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Several physicians have presented a paper in JAMA asking the question whether too much importance is being placed on grades and MCAT scores for medical school admittance and not enough on diversity along with experiences, creating a holistic review practice. Query. How many would flunk out of medical school unless they dumb down the criteria for diversity?
A recent article focused on the billing practices of New York bariatric surgery practice called New York Bariatric Group. They are suing patients for unpaid medical bills. In their pre-surgical forms there is a clause that states they will accept the insurer's payments as full payment with caveats. These include patients paying any coinsurance, meeting any deductible and pass on to the medical practice any reimbursement checks they receive from their health plans within 7 days. If they do not the patient is responsible for the full amount charged for their surgery plus all legal fees. The company's full charges are set high even for New York and the suits are from a management services organization which was 65% purchased by investors for $156,5 million. The bariatric business has been growing at 30%-40% per year.
The residents of Elmhurst Hospital in New York City have threatened a strike. The are employed by the Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Negotiation have been since July and they want the same pay as others get. Two other New York City hospitals are already under strike notice. They are Jamaica and Flushing hospitals and a strike is set for this month there.
The USPSTF has again backtracked on an earlier dangerous and wrongly decided guideline. Just a they did with PSA testing they have reversed themselves on mammograms. They have lowered the age when to start getting mammograms to age 40. They have compounded their error however by stating the mammograms should only be done every two years and only to age 75. Both of these are wrong. There should never be an age limit but it should be a discussion between the patient and the physician. Also, do they believe that a woman will not develop a cancer in two years. Remember this is an exam that has a high false positive rate and even more importantly a 16% false negative rate. This organization could use oncological direction.
For those of you who love socialized medicine here is a stories from GB. The NHS has 7.2 million in their waiting lists due to a decreasing number of medical professionals. There has been a hard cap on the number of medical students. The country is now near the bottom of wealthy countries for patient outcomes. Top
Two hospitals are being investigated by the feds for EMTALA violations related to one patient not receiving an abortion. The patient went to both Freeman Health System in Joplin and the University of Kansas Health System in Kansas City, Kansas for treatment after her water broke at 17 weeks of pregnancy. Neither would do an abortion on her due to fear of being criminally prosecuted under state laws. She had the abortion in Illinois. No fines or penalties have been assessed.
Dignity Health St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach is at it again. They continue to look for cheaper but not necessarily better physicians by replacing the local physicians with contracted groups from the out side. They have already changed their anesthesiology, radiology and emergency medicine groups and are now changing their trauma physicians. Although the hospital denies it this may be in retaliation for a recent law suit.
Seattle's Virginia Mason has reported 31 cases of Klebsiella pneumoniae since October, 2022. the latest one is last month. It is interesting that many of the reported cases of infections come from the Seattle area.
Mayo Clinic is threatening to stop all proposed construction in Minnesota if the state continues on passing two major legislative acts. Both have passed the legislature and are awaiting the Governor's signature. The first one is a law requires hospitals to form staffing committees to set minimum staffing levels and at least half of the committee would be nurses or other direct care providers. The other bill would establish a board to essentially tamp down payments.
Jackson Memorial is back in the news for another bad reason. They apparently had problems in their heart transplant program and changed leaders of the program. Top
DISCLAIMER: Although this article is updated periodically, it reflects the author's point of view at the time of publication. Nothing in this article constitutes legal advice. Readers should consult with their own legal counsel before acting on any of the information presented.