Apples and Honey, but No Wine: Here ’s How the High Holidays Can Support Your Recovery
Apples and Honey, but No Wine: Here’s How the High Holidays Can Support Your Recovery
A plane ticket home can burn a hole in your heart. Just thinking about how you’ll handle your family’s controversial politics or misaligned values can make even the calmest among us look around desperately for some way to make it through dinner. If you’re someone who has traditionally leaned on alcohol to get through the High Holy Days, you’re not alone; the alcohol industry makes a quarter of all its sales during the last quarter of the year, the holiday season.
If this is your first High Holy Day season in recovery, you know y...
Source: Cliffside Malibu - October 3, 2016 Category: Addiction Authors: Constance Scharff, PhD Tags: Abuse Addiction Recovery Addiction to Pharmaceuticals Addiction Treatment and Program Resources Alcoholism Behavioral Addictions Current Events Drug Rehab Information Drug Treatment Mental Health addiction treatment center cocaine Source Type: blogs
Unity Farm Journal - First Week of October
The drought has taken its toll on the Fall color, with leaves going from green to brown then dropping off the trees. The mornings are crisp - in the 50 ’s and the afternoons barely reach 70. The shadows are long and the hoop house loses sunlight at 3pm. The lettuces and spinaches are thriving in the early fall weather and the furry animals relish the cooler climate.Each week is filled with harvest work and the effort to move Unity Farm Sanctuary forward. We ’re finishing the inspections and well testing of the adjacent property this week and hopefully will progress to a formal purchase and ...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - September 29, 2016 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
Urban Institute Study Only Counts Part of ObamaCare Premiums When Comparing Them to Employer Plans
In a newreport, scholars from the Urban Institute claim ObamaCare premiums “are 10 percent below average employer premiums nationally.” There is variation among states. The authors report ObamaCare premiums are actually higher in 12 states, by as much as 68 percent. At Forbes.com, I explain the Urban scholars aren’t making the “apples to apples” comparison they claim to be:The Urban Institute study instead engages in what my Cato Institute colleague Arnold Kling calls a game of “hide the premium.” As ACA architect Jonathan Gruber explained, “This bill was written in a tortured way” to create a “l...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - September 20, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Michael F. Cannon Source Type: blogs
Unity Farm Journal - Third Week of September 2016
The nights are beginning to cool down to the 40 ’s and we’ve doubled up on the straw in the pig barn in addition to tucking them in each night with 3 fleece blankets. In a few weeks we ’ll move them from the Summer Pig Cottage (shaded/east facing) to the Winter Pig Palace (sunny/south facing) and given them their cold weather quilts for sleeping. It ’s hard to imagine the farm without the pigs. Like dogs and geese and they are intelligent, emotionally responsive companions that really brighten our days.The drought continues and we ’ve had only half an inch of rain this month. The apple...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - September 15, 2016 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
Unity Farm Journal - Second Week of September 2016
Hurricane Hermine came and went, dropping only 2/10ths of an inch of rain on the drought parched soil of Eastern Massachusetts. Although we had 20 mph wind gusts, none of the stressed trees were knocked over.We ’re continuing to irrigate our crops using our 60 zones of drip irrigation, while trying to preserve the well. We ’re praying for rain.We ’re always learning at Unity Farm. This week ’s question - can a pig get cyanide toxicity from eating peach pits? Each week we receive the discarded fruit and vegetables from Tilly and Salvy ’s farmstand, feeding them to the pigs, poultry and...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - September 8, 2016 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
Summer Fruit Cake
Labor Day weekend at the cottage with good friends. A bittersweet end to summer.
Lake swimming, hiking, biking, reading, stargazing.
Shunpiking* to discover gorgeous vistas, plump red sumac berries ripe for the picking (and drying for spice – I”ll post on that later) and the best garage sale ever.
Making Irene’s summer fruit cake to bring to an outdoor dinner party on an evening cool enough to end inside around a burning wood stove. (Thanks Rick for leaving the stove door open so we could see the fire.)
We left a day early, warned that the impending hurricane would make return to the coast near imposs...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - September 5, 2016 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Desserts Peach and plum cake Peach cake Stone fruit cake Summer fruit cake Source Type: blogs
How doctors have contributed to the trust deficit
Most doctors are getting increasingly upset about the large number of rules, laws and regulations which the government is passing in order to control what they are allowed to do. Most of these are punitive laws, which impose penalties on doctors, and many doctors resent being treated as potential criminals who need to be policed.The reality is that the government has been forced to step in because the medical profession has failed to regulate itself. Society grants professionals such as lawyers and doctors certain special privileges , and in turn expects that they will hold all their members to a minimum standard. This mea...
