Health Care ’s Debt Problem
By KIM BELLARD
Among the many things that infuriate me about the U.S. healthcare system, health systems sending their patients to collections – or even suing them – is pretty high on the list (especially when they are “non-profit” and./or faith-based organizations, which we should expect to behave better).
There’s no doubt medical debt in the U.S. is a huge problem. Studies have found that more than 100 million people have medical debt, many of whom don’t think they’ll ever be able to pay it off. Kaiser Family Foundation estimates Americans owe some $220b in medical debt, with 3 million people owing mor...
Source: The Health Care Blog - April 10, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Policy Bankruptcy Kim Bellard medical debt Medical Debt RIP Source Type: blogs
Sora And Healthcare: Revolutionising Healthcare With AI Video Generation
“Historical footage of California during the gold rush.” From this simple prompt, OpenAI’s new text-to-video model Sora could generate a 25-second footage of what one could at a glance indeed think is real footage from that era. While such abilities of the company’s new artificial intelligence model were demonstrated in videos, Sora is not currently publicly available.
Nevertheless, its potential to create videos from simple text is bound to have consequences for the film and advertising industries. This has also led us to contemplate its possible medical and healthcare implications when it will be publicly avai...
Source: The Medical Futurist - March 21, 2024 Category: Information Technology Authors: Pranavsingh Dhunnoo Tags: TMF Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Sora AI video generator text to video AI in healthcare ChatGPT OpenAI Source Type: blogs
Efforts to Produce Drugs to Slow or Reverse Sarcopenia Benefit from the Semaglutide Hype
This popular science article is a reminder that all too little in this world happens for entirely rational reasons. Drugs aimed at slowing or reversing the age-related loss of muscle mass leading to sarcopenia are presently under development by a number of companies, though none of the candidates discussed are producing effect sizes that look very favorable in comparison to the effects of resistance exercise. These efforts will likely benefit from the present manufactured hype that attends the use of antidiabetic GLP1 receptor agonists for weight loss, as one of the side-effects of this drug is modest loss of muscle mass. ...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 15, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
The Wearable Health Tracker Landscape: 18 Devices On 18 Body Parts
Over the last decade, Dr Meskó, The Medical Futurist has had his hands on more than 150 digital health devices, turning his (and our) life into a real-world tech lab. Yet, for all that testing, the wearable universe keeps expanding beyond our reach. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, the field throws a curveball, like earrings that measure your body temperature, introducing us to entirely new categories and possibilities. It’s clear that the innovation train in wearable tech hasn’t slowed down; if anything, it’s picking up speed.
Our latest infographic dives into this fast-changing world, m...
Source: The Medical Futurist - March 7, 2024 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andrea Koncz Tags: TMF wearables health sensors health trackers Source Type: blogs
Answer to Case 739
Answer toParasite Case of the Week 739:Loa loamicrofilariaeThanks to everyone who wrote in with comments. We received a lot of different responses including some of the sheathed and unsheathed microfilariae. Therefore, this is a great time to review my approach to identifying microfilariae in blood specimens. You can also readthis articleI wrote with Blaine Mathison and Marc Couturier that provides a diagnostic algorithm for microfilariae in blood. In this algorithm, we recommend first measuring the length of the microfilariae. If they are small (<200 micrometers long), then it is likely to be one of theMansonella...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - March 2, 2024 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
Generative AI in Your Desk Drawer: Revenue Management
This article starts to look at healthcare generative AI use cases.
Is it any surprise that new technologies in health care pop up quickly in the area of reimbursements? Payments are the constant obsession of every manager.
Claims
Abhishek Sharma, principal of business transformation at Sagility, says that payers question why a doctor ordered an MRI instead of a less costly CT scan, and that precise details in the patient’s medical record and clinical demographic history have to be culled to justify the decision.
Dushyant Mishra, co-founder and CEO of RapidClaims, says that five to ten percent of costs in clinical i...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - February 27, 2024 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andy Oram Tags: Administration AI/Machine Learning C-Suite Leadership Health IT Company Healthcare IT Revenue Cycle Management Abhishek Sharma Administrative Burden AI Advantage Akshay Sharma Anna Twomey Artificial Intelligence Automated Medical C Source Type: blogs
Health IT Trends that Deserve More Attention
There are a lot of new ideas and technologies being made to better the world of healthcare. These new ideas and technologies are only successful, however, if enough people collectively take notice and talk about it in order to make it trend. But in a time when our industry is facing high staff overtime and burnout, there’s simply no way that we can be aware of everything happening in health IT. This then results in certain topics being neglected – regardless of their quality and how much you would personally like to see them trend.
