Top Stories | Tuesday, May 13, 2008 | |
Wednesday, May 07, 2008Identity thieves prey on patients' medical records | ||
Doctors' offices, clinics and hospitals are a fruitful hunting ground for identity thieves, who are using increasingly sophisticated methods to steal patient information, lawyers and privacy experts say. | ||
Monday, May 05, 2008Wife dies but new hospital bills keep coming | ||
During the final two months of Melanie Smailus' life, she battled the leukemia ravaging her body. | ||
Tuesday, April 29, 2008Bill bans medical test markups | ||
The Missouri Senate passed legislation yesterday that would ban the practice of marking up procedures used to screen patients for signs of cancer. | ||
Tuesday, April 29, 2008Health insurance for Amy, Beth and Cindy | ||
Amy carries the BRCA1 gene, which is associated with an elevated risk of breast cancer. Beth has an aunt and a sister who had breast cancer. Five years ago, Cindy had breast cancer, which is now in remission. What these three women have in common is a much higher risk than the average woman of one day developing breast cancer. Should a health insurer be allowed to charge them higher premiums, or deny them coverage altogether, as a result? | ||
Wednesday, April 16, 2008Cut your Health Care Expenses Before You Get The Bills | ||
Shocked at the sticker price on your health care bills? You’re not alone. Health care costs are on the rise and consumers are searching for ways heal their wallets. Here are 5 easy tips to help you lower your medical costs. | ||
Monday, April 14, 2008Medical-bill confusion costly for Ohio patients | ||
Trying to understand a hospital bill can be a challenge. | ||
Thursday, April 10, 2008Wilmington family close to losing everything | ||
A Wilmington family is on the brink of losing everything. Four family members were injured in a recent auto accident and the woman who caused the wreck didn't have enough insurance to cover the family's medical bills. | ||
Friday, April 04, 2008Insurer to no longer pay for medical errors | ||
To give hospitals an incentive to avoid some of the most egregious medical errors, Missouri's largest insurer no longer will pay for certain mistakes, including when a surgery is performed on a wrong body part or patient. | ||
Monday, March 31, 2008Finding a cure for the cost of care | ||
John Flaherty didn't go to the emergency room, even though he knew he'd separated his shoulder. | ||
Monday, March 31, 2008The number of young adults without health insurance is rising | ||
Six years ago, Evelyn Reinthaler’s face smacked against the windshield of her Geo Prism during an Interstate collision. The accident sent her to the hospital, where she racked up an $18,000 bill. | ||
Saturday, March 29, 2008Gov't Launches Hospital Comparisons Site | ||
Federal health officials released the latest version of a web site Friday that lets the public compare about 2,500 hospitals on some measures of quality.
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Friday, March 28, 2008Hospitals won't bill for mistakes | ||
Delaware hospitals have agreed not to charge patients or their insurance companies for nine serious medical mistakes, such as operating on the wrong body part, leaving a sponge in a surgical patient, or making medication errors that cause death or serious injury. | ||
Friday, March 28, 2008Debt Consolidation | ||
Most people have heard of debt consolidation through junk mail, on television, or other forms of media. Today, with the price of goods skyrocketing to include groceries, medical bills, and even gas, consumers are trying to find solutions for better money management. Over time, bills can pile up, virtually squeezing the life out of you. Stop feeling consumed by being in this type of situation and consider getting help with debt consolidation. | ||
Thursday, March 27, 2008How To Handle Medical Emergencies On The Road | ||
You’re in an out-of-the-way corner of Japan, enjoying a mid-morning ride on a cheaply purchased mountain bike, viewing a landscape that only so many places can offer. | ||
Thursday, March 27, 2008Good Samaritan Falls On Hard Times | ||
A Jackson man labeled a Good Samaritan after he came to the rescue of a car wreck victim said he's the one who needs help now. | ||
Thursday, March 27, 2008Managing care the right way | ||
MANAGED CARE got a bad reputation in the 1990s. At its best, though, this method of organizing healthcare saves money while enhancing the quality of patients' lives. In Massachusetts, the Commonwealth Care Alliance, which bills itself as a nonprofit care delivery system, is succeeding in its five-year-old experiment on whether treatment can be coordinated and improved for people with complicated medical histories. | ||
Thursday, March 27, 2008Walt's letter to the editor on health care | ||
At age nine months, my son Dixon was diagnosed with a life-threatening congenital heart defect. He received excellent care locally followed by 13 hours of surgery in Chicago. After six months, he was discharged – and we had a $600,000 medical bill. | ||
Wednesday, March 19, 2008Drugs, Dollars & Diagnosis | ||
Every few years, it seems, there’s a new diagnosis for a controversial disease or condition.
