MetaFilter posts tagged with medical and healthcare

HHS baits, switches

casarkos — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 23:42:20 -0800

Not just for religious pharmacists anymore: the Department of Health and Human Services proposes a rule that protects anyone who refuses to provide medical services on moral or religious grounds. Missing from this final draft is (previously discussed) language that defined birth control devices as abortions - which could leave doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers, and other healthcare workers free to define abortion however they want. HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt says their consciences are protected under the First Amendment.

Big healthcare is watching.

uaudio — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 20:50:06 -0800

A new medical bill payment reporting system called MedFICO is said to be going live this summer. This system is being developed by the health care industry in an effort to judge a patient's ability to pay. Healthcare Analytics, a healthcare actuarial company, is developing the score in conjunction with Tenet Healthcare, credit scoring company Fair Issac, and venture capitalists. On one hand, it could lead to better and affordable pricing models based on ability to pay. On the other more likely and frightening hand, hospitals may deny your care based on previous inability to pay, pay on time, or keep medical billing errors off your record. After all, the corporate, for-profit hospitals have a responsibility to their shareholders. Federal law mandates that no hospital can deny your emergency care. But if you need to have a colonoscopy and have a few late payments to your allergist, will you now have to shop around for hospitals that are 'willing to take a chance' on you paying them?

Paul Krugman: The best places to get sick

Postroad — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 08:52:40 -0800

Paul Krugman: The best places to get sick A dozen years ago, everyone was talking about an American health care crisis. But then the issue faded from view: A few years of good data led many people to conclude that HMOs and other innovations had ended the historic trend of rising medical costs. But the pause in the growth of health care costs in the 1990s proved temporary. Medical costs are once again rising rapidly and the U.S. health care system is once again in crisis. So now is a good time to ask why other advanced countries manage to spend so much less than we Americans do, while getting better results.

Health care and intellectual property

mediareport — Sun, 01 Dec 2002 07:17:28 -0800

Intellectual property laws and the fight against disease Lots of news, data and commentary at the "Health Care and Intellectual Property" page from the Consumer Project on Technology. Conflicts of Interest in Biomedical Research is also worth a look.