Now that many people finally have health insurance through the Affordable Care Act exchanges, some are running into a new problem: They can't find a doctor who will take them as patients. Because these exchange plans often have lower reimbursement rates, some doctors are limiting how many new patients they take with these policies, physician groups and other experts say. "The exchanges have become very much like Medicaid," says Andrew Kleinman, a plastic surgeon and president of the Medical Society of the State of New York. "Physicians who are in solo practices have to be careful to not take too many patients reimbursed at lower rates or they're not going to be in business very long."
Some of the nation's hospitals are seriously ticked off at Genentech, the San Francisco biotech firm, for implementing a stealth price hike for three critical cancer drugs. On September 16, Genentech told hospitals and oncology clinics that as of October 1, they can only buy Avastin, Herceptin and Rituxan—three of the biggest weapons in the cancer arsenal—through specialty distributors instead of general line wholesalers they've been using for years. The shift means hospitals will lose out on standard industry discounts—which Genentech and its distributors will then pocket.
With the open enrollment period beginning on Nov. 15 for the second year of health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act, the program known as ObamaCare is still so new and confusing that some insurance companies are hiring new agents to help guide consumers through the bureaucracy. Hollywood-based Health Benefits Center said it is looking for 50 licensed insurance agents to bolster its existing team of 100 agents. "We saw the big boom last year and this year we're going to be more prepared for it," said Steve Dorfman, the company's CEO. Open enrollment runs through Feb. 15.
Like anything, it takes time and practice to become a qualified surgeon. But what is the appropriate balance of allowing residents to gain experience and giving patients the best care possible? U.S. News explored the risks and benefits to surgery at teaching hospitals: Do the benefits of surgery at a major academic institution outweigh the costs of patients being used as a teaching tool? Is care from a surgical resident of lesser quality than care from an attending surgeon? While opinions vary among patients and medical professionals, the majority agree patients should be well-informed before making any major health care decisions.
Email communications between physicians and patients at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston nearly tripled over a 10-year period, according to a study published in Health Affairs, Health Data Management reports. For the study, researchers examined email communications at Beth Israel. In 2000, the hospital created a Web portal through which patients could view parts of their medical records and communicate via email with their physicians. The researchers looked at email traffic between 2000 and 2010. The researchers found that email communications nearly tripled because more patients were registering to use the online portal. Specifically, about 50,000 patients -- or 23% of BIDMC's patient base -- enrolled in the portal during the 10-year study period.
Translating from one language to another is a tricky business, and when it comes to interpreting between a doctor and patient, the stakes are even higher. Consider the story of 18-year-old baseball player Willie Ramirez. In 1980, Ramirez was taken to a South Florida hospital in a coma, says Helen Eby, a certified medical interpreter in Oregon. "His family apparently used the word 'intoxicado' to talk about this person," she says. "Well, 'intoxicado' in Spanish just means that you ingested something. It could be food; it could be a drug; it could be anything that has made you sick."