Notice of Funding Opportunity: Bioethics and Disability
This report would examine developments at the state and federal-level, court cases, and current views from stakeholders.
Policy Questions
Which states have PAS laws and what do those laws provide? What protections against abuse of PAS?What have the Supreme Court and lower courts held regarding individuals’ rights under PAS laws? The laws themselves?Is there evidence that persons with disabilities are being denied treatment by insurance companies but offered PAS instead, as NCD predicted?How is PAS viewed by disability organizations? Has this evolved in the past 13 years? If so why? If not, why?Are persons with disabi...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - May 8, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Thaddeus Mason Pope, JD, PhD Tags: Health Care syndicated Source Type: blogs
Mr. and Mrs. Wheat Belly
Men and women follow the Wheat Belly lifestyle and can undergo important and sometime startling hormonal changes. Though results vary with stage of life—young adults, middle-aged, older—there are a variety of hormonal changes that women and men typically experience, some in concert, others independently. Such hormonal shifts can be powerful and part of the health-restoring menu of changes that develop with this lifestyle. They can even improve a relationship in a number of ways, both physically and emotionally, especially if we weave in some of the newer Wheat Belly/Undoctored concepts and practices such as oxy...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - March 13, 2018 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr. Davis Tags: Wheat Belly Lifestyle estradiol estrogen hormonal hormones Inflammation low-carb oxytocin testosterone Thyroid Weight Loss Source Type: blogs
Knowing when to screen … and when to quit
Follow me on Twitter @RobShmerling
Let us sing the praises of good medical screening tests.
These are the tests that can detect medical problems before they become untreatable and before they cause complications or even death. Even better are those screening tests that detect “predisease” — abnormalities that aren’t dangerous on their own but can lead to problems later.
According to the US Preventive Services Task Force, relatively few screening tests are considered good enough to routinely recommend for adults, including
mammography for breast cancer (women)
Pap smear for cervical cancer (women)
bone density test...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - March 1, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Robert H. Shmerling, MD Tags: Cancer Health Prevention Screening Source Type: blogs
What Know and What We Think
ROBERT McNUTT, MD
What matters is what we know, not what we think
In the late 1980’s I cared for a pregnant woman with breast cancer. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in pregnancy, but uncommon in number, occurring in about 1 in 3000 pregnancies. It is a compounded emotional treating experience for sure, and at that time uncertainty in how to treat was the norm. The woman had a mastectomy but did not take chemotherapy based on concern for her baby.
Three months after her delivery, now getting chemotherapy for her aggressive breast cancer, the woman asked me to consider treating her newborn child with “mild” ch...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 22, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
What We Know and What We Think
ROBERT McNUTT, MD
What matters is what we know, not what we think
In the late 1980’s I cared for a pregnant woman with breast cancer. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in pregnancy, but uncommon in number, occurring in about 1 in 3000 pregnancies. It is a compounded emotional treating experience for sure, and at that time uncertainty in how to treat was the norm. The woman had a mastectomy but did not take chemotherapy based on concern for her baby.
Three months after her delivery, now getting chemotherapy for her aggressive breast cancer, the woman asked me to consider treating her newborn child with “mild” ch...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 22, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Calling All Wonder Women —The US Health System Needs Strong Leaders, Healthy Mothers
Legend has it that the creation of Wonder Woman—the super hero and pop culture icon who has saved us from imminent doom since World War II—was inspired by real-life women’s health activists from the early twentieth century. These were women who bucked convention and championed causes like reproductive rights and suffrage. Women who saw opportunities for collective action where others saw insurmountable obstacles. Women who refused to be relegated to second-class status and instead became the driving force for creating a more just, inclusive world.
We have come a long way since the days of Margaret Sanger and Susan B....
Source: Health Affairs Blog - October 5, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Karen Wolk Feinstein Tags: Featured GrantWatch Health Professionals Population Health Quality community health workers Disparities Health Philanthropy Jewish Healthcare Foundation Latinas maternal mortality pregnancy Women's Health Source Type: blogs
Fertility: 12 things you didn ’t know (and 1 to never ask)
By Katrina Mark, MD
1. Fertility naturally declines as we age
That alone doesn’t mean you should start to worry. The general advice I give a woman is if she has been trying to become pregnant for a full year with no luck, she might consider a fertility evaluation. For a woman over age 35, she might consider it after six months. If a woman is younger and has irregular periods, it’s likely she isn’t regularly ovulating, so she might want to be evaluated sooner.
2. Sometimes there’s a reason for infertility – and sometimes, there’s not
There are some things we know cause infertility. About 20 percent of the time,...
Source: Life in a Medical Center - May 2, 2017 Category: Universities & Medical Training Authors: UMMC Tags: Health Tips Women's Health fertility Katrina Mark obgyn UMMC Source Type: blogs
I failed my patient, and it ’s a burden I’ll carry with me
This happened in my first couple years of practice, but I will never forget her.
I stood at the doorway of the funeral home, a 26-year-old mother lying in the open casket was off to the side. Standing out among the crowd of mourners was a tall man holding his one-year-old daughter, her curly locks of hair bouncing as he moved.
