Monday, October 26, 2009
QD: News Every Day--H1N1 'emergency' and vaccine shortage
ACP Internist's daily digest of news and events continues with H1N1 updates, and physicians speaking out about health care reform.
H1N1 influenza
The weekend's health news had one theme: President Obama declared a national emergency, coupled together with pictures of long lines of people waiting for vaccines. Lines formed despite the large numbers of people refusing to get inoculated. (Half of all Canadians!)
Health insurance
Health care reform may have to start at the (medical) home. Eleven percent of health care workers are uninsured. Ambulatory care workers are three times as likely as hospital employees to not have insurance; residential care workers are four times as likely; and service workers are 50% more likely to be uninsured than those involved in treatment. Meanwhile, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, that state's largest insurer, is moving its 5,000 employees to a high-deductible insurance plan linked to health savings accounts.
In case you missed it ...
Internist Randy Silverstine, MD, turned his solo office into a concierge practice but only charges $600 a year, a fraction of what others have charged. He joins the ranks of the 12% of internists who no longer accept health insurance. "This was the only way I knew how to keep practicing the kind of medicine I loved," he told the Sarasota, Fla. Herald-Tribune.
ACP Fellows are sounding off about health care reform. Charles M. Fischman, FACP, spells out how the possibility of a 21% cut in Medicare reimbursement would play out in Florida--with a mass exodus, he predicts. Paul Dolinsky, FACP, says there's plenty of blame to spread around for rising costs.
Labels: flu, H1N1, health care reform, QD
Contact ACP Internist
Send comments to ACP Internist staff at acpinternist@acponline.org.
Previous Posts
- Medical News of the Obvious
- QD: News Every Day--slow start for H1N1 vaccine
- Denied health insurance
- QD: News Every Day--health care reform and H1N1
- The future is now.
- Is the evidence piling up everywhere or just aroun...
- So that's what that slide does.
- QD: News Every Day--SGR cuts stalled
- QD: News Every Day--Senate considers SGR overhaul
- Narrowing the focus on fibromyalgia
Blog log
Members of the American College of Physicians contribute posts from their own sites to ACP Internist and ACP Hospitalist. Contributors include:
Albert Fuchs, MD
Albert Fuchs, MD, FACP,
graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles School of
Medicine, where he also did his internal medicine training.
Certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, Dr. Fuchs
spent three years as a full-time faculty member at UCLA School of
Medicine before opening his private practice in Beverly Hills in
2000.
David Katz, MD
David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACP, is an internationally renowned
authority on nutrition, weight management, and the prevention of
chronic disease, and an internationally recognized leader in
integrative medicine and patient-centered care.
DrDialogue
Juliet K. Mavromatis, MD, FACP, provides a conversation about
health topics for patients and health professionals.
Dr. Mintz' Blog
Matthew Mintz, MD, FACP, has practiced internal medicine for more
than a decade and is an Associate Professor of Medicine at an
academic medical center on the East Coast. His time is split
between teaching medical students and residents, and caring for
patients.
Everything Health
Toni Brayer, MD, FACP, blogs about the rapid changes in science,
medicine, health and healing in the 21st century.
FutureDocs
Vineet Arora, MD, FACP, is Associate Program Director for the
Internal Medicine Residency and Assistant Dean of Scholarship &
Discovery at the Pritzker School of Medicine for the University of
Chicago. Her education and research focus is on resident duty
hours, patient handoffs, medical professionalism, and quality of
hospital care. She is also an academic hospitalist.
Glass
Hospital
John H. Schumann, MD, FACP, provides transparency on the workings
of medical practice and the complexities of hospital care,
illuminates the emotional and cognitive aspects of caregiving and
decision-making from the perspective of an active primary care
physician, and offers behind-the-scenes portraits of hospital
sanctums and the people who inhabit them.
Gut Check
Ryan Madanick, MD, ACP Member, is a gastroenterologist at the
University of North Carolina School of Medicine, and the Program
Director for the GI & Hepatology Fellowship Program. He
specializes in diseases of the esophagus, with a strong interest in
the diagnosis and treatment of patients who have
difficult-to-manage esophageal problems such as refractory GERD,
heartburn, and chest pain.
I'm dok
ACP Member Mike Aref, MD, PhD, ACP Member, is an academic
hospitalist with an interest in basic and clinical science and
education, with interests in noninvasive monitoring and diagnostic
testing using novel bedside imaging modalities, diagnostic
reasoning, medical informatics, new medical education modalities,
pre-code/code management, palliative care, patient-physician
communication, quality improvement, and quantitative biomedical
imaging.
Just Oncology
Richard Just, MD, ACP Member, has 36 years in clinical practice of hematology and medical oncology. His blog is a joint publication with Gregg Masters, MPH.
KevinMD
Kevin Pho, MD, ACP Member, offers one of the Web's definitive sites
for influential health commentary.
MD
Whistleblower
Michael Kirsch, MD, FACP, addresses the joys and challenges of
medical practice, including controversies in the doctor-patient
relationship, medical ethics and measuring medical quality. When
he's not writing, he's performing colonoscopies.
Medical
Lessons
Elaine Schattner, MD, ACP Member, shares her ideas on education,
ethics in medicine, health care news and culture. Her views on
medicine are informed by her past experiences in caring for
patients, as a researcher in cancer immunology, and as a patient
who's had breast cancer.
Prescriptions
David M. Sack, MD, FACP, practices general gastroenterology at a
small community hospital in Connecticut. His blog is a series of
musings on medicine, medical care, the health care system and
medical ethics, in no particular order.
Reflections
of a Grady Doctor
Kimberly Manning, MD, FACP, reflects on the personal side of being
a doctor in a community hospital in Atlanta.
Technology in (Medical) Education
Neil Mehta, MBBS, MS, FACP, is interested in use of technology in
education, social media and networking, practice management and
evidence-based medicine tools, personal information and knowledge
management.
White Coat Underground
Peter A. Lipson, MD, ACP Member, is a practicing internist and
teaching physician in Southeast Michigan. The blog, which has been
around in various forms since 2007, offers musings on the
intersection of science, medicine, and culture.
ACP Internist and ACP Hospitalist also contribute to and draw upon content from Get Better Health, a network created by Val Jones, MD, to support and promote health care professional bloggers, provide insightful and trustworthy health commentary, and help to inform health policy makers about the clinician's point of view on health care reform, science, research and patient care.
Other blogs of note:
American
Journal of Medicine
Also known as the Green Journal, the American Journal of Medicine
publishes original clinical articles of interest to physicians in
internal medicine and its subspecialities, both in academia and
community-based practice.
Clinical Correlations
A collaborative medical blog started by Neil Shapiro, MD, ACP
Member, associate program director at New York University Medical
Center's internal medicine residency program. Faculty, residents
and students contribute case studies, mystery quizzes, news,
commentary and more.
db's Medical
Rants
Robert M. Centor, MD, FACP, contributes short essays contemplating
medicine and the health care system.
Interact
MD
Michael Benjamin, MD, ACP member, doesn't accept industry money so
he can create an independent, clinician-reviewed space on the
Internet for physicians to report and comment on the medical news
of the day.
PLoS
Blog
The Public Library of Science's open access materials include a
blog.
White Coat Rants
One of the most popular anonymous blogs written by an emergency
room physician.

0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home