The doctor is . . . skeptical about the Affordable Care Act. And clueless, too. A new survey shows that an overwhelming percentage of physicians don't believe that their states' new health insurance exchanges will meet the Oct. 1 deadline for those key Obamacare marketplaces to begin enrolling the uninsured. Just 11 percent of doctors believe those exchanges will be open for business that day. But those doctors, by a wide margin, also said they are 'not at all familiar' with how a number of important aspects of those exchanges and plans offered on them will work—aspects that will directly affect their bottom lines.
The prospect of one online system having access to so much personal information is making some watchdogs nervous. In a USA Today op-ed decrying the system as a "privacy nightmare," researchers Stephen Parente and Paul Howard penned these scary words: "This hub will achieve what has, until now, only appeared in pulp thrillers: a central database linking critical state and federal data on every U.S. citizen for real-time access." The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the agency responsible for building the federal "data hub" underpinning the new network of state-based exchanges, says the reality is less Orwellian.
Annually, about five million patients stay in an intensive care unit in the United States. Studies show that up to 35 percent may have symptoms of PTSD for as long as two years after that experience, particularly if they had a prolonged stay due to a critical illness with severe infection or respiratory failure. Those persistent symptoms include intrusive thoughts, avoidant behaviors, mood swings, emotional numbness and reckless behavior. Yet I.C.U.-induced PTSD has been largely unidentified and untreated.
Local authorities forced the closure of Dr. Tariq Mahmood's Central Texas Hospital in Cameron, TX Monday, leaving only the emergency room operating, according to employees and city officials. The Dallas Morning News published a report eight days ago examining how his chain of rural Texas hospitals has been allowed to operate over the last four years, despite numerous warnings of dangers to patients reaching multiple government agencies. A whistleblower also reported in 2008 that Mahmood was engaging in allegedly fraudulent practices, but her warnings to the Texas attorney general and U.S. Justice Department went nowhere. Attorney General Greg Abbott has not responded to requests for comment.
The builder of Colorado's troubled Veterans Affairs hospital says overruns bring the cost above $1 billion, far higher than the red ink already acknowledged, and has asked for the right to quit the project. The dispute threatens further delays in a replacement project discussed since the late 1990s. Kiewit-Turner told a federal board it must stop working until the VA redesigns its hospital to fit the budget, or until it finds more money from Congress. The builder's complaint said bungled designs and mismanagement add up to twice the size of a $200 million overrun discussed in January.
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Even children who have pediatricians sometimes get care from retail medical clinics like the ones in large drugstore chains, according to a survey of parents near St. Louis. Almost a quarter of the parents surveyed while at a pediatrician's office had taken their children to retail health clinics, many saying they found it more convenient than going to their child's regular doctor. Retail health clinics, which are often found in the pharmacy sections of chain stores such as CVS, Walgreens or Target, are usually staffed by nurse practitioners or physician assistants and are able to provide care for a number of common illnesses, like colds.