A fascinating study from JAMA Internal Medicine shows that hospital mortality rates decline when hospitals are being inspected by The Joint Commission, a national accrediting agency. Here’s a picture showing the research findings:
Which raises the question – is there a way for hospitals to be vigilant even when they aren’t being inspected?
As you know from a couple of my earlier posts, I am exploring the ins and outs of price transparency in health care. Here is a nice post by William Pierce in the Huffington Post that pulls together a number of nice links while musing about the complexities of this issue. Pierce’s post makes mention…
In The Heart of Power, David Blumenthal and James Morone relate the 75 year history of presidential efforts (typically unsuccessful) to reform the U.S. healthcare system. I used to think major reform efforts did not happen for many years after FDR’s New Deal. After all, social security had taken a huge dent out of poverty among…
On October 10, 1952, President Dwight Eisenhower gave a speech in Salt Lake City in which he reiterated his opposition to socialized medicine. In fact, he had long asserted that he would “use every single attribute and influence of the Presidential office to defeat any move toward socialized medicine.” But Ike also recognized that all…
In the New York Times on Friday, Roni Caryn Rabin writes a great article about the crazy price hikes that hospitals and medical clinics impose upon patients who come to them from “out of the network.” Examples include a more than $6,000 doctor visit, one for which Medicare would have paid less than $200. Examples…
When Dr. Jeffrey Rice needed to schedule outpatient foot surgery for his son three years ago, he called the recommended facility to find out what it would cost. The estimate was so high — $15,000 to $25,000 — that Rice asked the surgeon for a second option. The cost for the same one-hour procedure at…
See this great piece by a reporter at Forbes discussing why rare disease treatments can cost as much as $400,000 per patient, per year. You will get a glimpse of my take on this topic too, but I plan on writing more about it in the future.