New guidelines from the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association would change the way doctors prescribe cholesterol-lowing statin drugs, but not every doctor agrees with the new strategy. Under the old guidelines, the statin dose depended on how much it took to get a person's blood cholesterol levels into a certain target range. Under the new guidelines, which were issued last year, once someone qualifies for statin therapy, the dose should be determined by the person's risk of cardiovascular disease and not according to how cholesterol levels respond to treatment.
Dr. Forest Arnold worries about the growing menace of CRE — a deadly superbug that preys on hospitalized patients and kills about half who get bloodstream infections. "We haven't seen much here, but I'm sure it's coming," said Arnold, an epidemiologist at University of Louisville Hospital and an associate professor of infectious diseases at U of L. A study in the August issue of the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology shows cases of the antibiotic-resistant superbug rose fivefold in community hospitals in the Southeastern United States from 2008 to 2012.
An obscure injectable medication made from pigs' pituitary glands has surged up the list of drugs that cost Medicare the most money, taking a growing bite out of the program's resources. Medicare's tab for the medication, H.P. Acthar Gel, jumped twentyfold from 2008 to 2012, reaching $141.5 million, according to Medicare prescribing data requested by ProPublica. The bill for 2013 is likely to be even higher, exceeding $220 million. Acthar's explosive growth illustrates how Medicare's prescription drug program — perhaps more than private health insurers and even other public health programs — is struggling to contain the taxpayer burden of expensive therapies aimed at rare conditions.
A waiting room with no wait and a doctor who answers your texts and makes house calls may seem hard to imagine in today's world full of medical billing and insurance company navigation. A new trend in health care, concierge medicine, helps patients cut through the maze of pre-approvals and insurance company reimbursements. Patients who use concierge medicine pay a certain amount for a more personal and accessible relationship with their doctor. Connie Weiser of Butler Township is on board with the trend and is benefiting from immediate and undivided attention from her doctor. Barry Taylor, who is Weiser's doctor, is among a growing number across the country and in the Miami Valley trying this new approach to healthcare.
Say what you will about the Affordable Care Act, it has been a huge boon to hospitals and hospital stocks. The shares have surged this year for a simple reason: More patients have gone to hospitals for care, and thanks to the ACA, more can afford to pay for it. That has helped boost earnings at publicly traded hospital-management companies such as LifePoint Hospitals (ticker: LPNT), HCA Holdings (HCA), and Universal Health Services (UHS), whose shares have returned more than four times the gain in the Standard & Poor's 500. Some observers question whether the stocks already reflect all the good news, but their worries seem premature. [Subscription Required]
A new drug for the liver disease hepatitis C is scaring people. Not because the drug is dangerous — it's generally heralded as a genuine medical breakthrough — but because it costs $1,000 a pill and about $84,000 for a typical person's total treatment. A Washington advocacy effort has sprung up overnight, largely devoted to objecting to the cost of this one medication, Sovaldi. Members of Congress have started a joint investigation into how its maker, Gilead Sciences, settled on its price. "Clearly, $1,000 a pill strikes people as completely unreasonable," said John Rother, president of the National Coalition on Health Care, an advocacy group that has been raising an outcry about the drug's price as "unsustainable."