Narrow networks: Get used to it
Narrow but workable
Many health plans unveiled “narrow network” plans recently as part of the Affordable Care Act. These plans cover a limited number of doctors, hospitals and other providers and often pay nothing for out-of-network coverage. Predictably, some members are upset as documented today by Kaiser Health News (Limitations of New Health Plans Rankle Some Enrollees.) Some consumers are upset that they can’t see specific doctors who they may have seen in the past and that the list of available providers isn’t terribly long.
Insurance commissioners and lawmakers are hearing complaints and...
Source: Health Business Blog - July 28, 2014 Category: Health Managers Authors: David Williams Tags: Health plans Patients Policy and politics Source Type: blogs
What the textbooks don't tell you - one of psychology's most famous experiments was seriously flawed
Zimbardo speaking in '09Conducted in 1971, the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) has acquired a mythical status and provided the inspiration for at least two feature-length films. You'll recall that several university students allocated to the role of jailor turned brutal and the study had to be aborted prematurely. Philip Zimbardo, the experiment's lead investigator, says the lesson from the research is that in certain situations, good people readily turn bad. "If you put good apples into a bad situation, you’ll get bad apples," he has written.The SPE was criticised back in the 70s, but that criticism has noticeably esca...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - July 23, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Research Digest Source Type: blogs
Unity Farm Journal - Second Week of July 2014
I returned from Japan to find that 9 baby guineas (keets) raised by ducks had hatched. We have one adult white guinea and its genetics seem recessive - of the 100+ keets we’ve hatched there have been no whites. In this batch, we finally got a white. Since our one adult white is sitting on a batch of 40 eggs, it’s possible that more whites are on the way. During the Summer, our guineas build nests and spend the night outside the coop. At the moment we have 21 guineas roosting in the coop, six sitting on nests, four babies in the mini-coop, and nine in the brooder (pictured below)...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - July 10, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Source Type: blogs
Games health plans play: Understanding 2015 Obamacare premiums
Get your health plan here!
Health plans are starting to announce the rates they’ll be charging on health insurance marketplaces (aka exchanges) for 2015, the second go-round for Obamacare. For students of business strategy, healthcare policy and game theory, the results are fascinating to watch.
According to Avalere Health, average monthly premiums will rise 8 percent across the nine states with rate filings so far. Average premiums in Oregon will drop, and in other states they’ll increase between 2.5 and 16 percent. Meanwhile, the variation in price between the lowest and highest priced plan in each states wi...
Source: Health Business Blog - June 19, 2014 Category: Health Managers Authors: David Williams Tags: Health plans Patients Policy and politics health insurance marketplaces wall street journal Source Type: blogs
Prime Your Brain for a Permanent Performance Gain (in a Few Minutes)
Inside your skull is a massive supercomputer. You own it free and clear. With its 100 billion neurons, and with a typical neuron linking to 1000 to 10,000 other neurons, your highly networked brain is incredibly powerful and capable.
Pick up a simple object nearby like a pen or a spoon, and look at it. Turn it upside down. Spin it around. Notice that your brain is able to recognize the object no matter how you position it. You can change the lighting by putting the object in shadow. You can obscure part of it from view. You can bend or break it. And your brain still recognizes that object simply and easily. Even a child ca...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - March 24, 2014 Category: Life Coaches Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Consciousness & Awareness Goals & Goal Setting Intention & Manifestation Motivation Personal Development Problem Solving Productivity Source Type: blogs
Secret Menus and Special Requests: Staying Healthy When Dining Out
By Crabby McSlackerSo it turns out many chain restaurants have "secret" or "hidden" menus--there's even a blog called hack the menu devoted to describing items you can order that are not listed on the regular menu.The problem? Almost all of these secret items are even more evil and poisonous than the usual craptastic chain offerings. They may make you feel more like a hip insider as you use the special secret passwords and score an exclusive treat--but the items themselves don't deserve any coverage on a healthy living blog. Even one as half-assed as Cranky Fitness.There is one notable exception, however: P...
Source: Cranky Fitness - March 24, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Crabby McSlacker Source Type: blogs
GBS is Not Rare After Vaccinations: Here’s How Vaccine Pushers Conceal the Truth
Conclusion
Due to both misleading statistics and gross under-reporting, we are given the false impression that Guillain-Barré syndrome and many other serious conditions are rare after vaccinations.
“If medical statistics were compiled by statisticians who had no interest in the outcome, the drug industry would topple into the dust.” – Robert Catalano
References
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Safety/MedWatch/UCM201419.pdf
Photo Credit (Source: vactruth.com)
Source: vactruth.com - March 15, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Sandy Lunoe Tags: Sandy Lunoe Top Stories adverse reactions Dr. Lawrence Palevsky Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS) Paralysis truth about vaccines Source Type: blogs
OK, I'll Shut Up Now: Final Pics and Thoughts on Natural Products Expo West
By Crabby McSlackerRegular readers are probably now vicariously nauseated and exhausted from our many virtual hours wandering through the convention halls together, eating everything in sight. I "dead blogged" Natural Products Expo West on Monday and nattered on again with the Expo West musings on Wednesday and here we are again with more of the same on Friday. Sheesh!The sad thing? Still dozens of more pictures and thoughts, but enough is enough I'm thinking. Natural Products Expo West is a really humongous undertaking and a fun time. I hope to bore you with it again next year... if any of you are ...
