California officials are planning to appeal a federal judge's decision that blocked 10% cuts in Medi-Cal fees to doctors, pharmacists and other medical professionals. The 10% reductions took effect in July to a large network of doctors, dentists, pharmacists, adult day health centers, and others in the healthcare system. Some 6.6 million low-income people receive Medi-Cal.
The University of New Mexico's new Center for Life offers what officials call "complementary medicine" that augments modern medicine with practices and treatments that may go back thousands of years in other cultures. The philosophy has its basis in preventing disease, says Arti Prasad, MD, the center's director. The center's physicians work with yoga instructors, doctors of Oriental medicine, or hypnotherapists when treating patients.
A new economic analysis shows that the HPV vaccine could be a good financial investment in public health if given to preadolescent girls and women up to age 21. Authors of the study measured the Gardasil vaccine's value by calculating the cost of giving one person an extra healthy year of life and balancing the expense of vaccinations with the benefits of avoiding cancer, death, and related expenses.
Doctors who diagnose people with terminal illnesses would be required to immediately tell them about the right to refuse or withdraw from life-sustaining treatment under a measure approved by California lawmakers. The right-to-die legislation would require a doctor at the time of a terminal diagnosis to explain all options, when requested by the patient. But some say physicians who treat cancer patients oppose the latest bill because they see it as government meddling at a time when patients need compassion.
Two months after Philadelphia's Fox Chase Cancer Center said it was considering a second campus in northern Delaware, the University of Pennsylvania Health System has announced its first foothold in the state. Penn has a new partnership with Bayhealth Medical Center that will link patients there to experts and clinical trials at Penn, a National Cancer Institute comprehensive cancer center. Penn has similar relationships with nine health systems in Pennsylvania and seven in New Jersey.
A Mexican man in a coma at the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago has ignited a dispute over hospitals sending medically needy undocumented immigrants back to their countries of origin. Francisco Pantaleon suffered a severe brain hemorrhage in mid-July, according to his sister Socorro. Pantaleon worked at a carwash and has no health insurance, she said. The medical center believes there is "little hope for recovery," according to a statement, and officials arranged for Pantaleon to be transferred to a hospital in Acapulco at UIC's expense. But members of Pantaleon's family are protesting that arrangement and have retained lawyers in hopes of preventing it.