USPSTF adopts my reasoning on PSA screening for prostate cancer
Which way on PSA?
I oppose over-testing and over-treatment, so I really had to think hard five years ago when I turned 45 and my doctor offered PSA screening for prostate caner. The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) had just come out against PSA screening, concluding that the harms outweighed the benefits.
Nonetheless (Why I decided to get a PSA screening test for prostate cancer), I did go forward. As I wrote:
I know that PSA is a very imperfect indicator. I definitely want to avoid the stress and possible discomfort of having a biopsy. I’m worried about false positive and false negative biopsy results. And I...
Source: Health Business Blog - April 13, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: dewe67 Tags: Patients Physicians Policy and politics Research Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Precision Medicine Is Our Best Hope In The Fight Against Cancer
In the fight against cancer, precision medicine is one of the most promising tools and the logical outcome of current healthcare trends. As start-ups offering personalized healthcare solutions multiply like mushrooms after rain, governments and regulatory agencies have to give appropriate responses in regulating the grass-root healthcare jungle. Here is my analysis about the potential and dilemmas about precision medicine.
Precision medicine is the logical outcome of modern healthcare
There is one phrase, which is not part of the Hippocratic Oath, but everyone in medicine knows it. Primum non nocere, meaning “first do n...
Source: The Medical Futurist - March 30, 2017 Category: Information Technology Authors: nora Tags: Future of Medicine Genomics Healthcare Design Personalized Medicine AI cancer cancer research chemotherapy digital gc4 genetics Genome Innovation oncology precision medicine targeted treatment technology Source Type: blogs
Please include more patients at our medical meetings
As a consumer and admirer of movies, I always look forward to the Academy Awards. A celebration of the best movies and performances of the past year. A night filled with spectacular performances, glamor, and amazing speeches. The speeches are truly special for me since we get a glimpse into the true character and soul of the award winners as they thank those who helped them along their journey.
I feel like national medical meetings have similar qualities. We celebrate the research, clinical trials, and breakthroughs over the past year. The highlights for me are the presentations by thought leaders in the field. Every ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 12, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/prateek-mendiratta" rel="tag" > Prateek Mendiratta, MD < /a > Tags: Conditions Cancer Source Type: blogs
For Self-Employed Entrepreneurs, Losing The ACA Would Be An Enormous Setback
Lawmakers who dream of gutting the Affordable Care Act (ACA) do not seem to care about its importance to small business owners, particularly those who are solo entrepreneurs. What these politicians fail to understand is that the health care law is the first meaningful insurance reform available to entrepreneurs in decades. In fact, for many self-employed business owners, their firms would not exist without it. That’s why repealing the law is going to be a sizable setback for entrepreneurship.
One of the most popular and best-known provisions of the ACA has been particularly important to solo entrepreneurs: the prohibitio...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - March 9, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: John Arensmeyer Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Colorado entrepreneurs Source Type: blogs
What I do for thirty seven dollars and five cents
The building contractor chatted pleasantly while I checked his blood pressure, waist circumference, cholesterol levels, fasting glucose and urine protein. We discussed bowel and prostate cancer screening in detail, and I gave him written information as we were out of time. As I signed his script for the blood pressure medication, he winked.
“That was easy money for you, wasn’t it?”
Thirty-seven dollars and five cents is the value the government places on up to twenty minutes of my time. This figure, the amount a practice receives from Medicare for a standard consultation, hasn’t changed in four years, and under the...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 9, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/dr-elizabeth-oliver" rel="tag" > Dr. Elizabeth Oliver < /a > Tags: Physician Primary care Source Type: blogs
Invisible High-Risk Pools: How Congress Can Lower Premiums And Deal With Pre-Existing Conditions
As Congress and the Trump administration move forward with plans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), they are looking for proven state-led reforms that maintain access for those with pre-existing conditions in the current exchange market while also lowering premiums for everyone buying insurance in the individual market.
Maine faced similar challenges in 2011 as it sought to unwind failed experiments that pushed its market into a long-term death spiral. But by creating an invisible high-risk pool and relaxing its premium rating bands, Maine policymakers were able to cut premiums in half while still guarant...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - March 2, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Joel Allumbaugh, Tarren Bragdon and Josh Archambault Tags: Following the ACA Health Policy Lab Insurance and Coverage ACA repeal and replace high-risk pools pre-existing conditions Source Type: blogs
Overdiagnosis harms kids. Here ’s how to avoid it.
A fairly recent article in the Journal of Pediatrics is both intriguing and sobering. It is intriguing because it lays bare something we don’t talk much about or teach our students. It is sobering because it describes the potential harm that can come from it — harm I have personally witnessed. The issue is overdiagnosis, and it’s related to our relentless quest to explain everything.