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Tuesday, March 18, 2008Study backs anti-infection tests of all hospital patients | ||
Adding to a vigorous debate over how to control drug-resistant bacteria, researchers at Evanston Northwestern Healthcare reported Monday that screening all hospital patients for MRSA can sharply reduce hospital-acquired infections. | ||
Tuesday, March 18, 2008New Jersey to Consider Health Plan to Cover All | ||
Thrusting New Jersey again into the vanguard of social change, a bipartisan group of legislators unveiled a proposal on Monday that would require all residents to have health care coverage within three years. | ||
Tuesday, March 18, 2008Pediatric allergies take toll on kids too | ||
Allergies can not only make children out of sorts during the day, but can interfere with their sleep, too, researchers reported in a study to be released on Monday. | ||
Tuesday, March 18, 2008Studies Find Obesity Is ‘the Result of Complex Networks of Genes’ | ||
A new research shows that an entire network of genes in the body is disrupted by overeating and this not only causes obesity, but also diabetes and heart disease. | ||
Thursday, February 28, 2008California Considers Imposing a Health Insurance Mandate | ||
After nearly a year of tense negotiations, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles) announced they had reached a bipartisan compromise on a plan to provide government health insurance for 3.6 million of California's 5 million uninsured citizens by 2010. | ||
Thursday, February 28, 2008Report Claims More Government Can Solve Health Care Problems | ||
The Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based advocacy group, has released a report claiming government-mandated health insurance, combined with personal health care savings options, could help reduce spending on health care in the United States by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years. | ||
Thursday, February 28, 2008Telemedicine Holds Promise for Health Care | ||
A new report from the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), "Convenient Care and Telemedicine," says telemedicine can remedy several of the problems currently plaguing the health care industry. | ||
Thursday, February 28, 2008Walk-in Clinics Are Growing Fast, Increasing Consumer Options | ||
Walk-in clinics are quickly becoming one of the fastest-growing providers of health care, and experts say a major reason for their expansion is that they offer consumers a convenient, affordable choice. | ||
Thursday, February 07, 2008U.S. blacks get sepsis at twice the rate of whites | ||
Blacks get severe sepsis -- a rampant infection of the bloodstream that causes organ failure -- at nearly twice the rate of whites, and they are far more likely to die from it, U.S. researchers said on Friday. | ||
Thursday, February 07, 2008Schwarzenegger vows to pursue health insurance | ||
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday vowed to press on with legislation to provide health insurance to his state's uninsured, a day after a universal health care bill he backed died in a Senate committee. | ||
Friday, February 01, 2008Doctors' Group Wants Insurance for All | ||
The nation's biggest organization of specialty doctors called on presidential candidates Thursday to back health insurance coverage for all Americans. | ||
Monday, January 28, 2008Take Charge of Health Care - Charlotte Weekly (see page 6) | ||
No one has just one doctor anymore; today, specialists provide a significant portion of a patient's health care. Such specific treatment can cause hitches in the continuum of care and lead to miscommunications between multiple providers - a common problem. | ||
Thursday, January 24, 2008Employers put health coverage in workers' hands | ||
Nick Trikolas plans to drop health insurance for his employees and give them money to buy their own coverage. He says doing so will put him in the vanguard of a movement by employers searching for answers to rising health costs. | ||
Thursday, January 24, 2008Adult Vaccination Rates Too Low | ||
Far too few adults in the United States are being vaccinated against serious and even deadly diseases, such as the flu, pneumonia, shingles, and cervical cancer, new data from the CDC confirms. | ||
Saturday, January 19, 2008Providing Peace Of Mind - Charlotte Weekly (see page 11) | ||
Physical therapist Rich Biggers totes a first aid kit to his kid's softball games - something other parents value but rarely think of themselves. He carries his defensive line of thinking to another field where most people don't think of mounting a good defense: health care billing. | ||
Thursday, January 17, 2008ER waits dangerously long in U.S. | ||
Patients seeking urgent care in U.S. emergency rooms are waiting longer than in the 1990s, especially people with heart attacks, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday. | ||
Monday, January 14, 2008Health care costs going up? Here’s what to do | ||
Many employees are seeing the cost of their company's health insurance coverage increase this year, along with health insurance benefit cutbacks. Sixty percent of Americans (about 180 million people) are insured through employer-sponsored plans. That's down from 65 percent at the start of the decade. So what do you do when your health insurance costs go up or when your company makes you pay a bigger share? CNBC correspondent Bertha Coombs offers some insight. | ||
Monday, January 14, 20088 most common hospital billing errors | ||
Make no mistake about it: Making sure that all the charges on your hospital bill are justified and reasonable is a formidable undertaking. But it can be easier if you know what to look for. | ||
