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Tag Archives: communicating with your doctor
Alcohol abuse has always been common. Now new information has discovered how frequently this occurs in young high school students as discussed in this CDC report http://1.usa.gov/VNlAGA. Binge drinking occurs in 17.1% of Americans, 11% of women and 23% of men. But in high school girls, 20% are binge drinkers (4 drinks per occasion or more at least once in the last 30 days). In high school girls 54% report using alcohol, and 50% of…
A friend who works as an actor in health dramas is also a patient and a caregiver for an ill parent. We discussed the relevance of TV depictions of medical care and real-life health care issues.
TV programs are presenting issues that people are dealing with every day. Although TV scripts tend to over-dramatize the emotional consequences of problems in medical care (e.g. too little time for doctors and nurses to provide adequate care, insensitivity…
Healthcare reforms are already taking place every day. ObamaCare regulations should prompt you to ask some questions and explore some options so you are prepared and confident about your medical care.
The Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) is resulting in higher premiums for private insurance and for Medicare fees. These added costs are necessary to achieve widely supported goals of healthcare reform: more coverage for the uninsured; payments for preventive medicine; and elimination of pre-existing conditions, arbitrary insurance…
Healthcare in America is becoming more complex. As described by M. Smith and coauthors in their recent article, “What’s Needed Is a Health Care System That Learns,” each Medicare patient now has an average of 7 doctors in 4 different practices, and each doctor must interact with over 200 other physicians to care for all of the practice’s Medicare patients. It is expected that the increase in chronic conditions by 26% between 2000…
Would you ever expect a doctor to protest on your behalf regarding the cost of a medical treatment? Well you should, because they do! Aflibercept (marketed as Zaltrap), a new medication that is effective in cancers of the colon and rectum, is extremely expensive; the estimated cost of this treatment is $11,063 per month….
There is an epidemic of vitamin D deficiency in the United States. Sun exposure increases the vitamin D levels in the body, but that not by enough for optimal health. Today, not only are vitamin D levels low in the northern half of the country (where sun exposure is particularly reduced in the winter time – where we’re heading now), but more individuals throughout the country are avoiding sun exposure in order to prevent skin…
It is common to use aspirin to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. One baby aspirin a day is taken by millions of Americans to help to reduce or delay the occurrence of heart attacks. About 25% of Americans take daily aspirin (E. Jacobs and coauthors, J. National Cancer Institute August 10,…
The other day, a patient came to see me and complained about breast imaging center in the Los Angeles area. “You sent me to have a biopsy of an abnormality that was found on a breast MRI scan, and they told me that they would not do it because I had not had my first scan at their facility. They actually wanted me to completely repeat the previous scan, even though I had a DVD…