The trigger for these mergers is the Affordable Care Act. One can’t help but wonder if the quest for accessible and affordable healthcare has made physicians worse off. Well it’s happening. Humana is officially seeking a buyer, despite its dominant position in the marketplace. Cigna and Anthem, two biggest players in the insurance market have Read more…
Voice
Does Sexism Still Exist in Medicine?
Science. Does sexism still exist in medicine? In many cases, it depends on which side of the fence you’re on. The prevalent opinion among male medical professionals is that it does not, and that women have equal opportunities when it comes to education, medical positions and so forth, but if you’re a woman, you might Read more…
Physician assisted suicides: The right to choose?
California might become the sixth state to protect aid-in-dying practices. The End of Life Option Act, a bill that would allow doctor-assisted suicide for some terminally ill patients, was recently advanced by California’s Senate. Two previous attempts to pass similar legislation were stalled, mainly because doctors did not support it. But last month the California Read more…
The Blue Button brouhaha
When President Obama launched the Blue Button initiative for veterans in 2010, the idea was to make a consumer engagement tool that empowers the patients by enabling them to access and download their online medical records. Today, the use of and the awareness about this initiative has skyrocketed and it has become an important part Read more…
Meaningful Use benefits driving EHR adoption
In 2009, when the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was promulgated, the need of the hour was to put the ailing US economy back on the path to recovery. The purpose of The Recovery Act was to immediately create and save jobs, and to provide temporary relief to the sectors most impacted by the Read more…
The philosophy of Healthcare IT: How it will grow?
Healthcare Information Technology has seen rapid growth over the past few years. At the forefront of this massive change is President Obama’s initiative known as Obamacare. One of the key features of Obamacare is the push towards registering uninsured patients, which form a major part of US population. Let’s look into some of the aspects Read more…
Should healthcare be free of cost?
Medical ethics, a set of moral principles that govern the practice of medicine, imply that a medical practitioner needs to display consideration, compassion, and benevolence to their patients. This is a complex concept. Compassion arises from humanitarian sensitivity, and that would essentially dictate that if I am unable to cover the expenditure associated with my Read more…
Community Health Centers: Making a difference
Community Health Center (CHC) model is one of the premier beneficiaries of federal grants for primary care in the United States. Uninsured patients are a major part of the overall population. In 2013, United States Department of Health and Human Services allocated $150 million in financial support to CHCs for providing enrollment assistance to uninsured Read more…
Survey finds Obamacare will impact physician career time lines
A recent study has found that nearly half of US physicians think Obamacare will impact their career time lines in one way or the other as they will have to re-evaluate their length of stay in practice. The study, undertaken by Jackson & Coker, a physician staffing firm, surveyed over 3,000 practicing physicians from a Read more…