Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Health Navigator
A conundrum: go to your local community hospital or an academic medical center?
An article in Becker’s Hospital Review reported on a study published in Health Affairs which “raised questions about whether hospitals’ reputations match the quality of care they provide. The study examined the differences between high-price and low-price hospitals and found the more costly providers were the clear winners in U.S. News & World Report rankings, which are partly (32.5 percent for the Best Hospitals 2013-14) based on their reputation with specialists. However, low-price hospitals performed better on certain outcomes-based readmissions and patient safety measures, such as postoperative blood clots. If high-price hospitals tend to have better reputations, the study raises the question of whether there’s a disconnect between how hospitals are perceived and how they perform and whether reputation should play a part in lists such as Truven Health Analytics’ 100 Top Hospitals, Becker’s Hospital Review’s “100 Great Hospitals” and U.S. News’ Best Hospitals.”
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Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Health Navigator
How about your basic health data? The solution may be a Personal Health Record.
Here’s some information on PHRs from the Mayor Clinic:
An electronic personal health record makes it easy to gather and manage your medical information in one accessible and secure location.
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Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Health Navigator
The New York Times article noted “Doctors’ stethoscopes are contaminated with bacteria that can easily be transferred from one patient to another …”
“Researchers cultured bacteria from the fingertips, palms and stethoscopes of three doctors who had done standard physical examinations on 83 patients at a Swiss hospital. They tested for the presence of viable bacterial cells, looking specifically for the potentially deadly methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA.”
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Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Health Navigator
Most health plans must cover a set of preventive services like shots and screening tests at no cost to you. This includes Marketplace private insurance plans.
All Marketplace plans and many other plans must cover the following list of preventive services without charging you a copayment or coinsurance. This is true even if you haven’t met your yearly deductible. This applies only when these services are delivered by a network provider.
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Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Health Navigator
The New York Times article reported this vignette.
“A close family friend with cancer had gone to see him (a renowned physician) some years back. When the friend started asking questions about the treatment plan, the doctor had stopped him midsentence, glared at him and said, “If you ask one more question, I’ll refuse to treat you.”
“What could I do?” the friend later said. “He’s the best, and I wanted him to take care of me, so I shut up.”
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Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Health Navigator
The New York Times article addressed this concept by stating “That it is seldom the reality, however. Deception in the doctor-patient relationship is more common than we’d like to believe. Deception is a charged word. It encapsulates precisely what we dread most in a doctor-patient relationship, and yet it is there in medicine, and it often runs both ways.”
Then a vignette:
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A conundrum: go to your local community hospital or an academic medical center?
