What if the path to curing cancer has been part of the body all along? For generations the three pillars of cancer treatment have been surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. But both chemotherapy and radiation are crude weapons with significant collateral damage to healthy tissue, and surgery can leave cancerous cells behind. Scientists have long tried to understand how to get the immune system—the body's natural defense mechanism—to recognize cancer cells as the enemy and destroy them. And now we may finally be turning the corner: Doctors are finding that clinical regimens known as immunotherapies can empower a patient's immune system to fight the disease like it might an infection, while sparing a person's normal cells.
After being without health insurance for two years, Miranda Childe of Hallandale Beach, Fla., found a plan she could afford with financial aid from the government using the Affordable Care Act's exchange. Childe, 60, bought an HMO plan from Humana, one of the nation's largest health insurance companies, and received a membership card in time for her coverage to kick in on May 1. But instead of being able to pick a primary care physician to coordinate her health care, Childe says she repeatedly ran into closed doors from South Florida doctors who are listed in her plan's provider network but refused to see patients who bought their coverage on the ACA exchange.
After more than six weeks of sometimes testy talks, House and Senate negotiators have agreed on a compromise plan to fix a veterans health program scandalized by long patient wait times and falsified records covering up delays.The chairmen of the House and Senate Veterans Affairs committees have scheduled a news conference Monday afternoon to unveil a plan expected to authorize billions in emergency spending to lease 27 new clinics, hire more doctors and nurses and make it easier for veterans who can't get prompt appointments with VA doctors to obtain outside care.
Nadege Neim won a $1.4 million verdict last year after suing her Ellicott City obstetrician for removing a healthy ovary and fallopian tube from her right side when she went into the hospital for surgery to have a cyst excised from her left. A few years earlier, an unnamed man in his 50s sought treatment for pneumonia at a Maryland hospital and ended up losing both legs. No one properly assessed him, and scans that might have found the blood vessel blockage were delayed for nearly two days in a "cascade of poor decisions," state regulators said in an investigative report obtained by The Baltimore Sun.
In a bid to cut Medicare spending and help pay for health-care changes, the Obama administration has significantly expanded audits designed to recover improper payments from health-care providers. "We are taking, I would say, a brutal spanking, those that are fully compliant and within regulation," said Tim Fox, founder and chief executive of Fox Rehabilitation, a Cherry Hill company that provides physical therapy and other services to the elderly. "It's dead easy to commit fraud under Medicare, and that's why there's so much fraud and abuse out there," Fox said. He said the government was "cracking down" to help pay for the expansion of health coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
A surgical center recently opened its doors to patients, but not everyone can be treated at the new hospital. Because Central Peninsula Hospital won't enter a transfer agreement with the Surgery Center of Kenai, it cannot perform procedures on Medicare and Medicaid patients, the Peninsula Clarion reported. When the center was under construction, it requested agreements with Alaska Regional Hospital in Anchorage, Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage and Central Peninsula Hospital in Kenai, said Harold Gear, the center's vice president. The Surgery Center of Kenai meets state licensing requirements.