The growing Direct Primary Care (DPC) model is allowing patients and doctors to design their own “healthcare reform.” In exchange for a membership fee, patients receive timely access to unhurried visits, personalized care, and a range of other items that might include laboratory testing and medications, explains the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS). […]
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has been referred to as the top “Medicaid Fraud Dogg,” has announced an “historic” roundup of 601 doctors, nurses, and other licensed medical professionals, in a $2 billion bust. Fraud in Medicaid is indeed “stunning,” according to a report released by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “But $2 billion is much […]
The Department of Labor has finalized a rule allowing more options outside of the failing and exorbitantly priced “Affordable Care Act” plans for some 15 million Americans who are self-employed, their 25 million employees, and millions more family members. The ruling would allow these individuals greater flexibility to band together in Association Health Plans (AHPs). […]
American physicians and patients need to be informing elected officials of serious problems with access to competent, ethical, affordable medical care. They cannot rely on the American Medical Association (AMA), which claims to speak for all physicians even though less than 15 percent of physicians are members, stated Jane Orient, M.D., executive director of the […]
Americans may be more worried about the costs of a major illness than about the illness itself, writes Jeanne Pinder in the summer issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Prices for various procedures can vary by a factor of 20 or more. Pinder describes an award-winning project, ClearHealthCosts.com, that she and fellow […]
In searching for treatable causes of sky-high medical costs, both government and private entities are scrutinizing the cost of hospital supplies, writes Marilyn Singleton, M.D., J.D., in the summer issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Supplies account for an average 15 percent of total costs, and as much as 40 percent. About […]
According to a recent survey, doctors think that more than 20 percent of medical care in the U.S. is unnecessary, writes Albert L. Fisher, M.D., of Oshkosh, Wis., president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), in the summer issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. He explains several reasons for […]
Today, your doctor is likely to be a “stranger at the bedside,” making decisions according to the “new morality” of bioethics, rather than the traditional Oath of Hippocrates, writes Jeffrey Hall Dobken, M.D., M.P.H., in the summer issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Dobken writes from the perspective of a doctor […]
Hospitals and health plans are government-protected and favored businesses, and as Americans increasingly suffer from high costs and other problems, the effects of government intervention are under scrutiny, writes Lawrence Huntoon, M.D., Ph.D, in the summer issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. “Government intervention in medicine has led to higher costs, shortages, […]
In repealing the automatic Medicare physician fee cuts called the SGR (Sustained Growth Rate), Congress replaced it with something worse, in the opinion of ophthalmologist Kristin Held. M.D., in the summer issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) set up the Merit-based Incentive […]