Book Review: Primal Prescription
If you or someone you know has been hospitalized this year you might have noticed that essential information is often poorly communicated and the cost of care can be shocking. How to cope?
No more free lunch for doctors
I don’t actually know anyone who sees drug reps anymore. The programming by we are influenced these days is much harder for our patients to see—even reporters seem not to know to write about it. It’s called “Pay for Performance,” or P4P.
Pay for Performance
Your Doctor May be Paid to Prescribe Cholesterol-Lowering Statins Do you know what a HEDIS measure is? Most patients don't, and few doctors do. It's a measure of how well your doctor is following certain practice guidelines. 90 percent of insurance companies grade doctors using HEDIS. And it's important to know that these markers include getting your LDL cholesterol numbers down with drugs. If you have diabetes or cardiovascular disease, your doctor can be rewarded for following these rules. On the other hand, doctors who don't will be financially penalized. This is one reason why I do not work with…
Cholesterol Pills For Kids – Stop The Madness!
I went for a job interview and was told that if I failed to get my patients LDL levels down to 100 (with drugs) "someone will sit down and talk with you."
Bone Density…What’s It All About?
For years I've avoided putting my patients on fosamax and related drugs for "bone health," because according to the package insert, these drugs don't make bones healthy. They prevent part of the natural cycle of bone growth, called bone resorption, and by doing so make them denser looking on bone scans. Dense bones might sound like a good thing, but realize that a stick of chalk would look really dense on XRay, and it snaps in your fingers. Healthy bone that won't break when you slip and fall is a matrix of protein and minerals, and just adding more minerals…