Source: Cranky Fitness - March 14, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: J Graham Source Type: blogs
Those amazing little kidneys
Years ago I was a dialysis nurse and I could not believe what I learned about these little organs in your body and how they actually work. First let’s note that these are bean-shaped and about the size of a fist. The kidneys are located near the middle of the back, on each side of the spine. Kidneys, if healthy, are working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; they are like a built-in water treatment plant! Their main job is to filter the blood – to maintain a balance of water and chemicals. Every day these amazing little organs filter out about 2 quarts of wastes and fluid in the form of urine.
Unfortunatel...
Source: Nursing Comments - March 13, 2014 Category: Nurses Authors: Stephanie Jewett, RN Tags: Advice/Education General Public Home/Articles Nursing/Nursing Students Patients/Specific Diseases acute blood loss AKI ARF chronic kidney disease diabetes dialysis end-stage renal disease high blood pressure Kidneys poison Source Type: blogs
Are You Looking to Be Full or Fulfilled?
When yearning for fulfilment, It’s not by chance that disregulated eaters fill themselves with food—and with people, activities, and material goods as they seek satisfaction, contentment, connection, and meaning. Sadly, they rarely get what they’re looking for because full and fulfilled are as different as apples and oranges.
Many disregulated eaters yearn for more out of and a deeper engagement with life. They talk about feeling empty as if they could ingest something which would stay there and keep them feeling full up. The problem with using food—or success, applause or achievement to do this—is that you ke...
Source: Normal Eating - March 3, 2014 Category: Eating Disorders Authors: eatnormalnow Source Type: blogs
Pounding the Table, Not the Facts, on School Choice
Jason Bedrick
There’s an old legal proverb about how to win a court case: “If the law is on your side, pound the law. If the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If neither is on your side, pound the table.” In this factually-challenged attack on school choice, two lawyers at the UNC Center for Civil Rights do a great deal of table pounding.
Despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, the lawyers charge that school choice programs don’t work and that they increase racial segregation. For example, they claim:
…in states with [school choice] programs, student achievement at the private schoo...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 25, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Jason Bedrick Source Type: blogs
16 Years After Conor's Autism Diagnosis: Lots of Conor Joy But No Progress in Autism Research
Yesterday was Conor's 18th birthday. Today is exactly 16 years after his autism diagnosis, received the day after his second birthday and after several months of testing and observation. Conor, now a young man, is still the happy boy that brings joy to his Mom and Dad, along with many serious challenges, challenges that restrict his life. Here in New Brunswick, Canada, some progress was made by a commitment to evidence based intervention by a determined parent advocacy movement. In the big picture though there has been no meaningful progress and in fact there has been very substantial regression. The regression has ...
Source: Facing Autism in New Brunswick - February 20, 2014 Category: Autism Authors: H L Doherty Source Type: blogs
Pharma companies shouldn't conduct clinical trials: Peter C Gøtzsche
Allowing pharmaceutical companies to conduct drug trials is the equivalent of a defendant alone presenting all the evidence to determine whether he is guilty or not, argues Peter C Gøtzsche, co-founder of The Cochrane Collaboration, a global independent network of health practitioners, researchers, patient advocates and others, and author of the recently released Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime: How Big Pharma Has Corrupted Healthcare. In a candid email interview withIndulekha Aravind, Denmark-based Gøtzsche, who is a specialist in internal medicine and has also worked with clinical trials and regulatory a...
Source: PharmaGossip - February 16, 2014 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Forget the Diet Plans: The No-Brainer Way to Eat Healthy AND Lose Weight
During my life I’ve had a love/hate view of “the meal plan” segment of diet books. I want to make it work, but often it just takes too much time and effort to follow the plan and so I don’t stick with it for more than a couple days.
I’ve read many many books and articles on nutrition, food as medicine, and weight loss. In that time I’ve come up with a simple formula that I use to eat healthy and lose/maintain weight.
What follows is a simple approach to eating that is both healthy and conducive to losing/maintaining your desired weight.
The 5 Pillars of Healthy Eating
Remembering...
Source: Life Learning Today - February 2, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: AgentSully Tags: Exercise Healthy Living How To Motivation Personal Development diet diet plan eat healthy healthy diet healthy diet plan how to lose weight weight loss Source Type: blogs
Hospital Horrors
The bullet hit me just below my rib cage, punching out a huge section of my liver and collapsing my right lung. Waves of pain rippled round my chest like a stone thrown in a still pond or echoes reverberating off sandstone cliffs.I gasped for breath but could find none. I tried to scream but had no voice.I rolled onto my back, clutching the entry wound with both hands, felt the wet, blood-soaked T-shirt beneath my fingers, sodden and cold.Wait… A bizarre fact flickered across my consciousness. The temperature of the human body is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. The blood spilling from my torn abdomen should be warm—not cold.I...
Source: LifeAfterDx--The Guardian Chronicles - February 1, 2014 Category: Diabetes Authors: Wil Source Type: blogs