“Overdiagnosis” is the term the authors use to describe a situation in which a true abnormality is discovered, but detection of that abnormality does not benefit the patient. It is not the same as misdiagnosis, meaning the di...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - February 21, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/christopher-johnson" rel="tag" > Christopher Johnson, MD < /a > Tags: Conditions Pediatrics Source Type: blogs
New imaging technique may help some men avoid prostate biopsy
Men who have high levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in their blood face troubling uncertainties. While it’s true that prostate cancer can elevate PSA, so can other conditions, including the benign prostate enlargement that afflicts many men as they get older. PSA levels also vary normally from one man to the next, and some men have unusually high levels even when they’re perfectly healthy. To rule out cancer, doctors might recommend a biopsy. Yet prostate biopsies pose risks of infection, and they can also miss cancer in men who truly have the disease. Most prostate biopsies are guided by transrectal ultrasound...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - February 17, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: Cancer Men's Health Prostate Health Tests and procedures Source Type: blogs
What Tom Price doesn ’t know about prostate cancer screening
Dr. Tom Price may become the first medical doctor to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 24 years. One might think that having completed medical school and practiced orthopedic surgery before entering politics might give him some extra insight into what works and what doesn’t in medicine. But judging by a letter to then-HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that he signed in 2011 objecting to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s draft recommendations on prostate cancer screening, Dr. Price either failed to learn anything in evidence-based medicine class or forgot everything he learned.
Pric...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - February 16, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/kenneth-lin" rel="tag" > Kenneth Lin, MD < /a > Tags: Conditions Cancer Source Type: blogs
Socialized Medicine: From Anecdote to Data
Last night ’s CNN duel between Senators Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz on the future of Obamacare was pretty illuminating for a recent arrival to the United States, with Senator Sanders’ playbook all-too-familiar to those of us from the UK.Sanders wants a single-payer socialized healthcare system in the United States, just as we have in Britain. Any objection to that is met with the claim that you are “leaving people to die.” The only alternatives on offer, you would think, are the U.S. system as it exists now, or the UK system. Sanders did not once acknowledge that the UK structure, which is free at the point of use,...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 8, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Ryan Bourne Source Type: blogs
Will Trump's Leadership Picks Smack Down Health Care? - A Drug Company Lobbyist, an Entrepreneur Who Wants to Weaken Drug Testing, and a Mysterious Billionaire Who Settled Fraud Charges
President Trump in hisinauguration speech promised to reach out to " struggling families " and to benefit " American workers and American families, " and promised all Americans " you will never be ignored again. " Yet the Trump transition team, and now presidential administration continues to consider individuals for health care policy leadership roles remarkable for theirconflicts of interest, which often did not merely arise from small financial transactions but from their roles as corporate insiders, and in some cases, association with dubiously ethical practices. They are particularly unremarkable for their...
Source: Health Care Renewal - January 27, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: conflicts of interest Covidien Donald Trump executive compensation fraud Medtronic revolving doors Source Type: blogs
On The Pulse - January 2017
MRI scan could improve prostate cancer diagnosis (Source: OnMedica Blogs)
Source: OnMedica Blogs - January 26, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Source Type: blogs
Over-the-Counter FIT Test for Colonic Cancer Looks Effective
A large very number of colonoscopies are performed yearly in the U.S. for cancer screening. For older male non-smokers, colonic cancer ranks with prostate cancer as a major cancer threat (see:Men and Cancer Risk). Here are some specific numbers about the frequency of gastroentestinal endoscopy (see:$4.4 Billion Gastrointestinal Endoscopic Market in the U.S. and Europe Projected for 2020):Gastrointestinal endoscopy is one of the most widely performed medical procedures in the world.It is projected that there will be over 75 million gastrointestinal endoscopic procedures performed in the U.S. and Europe com...
Source: Lab Soft News - January 24, 2017 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Clinical Lab Industry News Clinical Lab Testing Cost of Healthcare Laboratory Industry Trends Medical Consumerism Medical Research Point-of-Care Testing Test Kits and Home Testing Source Type: blogs
How the Federal Government ’s Opposition to Medical Marijuana Research Keeps Patients in the Dark
How the Federal Government’s Opposition to Medical Marijuana Research Keeps Patients in the Dark
Last week the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine released a report surveying over 10,000 scientific studies to determine conclusively how marijuana interacts with the body. The review was especially concerned with marijuana’s efficacy as a medicine as well as its positive and negative short- and long-term effects on users.
Some of the Academies’ published conclusions were incredible. For example, there is conclusive evidence that cannabis and/or cannabinoids are an effective treatment for chronic pai...
Source: Cliffside Malibu - January 17, 2017 Category: Addiction Authors: Richard Taite Tags: Richard Taite Source Type: blogs