Monday, January 14, 2008Nation's Health Care Bill Hits All-Time High | ||
For the first time ever, the total spent on health care topped $2 trillion in 2006, according to a government analysis. The details are in the current issue of the journal Health Affairs. | ||
Monday, January 14, 2008Podcast - Americans Paying for Medical Billing Errors | ||
The high cost of health care in America may be even higher than you think. Day to Day personal finance contributor Michelle Singletary speaks with Alex Chadwick about medical billing errors, and what consumers can do to make sure that they're not paying for those mistakes. | ||
Saturday, January 12, 2008More women need folic acid supplements | ||
More U.S. women are taking daily supplements of folic acid, a B vitamin crucial to prevent some major birth defects, but the number remains too low, federal health officials said on Thursday. | ||
Saturday, January 12, 2008Family dietary coach fuels healthy eating | ||
Having a nutrition coach actively coach families on how to make healthy changes in their diet appears to help parents and their children improve their nutritional intake, researchers found. | ||
Friday, January 11, 2008Preparation for appointments can pay off | ||
With anxiety about health problems weighing on patients' minds, the doctor's office waiting room can be a tough place to pass the time productively. Many patients in a holding pattern turn to escapist reading. But by using the time to list their symptoms and questions, they can better position themselves to get the most out of their doctor's expertise, experts say | ||
Thursday, January 10, 2008Medical Overcharges | ||
You trust hospitals with your life and expect them to take care of you, but you don't expect them to overcharge you for it. However, that's exactly what one Upstate woman says happened to her. | ||
Thursday, January 10, 2008Want to lose that baby weight? Sleep | ||
Researchers presented a conundrum to new mothers on Monday, saying that women who want to lose the extra weight gained in pregnancy should try to get more sleep. | ||
Wednesday, January 09, 200810 ways to avoid hospital overcharges | ||
American hospitals are fleecing patients out of billions of dollars annually, and experts say that while some of the overcharges are honest errors, many are deliberate. | ||
Tuesday, January 08, 2008Costly Tests, Useless Procedures Harm Patients, Boost Profits | ||
Americans spend more per capita on health care each year than the Chinese spend on, well, everything. Do we really need so much? | ||
Sunday, January 06, 2008Emergency room visits by seniors rising | ||
The rate of visits to U.S. hospital emergency rooms by senior citizens grew faster than that of any other age group between 1993 and 2003, straining the country's already overcrowded emergency care system, according to a study published on Wednesday. | ||
Friday, January 04, 200847 million Americans lack health insurance | ||
The number of Americans lacking health insurance rose by nearly 8.6 million to 47 million from 2000 to 2006, with children and workers from every income level losing coverage, a new report said on Thursday. | ||
Thursday, January 03, 2008Jim Dawson's $1.2 Million Hospital Bill | ||
One day in late July, Jim Dawson happily returned home. He had spent the previous five months in the hospital battling an infection that nearly killed him. The phone rang shortly after Mr. Dawson and his wife, Loretta, entered their house. | ||
Tuesday, January 01, 2008Doctors Able to Shave 2 Weeks off Radiation Therapy With Good Results | ||
A more convenient three-week course of radiation works just as well as the five-week schedule that is typically given to women after breast-conserving surgery for breast cancer, researchers report. | ||
Tuesday, January 01, 2008Allergy - Get the most from your doctor visit | ||
In the clinic, the operating room, or at social events, even at the grocery store, physicians hear the same questions. "I have had a cough for weeks, what causes that?" "Why does my nose run all the time?" "Why now?" The unrealistic expectation is that a physician can listen to a few sentences, or briefly examine one area, and immediately know the diagnosis and the best treatment. This works on TV, but rarely in real life. | ||
Tuesday, January 01, 2008Aging: Walking Faster and Outpacing Death | ||
Researchers who followed the health of nearly 500 older people for almost a decade found that those who walked more quickly were less likely to die over the course of the study. | ||
Tuesday, January 01, 2008CT Scan Overuse May Up Cancer Risk | ||
Radiation from the increasingly popular computed tomography scanning machines may be causing cancer, a new study finds, but experts say this should not deter people who need the scans from getting them. | ||
Tuesday, January 01, 2008New warning on misuse of J&J pain patch | ||
U.S. health officials issued a second warning on Friday about reports of deaths and dangerous side effects in patients who used Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Duragesic pain-killing skin patch or generic versions. | ||
Tuesday, January 01, 2008US healthcare comes up short in survey of 7 nations | ||
Americans spend double what people in other industrialized countries do on health care, but have more trouble seeing doctors, are the victims of more errors and go without treatment more often, according to a report released on Thursday. | ||
Tuesday, January 01, 2008Making the Most of Your Visit with the Doctor | ||
PDF Guide from the University of New Mexico | ||
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