Source: Dr.Malpani's Blog - August 28, 2016 Category: Reproduction Medicine Source Type: blogs
Surprise, surprise! Exchange customers are price sensitive
Uh oh. Another big national health plan, Aetna has decided to pull back from the individual health insurance marketplaces (aka exchanges) deciding they can’t make money because customers are focusing on price, not brand name. The headlines give a sense of it:
Cost, Not Choice, Is Top Concern of Health Insurance Customers —New York Times
Customers’ Laser-Like Focus on Plan Prices Is Causing Concerns in Health Insurance Market – Kaiser Health News
The articles quote insurance executive and experts claiming that “price competition has turned out to be much more cutthroat than anyone expected&#...
Source: Health Business Blog - August 18, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: dewe67 Tags: Economics Health plans Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Health Plans Need Your Records: Know What ’s Driving Requests and How to Be Prepared
The following is a guest blog post by Craig Mercure, Chief Operating Officer of Payer Solutions at CIOX Health.
Audits. Reviews. HEDIS. Stars Ratings. No matter what, health plan record requests are growing by leaps and bounds each year. And the stakes are high for health plans to ensure they receive medical records in a timely way. What we also know – the large volume of requests and submission deadlines can put a drain on provider resources.
High volumes of medical record requests make it more important than ever for providers and health plans to work cooperatively and collaboratively. Here’s some helpful background...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - July 26, 2016 Category: Information Technology Authors: Guest Blogger Tags: Health Information Governance Healthcare HealthCare IT HIM CIOX Craig Mercure HEDIS Medicare Audits Medicare Risk Adjustment Source Type: blogs
Obamacare Premiums Are Lower Than You Think
Since the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) health insurance marketplaces first took effect in 2014, news story after story has focused on premium increases for certain plans, in certain cities, or for certain individuals. Based on preliminary reports, premiums now appear set to rise by a substantial amount in 2017.
What these individual data points miss, however, is that average premiums in the individual market actually dropped significantly upon implementation of the ACA, according to our new analysis, even while consumers got better coverage. In other words, people are getting more for less under the ACA.
Covered Californi...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - July 21, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Loren Adler and Paul B. Ginsburg Tags: Costs and Spending Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage ACA Marketplaces Covered California Marketplace premiums Source Type: blogs
Hard To Measure Safety Of Autonomous Vehicles
Tesla's response to a recent fatal crash of Model S operating on Autopilot: We learned yesterday evening that NHTSA is opening a preliminary evaluation into the performance of Autopilot during a recent fatal crash that occurred in a Model S. This is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated. Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles. Worldwide, there is a fatality approximately every 60 million miles. From the above figures are you thinking that Tesla Autopilot is safer than the average driver? That was my initial (admittedly dumb) reaction. But the...
Source: FuturePundit - July 3, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Do anti-aging patches really work? Episode 135
Do anti-aging patches really work?
Julia asks…Can micro needle patches really work to deliver anti-aging ingredients like hyaluronic acid?
Coincidentally I just read a study about a new technology for lightening age spots that involves, get this, Dissolving Micro Needles. This research was published by a Korean team in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology and here’s what they did…
They developed a patch containing 4-n-butylresorcinol an active ingredient which is able to prevent melanocytes from producing melanin (the pigment in hair and skin.) They had 45 panelists use the patch for 8 weeks and then they measure...
Source: thebeautybrains.com - May 31, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Randy Schueller Tags: Podcast Source Type: blogs
Pharma Digital Ad Spend Numbers are Elusive & Confusing
Over the years I have tried to determine what portion of pharma's total marketing budget is devoted to digital and if that portion is increasing (see here, for example). Various sources look at various channels and it's not easy to compare one source with another. Even data from the same source may not compare apples to apples.Last month, for example, one pharma trade publication claimed that data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau showed that the pharma industry's digital ad spending in 2015 was "about $3 billion." But the data really applied to "Pharma and Healthcare," which includes ...
Source: Pharma Marketing Blog - May 23, 2016 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: Ad Spend Digital DTC Advertising eMarketer Source Type: blogs
Pharma Digital Ad Spend Numbers are Elusive & Confusing
Over the years I have tried to determine what portion of pharma & #39;s total marketing budget is devoted to digital and if that portion is increasing (see < a href= " http://pharmamkting.blogspot.com/2015/11/pharma-digital-investment-is-increasing.html " > here < /a > , for example). Various sources look at various channels and it & #39;s not easy to compare one source with another. Even data from the same source may not compare apples to apples. < br > < br > Last month, for example, one pharma trade publication claimed that data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau showed that the pharma industry & #39;s digital ad s...
Source: Pharma Marketing Blog - May 23, 2016 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: Ad Spend Digital DTC Advertising eMarketer Source Type: blogs
