Florida doctors are asking the state to sharply hike the amount they can charge patients for copies of their medical records, saying their costs are rising faster than their incomes. The request that has brought protests from consumer advocates and malpractice lawyers.
A Minnesota magazine's popular Top Doctors issue has hit the newsstands.For 17 years, the magazine has had a virtual monopoly on rating doctors in Minnesota, and the issue is a top seller every year, despite some skepticism about the survey's methodology.
Some severely injured patients with few options for treatment in America are searching the Internet for experimental treatments--and often land on websites promoting stem cell treatments in China. Western doctors warn that patients are serving as guinea pigs in a country that isn't doing the rigorous lab and human tests that are needed to prove a treatment is safe and effective.
Four years after the state passed two groundbreaking laws designed to shed light on hospital safety and performance, the Illinois Hospital Report Card has not been published. Nor has the Illinois Consumer Guide to Health Care, a separate study of medical care at hospitals and surgery centers. A third project focused on serious medical errors was set to start on the first day of 2008 but is nowhere near ready to launch.
Democratic Presidintial candidate John Edwards has been bashing big health insurers with the story of a girl who died waiting for a liver transplant. But the details of the case suggest Edwards may be oversimplifying the tale. By pushing the case so hard on the campaign trail, Mr. Edwards is raising the emotional tone of the debate on healthcare.
Since last year, the children's cancer center of Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital, has expanded its arts-in-medicine therapies to include songwriting and recording. "The arts have therapeutic value," said Dr. David G. Poplack, director of the cancer center.