Word: doctor
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...surprisingly, the report has triggered a political firestorm. Labour politicians are calling on Conservative leader David Cameron to sack his director of communications and principal spin doctor, Andrew Coulson, who was deputy editor and then editor of the News of the World during the period its journalists were supposedly engaging in the hacking. MP John Whittingdale, the Conservative chair of the Commons culture select committee, said it was "highly likely" that Coulson would be asked to testify in the committee's investigation into whether News of the World executives knew how its journalists were operating. Prime Minister Gordon Brown mentioned...
What if you went to your doctor, suffering from congestive heart failure, and your doctor had been given a limited budget from your insurance company to treat you? If he were to go over cost, he would pay out of his own pocket. If he spent less than the allotment - and you were satisfied with your treatment - he would keep some of the change...
...year-old heart-failure patient comes in with coronary-artery disease and acid-reflux disease. According to a Prometheus algorithm, this patient should cost $20,750 a year to treat - including office visits, medications, blood-pressure monitoring and an allowance for complications. The incentive for the heart patient's doctor to spend less than $20,750 is that he gets to keep a portion of the difference (assuming that the patient was managed properly and happy with the outcome). And the best way to keep costs low is to offer the best care: If the doctor is negligent in monitoring...
...simple idea that makes sense in theory. And yet no patient wants to believe that his own doctor is this focused on the bottom line. While data indicate that up to 30% of U.S. health-care spending is for unneeded and even dangerous treatments, the truth is that most doctors aren't purposely ordering up tests or treatments just for the cash. "The system is asking them to do what's right for a system that lives off of excess, as opposed to what's right for the patient," says De Brantes. See pictures from an X-ray studio...
...Indeed, doctors have so far managed to avoid such reform in their own practices, and lawmakers may be running full speed into a minefield with any efforts to change their behavior. Physicians will accuse politicians of getting in the way of the doctor-patient relationship; devicemakers will say a "bundled" fee structure will force providers to use cheap, outdated equipment; and hospitals, already strapped for cash, will resist any reform that decreases their reimbursements...