So what trend isn’t being talked about enough? What should be trending ri...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - February 23, 2024 Category: Information Technology Authors: Grayson Miller Tags: C-Suite Leadership Health IT Company Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System Arcadia Ariel Gamiño Bobbi Weber CliniComp Colin Banas Dr. Lawrence Werlin DrFirst Epocrates Health IT Trends Heather Bassett HRC Fertility Joan But Source Type: blogs
A Medical Countermeasures Platform for Future Pandemics: Essential Elements for Equity
Fifa Rahman (Health Poverty Action), Onesmus Kalama (Eastern Africa National Network of AIDS and Health Services Organization), Samantha Rick (AVAC), Arush Lal (Chatham House), et al., A Medical Countermeasures Platform for Future Pandemics: Essential Elements for Equity (Ne. Univ. Sch.... (Source: HealthLawProf Blog)
Source: HealthLawProf Blog - February 17, 2024 Category: Medical Law Authors: Katharine Van Tassel Source Type: blogs
Get Ready for Filariae!
Dear Readers, I ' m delighted to announce that March and April areFilariasis Monthscourtesy of Idzi Potters and the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp! Image by Blaine MathisonYou may want to brush up on your filariae/microfilariae diagnostic skills in preparation. Here are a few resources to help you: World Health Organization Bench Aids for the Diagnosis of Filarial Infections. Available here: https://www.cdc.gov/dpdx/diagnosticprocedures/index.html (see the section on filariasis near the bottom right of the page)CDC DPDx - Laboratory Identification of Parasites of Public Health Concern:Lymphatic fi...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - February 15, 2024 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
What Do Fats Do in the Body?
It’s common knowledge that too much cholesterol and other fats can lead to disease and that a healthy diet involves watching how much fatty food we eat. However, our bodies need a certain amount of fat to function—and we can’t make it from scratch.
Hepatocytes, like the one shown here, are the most abundant type of cell in the human liver. One important role they play is producing bile, a liquid that aids in digesting fats. Credit: Donna Beer Stolz, University of Pittsburgh.
Triglycerides, cholesterol, and other essential fatty acids—the fats our bodies can’t make on their own—store energy, ins...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - January 24, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Cells Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmacology Common questions Source Type: blogs
Martin Luther King
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, January 15, 2024.
It’s sunny and cold outside. The dogs are pining for a walk. At least I think they are; I’m not sure.
I’m experimenting with Apple Journal in the hope that I can get motivated to write again. This is a different blogging/journaling experience than what I’ve used in the past. I’m going to try it out and see how it works for me. I also have Jetpack, the WordPress blogging extension, loaded on both my phone and my iPad. It’s a decent environment but I found I was getting too many notifications from it. I didn’t like that. Maybe this will be different...
Source: Qui Interrogat - January 15, 2024 Category: Nursing Authors: Walt Trachim Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, January 15th 2024
In conclusion, FMD cycles have high potential to be effective in increasing the toxicity of a range of therapies against ALL and other blood cancers and should be tested in randomized clinical trials, especially in combination with immunotherapy and low toxicity cancer therapies.
In summary, we present a new strategy for improving leukemia treatment by combining FMD with chemotherapy to promote the killing of ALL cells in part by an immune-dependent mechanism. Fasting/FMD has been shown to reduce chemotherapy-associated toxicity in pre-clinical and clinical studies and thus represents a safe and potentially effectiv...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 14, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
CoachCare Acquires Verustat
Fourth Acquisition Bolsters Remote Patient Monitoring Company’s Presence in Primary Care and Cardiology
CoachCare, a leading remote patient monitoring (RPM) and virtual health company, has acquired Nashville, Tennessee-based RPM company Verustat, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition represents CoachCare’s fourth acquisition in 12 months.
Founded in 2020, Verustat brings a valuable roster of RPM clients focused on primary care and cardiology. This adds to CoachCare’s leadership position by supporting the most prevalent chronic conditions, such as hypertension, obesity, and diabetes.
One of the fastest growing di...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - January 12, 2024 Category: Information Technology Authors: Healthcare IT News Tags: Health IT Company Healthcare IT CoachCare Health IT Acquisitions Healthcare M&A Hughey Business Law pH Partners Verustat Wes Haydon Whitman Breed Abbott & Morgan Source Type: blogs
Another Large Study of Hearing Aid Use Shows Deafness Increases Dementia Risk
You might compare the research noted here with another similar study published a year ago. In both cases, data on hearing aid use in large patient populations is used to demonstrate that hearing loss contributes to the onset and progression of dementia. This data doesn't favor any specific theory regarding the mechanism, such as atrophy of brain structures resulting from disuse versus some form of maladaptive compensatory activity in the brain. Greater understanding of the mechanisms involved will require further research.
Hearing loss has been suggested as a risk factor for dementia, but there is still a need for...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 10, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
How Can the Immune System Go Awry?
This post is part of a miniseries on the immune system. Be sure to check out the other posts in this series that you may have missed.
The immune system is designed to closely monitor the body for signs of intruders that may cause infection. But what happens if it malfunctions? Overactive and underactive immune systems can both have negative effects on your health.
Autoimmune Disorders
To effectively monitor the body for pathogens, the adaptive immune system has to learn what a pathogen “looks like” on a molecular level. During their development, white blood cells go through training to learn how to differe...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - January 8, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Cells Injury and Illness Diseases Immunology Miniseries Infectious Diseases Microbes Sepsis Source Type: blogs
