRI Institute, writes in Trustee magazine, “A Question of Value: Proton therapy’s benefits have a big price tag. Is it right for your hospital?“ Although this is an article and a publication targeted at directors of hospitals and health care systems, what it says [...]
It’s difficult to do an overview of melanoma drug research in a relatively brief story. But this story did a solid job.
Better than a competing piece by Reuters but still a little short on some details about this asthma drug study.
An adequate summary of this asthma drug trial’s design doesn’t make up for the overly optimistic tone about the drug’s future. A New York Times story was better.
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