October 9, 2014 - Last month two lawmakers, one a liberal Democrat and the other a conservative Republican, joined together to launch a movement intended to result in the development of a national strategy to combat prostate cancer, a disease that is expected to kill 29,000 men just this year alone. According to estimates, there will be 230,000 new cases of prostate cancer in 2014. One-in-six men will be diagnosed during their lifetime, increasing to one-in-five if they are African American and one–in-three if there is a family history of the disease. In fact, WebMD reports that prostrate cancer is diagnosed in an estimated 80 percent of men who reach age 80. It’s a slow moving cancer and there are often no early symptoms, although a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test has traditionally been used as an indicator. But there is a debate within the medical community and within federal health policy agencies as to the real value of that test, and whether it can lead to over diagnosis and perhaps unnecessary surg
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On June 7, a tractor trailer rig owned and operated by Wal-Mart rammed into a limo carrying comedian Tracy Morgan and several friends, killing writer James "Jimmy Mack" McNair and seriously injuring two other comics in addition to Morgan. The group was driving on the New Jersey Turnpike, returning from a stand-up show at a casino in Delaware when the huge truck, driven by Kevin Roper, of Jonesboro, GA, rammed into it at 20 mph over the speed limit after falling asleep at the wheel. According to police reports, Roper had been awake for more than 24 hours prior to the crash. He was charged with assault and death-by-auto and pleaded not guilty. Wal-Mart issued a statement saying the driver "was operating within the federal hours of service regulations"...
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My client, Long-Term Living magazine, reported Sept. 17, 2014 the details of an extremely important study by the Institute of Medicine, which calls into question how patients, near death, are typically treated. The report says that "perverse incentives" exist in today's health care system causing patients to suffer unnecessary discomfort. Here is the LTL article: A new report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends several changes to the U.S. healthcare system to meet the needs of people nearing the end of life as well as the needs of their families...
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There is a crisis building in the U.S. and Congress is pretty much ignoring it. With the political climate that persists in Washington, you can expect that to continue. But if it does, the problem will only get worse and more expensive. What's the crisis? It's how do we, as individuals and families, handle the excruciatingly high cost of long-term care at a time in our lives when we have the least amount of income and have to rely on our families or our savings, if we’re lucky, to cover the tab...
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On the evening of September 15, 2015, as I usually do much of the summer and have been for years, I watched my favorite team, the Baltimore Orioles, defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-2. When the final out was recorded, I immediately raced to my computer to get a ticket for the next night’s game at Camden Yards in Baltimore. I did that because the O' s had just clinched a tie for the American League Eastern Division championship and on the next night they would have a chance to clinch the title outright. I wanted to be there. So I got my ticket (Jackie didn't want to go because she would miss, heaven forbid, Dancing with the Stars, and it was too late to call any of my baseball friends.) It was in Section 46, Row 26, Seat 7 in the lower boxes just on the third base side of home plate.
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G-Net, working with the American Wholesale Marketers Association, scripted and directed a new 16-minute video promoting AWMA's invaluable InfoMetrics data program, which provides convenience store distributors, their suppliers and retail customers with the most timely and targeted industry sales information available anywhere. The video, shot and directed by AWMA videographer Alex Swaim, includes exclusive footage shot at InRhythm, the Pittsburgh, PA developer of InfoMetrics, and at distributor and retailer locations in Maine, Louisiana and West Virginia, and from interviews conducted at a conference in Chicago. The video will be premiered at AWMA's Summit and Business Exchange in Orlando September 9 and will be used in a variety of venues and on the AWMA website, www.awmanet.org, to promote industry participation in the InfoMetrics program.
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So, if you read my blog from late July about hitting the stream and fly fishing for the first time with two top experts, you know that I’ve been working on learning "The Cast." I had no idea that casting a fly rod would take any special skill, or that it would be any different from casting a lure with a casting or spinning rod, or tossing out a worm on a hook with a sinker — as I did as a kid and for years and years after that...
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The latest on American Health Policy: Starting on September 30 we will all be able to go online and check to see how much money manufacturers of drugs, devices, biological and medical supplies are paying to our doctors – and why. It's all part of the National Physician Payment Transparency Program (Open Payments) established by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), which requires manufacturers to collect data on payments or items of value given to teaching hospitals and physicians. Manufacturers must also report certain ownership or investment interests by physicians or their immediate family members held at any point during the reporting year...
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In its report, "Graduate Medical Education that Meets the Nation's Health Needs," the IOM said that the underlying methodologies and assumptions about the future physician work force in various studies that predict serious shortages "are problematic." "They generally assume historical provider-patient ratios using existing technological supports and thus have limited relevance to future health care delivery systems or to the need for a more coordinated, affordable, and patient-centered health care system," the report said...
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Even as the scandal involving Veterans Administration hospitals around the country has prompted Congress to pass a new law to reform the VA, a group of lawmakers are putting the heat on the VA to make it easier for vets to obtain care from non- VA facilities. Yes, President Obama has signed that legislation and it is supposed to make it possible for veterans to obtain outside health care, but there is a big missing link that seems to virtually ignore our most vulnerable veterans, those in need of long-term care...
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