“The more scans you do, the more money you make. If I do eight PET scans a day, that’s two million dollars a year, or a 35 percent profit margin… But we don’t use the word ‘profit’ in hospitals; it’s called surplus.” –
Healthcare spending in America fast approaches $4 trillion a year. The dirty secret is – most healthcare isn’t actually that expensive to provide. There is a vast difference between what people are charged and what it costs to deliver care. A study
In my last article I mentioned that pharmaceuticals for the main part supress symptoms without treating underlying dysfunction. I am not saying they are never necessary – I am just of the radical belief that they should be used to comfort the
Pharmaceutical medications don’t usually cure diseases, they only mitigate symptoms. For the main part, medications are palliatives designed to comfort the patient rather than cure their condition. Hypertension is not cured by mainstream medications but treated for life. Asthma, peptic ulcers, and
The appearance of antibiotics to treat bacterial infections such as staphylococcal, streptococci, bacilli and pneumonia seemed to arrive as a miracle panacea in the 1950s. Alexander Fleming (1981-1955) – who discovered penicillin, the first broadly effective antibiotic – predicted the rise of
In 2004, The New York Times covered a program called Pursuing Perfection which helped medical practitioners in Bellingham, Washington help patients with diabetes and chronic heart failure mitigate their symptoms, while preventing others from developing them altogether. They employed best practices for counselling patients, nutritionists, nurses,
The most highly-regarded cancer institutions have been the biggest obstacles to reducing cancer rates in the USA. A whole book has been written about it in 2011 called National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society: Criminal Indifference to Cancer Prevention and Conflicts
I’ve written a lot about the poor incentives in our healthcare system. Austrian Economics teaches us that systems tend to produce the outcomes that they are incentivized to. In our healthcare systems – be them the socialized ones in the UK and
WeIl, I was rolling around gripping my stomach on my friend’s bed, trying desperately hard to repress a wail. It was a party at a friend’s house – far from the only one in the room, and I have to admit it
Peer-reviewed medical journals are supposed to provide objective, scientific evidence to the medical community on the safety and efficacy of medical treatments, but we face huge problems when it comes to conflicts of interest that compromise their objectivity. In 1992 The Annals