Soon after they were married, she became pregnant. They were a bright, young couple that had planned to have a large family and wanted to start right away. I was a fairly new doctor, not yet married myself, and embarrassingly, a bit envious of their relationship. They had an ease about them as if bin...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 12, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/andrea-eisenberg" rel="tag" > Andrea Eisenberg, MD < /a > Tags: Physician OB/GYN Source Type: blogs
What Can Women Do to Prevent Early Menopause?
About Early Menopause
The average age a woman goes into menopause is 51. Menopause is considered abnormal when it begins before the age of 40 and is called “premature ovarian failure.” Common symptoms that come with menopause include hot flashes, night sweats, sleep problems, sexual issues, vaginal dryness, pain during sex, pelvic floor disorders (urine, bowel leakage, pelvic organ prolapse), losing bone mass, and mood swings.
Menopause is mostly genetically predetermined, which means you generally can’t do much to delay it from happening. What we can do is work to counter-balance or prevent the symptoms and effe...
Source: Life in a Medical Center - March 13, 2017 Category: Universities & Medical Training Authors: UMMC Tags: Health Tips Women's Health diet and exercise early menopause tatiana sanses Source Type: blogs
Myths About The Medicaid Expansion And The ‘Able-Bodied’
A conservative critique of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) expansion of Medicaid eligibility is that it helps adults who are “able-bodied” and may discourage them from working. For example, a policy summary released by House Republicans proposes that “Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion for able-bodied adults [should] be repealed in its current form” (emphasis added). Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson has declared that if people are not willing to work and are “able-bodied, they ought to be kicked off the system.” In fact, the great majority of adults covered by the Medicaid expansion are in ill health or are...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - March 6, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Leighton Ku and Erin Brantley Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Medicaid and CHIP Quality ACA repeal and replace Arizona Medicaid expansion medicaid expansion states Source Type: blogs
Breaking Down The Final 2018 Letter To Issuers
Editor’s note: The final 2018 Letter To Issuers In The Federally Facilitated Maketplaces, discussed below, was issued in conjunction with the final 2018 Benefit and Payment Parameters rule, discussed here and here.
On December 16, 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released its final 2018 Letter to Issuers in the Federally Facilitated Marketplaces (FFM). CMS releases a letter each year to insurers that offer coverage through the FFM or through state-based marketplaces that use the Healthcare.gov platform (SBM-FP), laying out the ground rule...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - December 19, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Payment Policy Source Type: blogs
California’s End of Life Option Act will provoke meaningful conversations
I hoped that my feisty patient who prevailed over brain cancer would be spared another terminal diagnosis, but after two years in remission, her mammogram showed breast cancer. She agreed to surgery, but declined further chemotherapy. When the time comes, she asked, would I help her end her life?
The End of Life Option Act goes into effect in California on June 9, 2016, joining a handful of other states with similar legislation. The law empowers a terminally ill adult to request and receive a drug to hasten death. It also outlines rigorous screening and documentation requirements designed to protect patients and physicia...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - May 26, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Tenessa MacKenzie, MD Tags: Physician Palliative care Source Type: blogs
CMS Releases Final 2017 Letter To Issuers In The Federally Facilitated Marketplaces (Updated)
Implementing Health Reform (March 3 update). On March 3, 2016, the Office of the HHS Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) announced that the ACA has resulted in gains in health insurance coverage of 20 million adults through February 22, 2016. This includes 2.3 million young adults who gained coverage under the ACA provision allowing young adults to remain on their parents’ coverage through age 26, and 17.7 million non-elderly adults who have gained coverage between the beginning of open enrollment in October 2013 and the present. The report shows continued progress since ASPE released its last estimat...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - March 3, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Alaska Medicaid expansion QHPs Supreme Court Source Type: blogs
CMS Releases Draft 2017 Letter To Issuers In The Federally Facilitated Marketplaces
Implementing Health Reform. On December 23, 2017, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released its draft 2017 Letter to Issuers in the Federally Facilitated Marketplaces (FFMs). CMS also released a draft bulletin on the timing of rate filing submissions and rate filings for January 1, 2017 non-grandfathered individual and small group plans and a table of key dates for qualified health plan (QHP) certification, rate review, risk adjustment, and reinsurance for 2017.
The Draft Letter To Issuers
CMS issues a draft letter to FFM insurers (the “draft letter”) late each year following the release of its pro...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - December 24, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost Tags: Following the ACA Medicaid and CHIP Medicare Payment Policy cost-sharing reductions essential community providers Essential Health Benefits Federally Facilitated Marketplace Provider Participation Rate QHPs SHOP exchanges Source Type: blogs
The Payment Reform Landscape: Which Quality Measures Matter?
Over the past 15 years there have been major changes in the measures we have at our disposal to assess the quality of care. We have gone from decentralized disorganization to measures that have been “standardized” through various multi-stakeholder consensus processes, including that of the National Quality Forum. And where there was a dearth of standard quality measures, some now argue we have too many (600-plus and counting), but not the right ones.
This has led to initiatives like the Measure Applications Partnership, the Institute of Medicine’s report “Vital Signs: Core Metrics for Health and Health Care Progres...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - October 15, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Suzanne Delbanco, François de Brantes and Tom Valuck Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Insurance and Coverage Organization and Delivery Payment Policy Quality AHIP Core Measures Collaborative employers IOM report National Quality Forum Payment Reform Landscape quality measures Suzanne Delb Source Type: blogs
