Word: patient
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...left out the elephant in the room: the patient. Most of what we do in health care now is treat diseases of lifestyle, including lack of exercise and unhealthy eating. We need more than mere reform; we need to restructure our priorities. Charles J. Huebner, M.D., PETOSKEY, MICH...
Even USA Network's escapist Royal Pains has a class-conscious premise. Idealistic Dr. Hank Lawson gets fired when he chooses to save a young patient's life before treating a hospital board member. He takes a job as a "concierge doctor" to rich summer people in New York's Hamptons, treating everything from hemophilia to deflated breast implants. It's fluff, but with a theme of modern medical feudalism: top docs attending the richest like courtiers. If your hospital waiting room has cable, watch it sometime...
This has created a dangerous situation, according to critics. The inspector general's report came about after a 44-year-old spinal-surgery patient at a doctor-owned specialty hospital in Texas - the state with the highest number of such facilities - developed breathing problems and died, despite being taken by ambulance to a larger community hospital. The staff had called 911 after noticing the man's respiratory function was poor, but there was no doctor present to help. And just last month, a female patient at the physician-owned Colorado Orthopaedic and Surgical Hospital died after she became unresponsive following...
...their part, doctor-owned specialty hospitals say they're providing more access to better quality care - and in some respects, this may be true. Patient satisfaction rates at such facilities are generally high and it's logical that a facility dedicated to just one or a few specialties could operate more efficiently. "Rather than compete in the marketplace they want to legislate us out of business," says Dr. John Harvey, president and CEO of the Oklahoma Heart Hospital...
...built-in conflict of interest that causes some patient advocates to bristle. In effect, they contend, doctors double dip - earning money from procedures as well as the overall operation of the hospital, of which they are shareholders. That provides plenty of incentive for physicians, who typically also work part-time at the local community nonprofit hospital, to recommend their easy-to-treat patients go across town to have procedures done at the private hospital where the doctors are investors. The House bill would address this issue by closing a loophole that has allowed doctors to send patients to hospitals they...