Archive for February, 2009
Medical Chess: How the Drug Companies Use Doctors As Their Pawns
February 28th, 2009 | 
Author: Over the last five years, the number of medications being prescribed by doctors has grown drastically from 2.1 billion, to well over 3.5 billion. The increase is a combination of doctors receiving incentives from the large drug companies that give the patient a prescription to solve there problems even when no medication is necessary, and also a growing number of new generalized illnesses that are easily treated with high priced medication. Nope, doctors usually prescribe the same popular medication that the other doctors are prescribing for that illness. It all depends on who is offering the highest incentives to prescribe their drugs, otherwise known as bribes.
For example, drug companies will offer luxurious cruises and vacations to resorts in exchange for the doctor to listen to a short lecture about a new drug they are about to market. Drug companies have even gone as far as to raise the average wholesale price of their drug, then offer it directly to the doctors for cheaper, and let Medicare reimburse the doctors for the full amount. This might not seem like a big deal but when you’re talking about 2 to 3 hundred dollars extra per prescription that adds up to a lot of money the doctors get to put into their pocket, not to mention your tax dollars are paying for it. Doctors are receiving more incentives than ever to prescribe medication. An astounding 77% of new drugs released have been proven by the FDA to have no advantage over similar drugs already on the market.
They are just remakes of old drugs that drug companies rename then send to the FDA to get approved for a different use. The corruption in the medical industry not only has defrauded the American public out of nearly 100 billion dollars, drug companies continues to raise their already outrageous drug prices to compensate for the money it uses to pay to essentially bribe doctors. Is there anyway to avoid the high prices the American drug companies are charge?
Posted in patient advocacy | 
Tags: consumer advocacy, fraud drug companies, medical doctors, outragous drug prices | 
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Medical billing company expands into patient advocacy
A medical billing company is trying its hand at patient advocacy. “We felt a little bit unfilled doing (billing for providers) and wanted to really help patients,” he said. “Our main focus is to represent a patient if they have an issue on a medical bill. It’s kind of insurance for your insurance to make sure that you paid correctly. So this is our way of doing it on a local level.” When the company started, it had two employees and has since grown to 35.
The Las Vegas-based company has its offices on West Sahara Avenue near Buffalo Drive. “We feel like we’re making a good impact on things.” The company decided to roll out Universal Solutions as a unit that will serve as a patient-advocate business beginning last month. For $25 a month, the company goes to bat for the health care consumer, looking over bills and working with doctors and insurance companies to fix overcharges. At first, the company considered making Universal a nonprofit organization, but decided to keep it under the umbrella of Strategic. There is a low profit margin, he said, especially because Universal’s main customers are coming in with bills they’d like audited. Besides alleviating human resource staff from employees’ questions about particular health insurance issues, if Universal corrects medical billing problems, the cost to the company and the employee can be cut through reduced expenditures.
Universal also offers employers workers’ compensation containment, another area of potential fraud or incorrect billing. The company also wants to move to the national level and is working with national companies to provide the patient advocate service. “It’s going to manage the cost of the employer, it’s going to manage the cost of the patient and the insurance company. There is so much fraudulent billing going on, too, that when we’re auditing stuff, we can see that.”
Posted in patient advocacy |
Tags: medical billing, medicard, patient advocacy, patient rights |
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Natural Medicine A 5000 Year-Old Medical Secret Could Help Relieve Stress
When you get sick, you go to the doctor. And the doctor will, of course, prescribe medicines. You will go and buy medicines. You take them, and hopefully, you get well. This is how the health profession goes on nowadays a cycle of diagnosis and prescription.If anyone were to give you herbs for medicine, you would probably say that that person was a quack but a few natural herbs can help relieve stress
But nowadays, studies are being conducted to see if there are really is any merit to what is called natural medicine.
Natural medicine is the use of natural methods, herbal medicines, and traditional practices to heal ailments. Every culture has a form of natural medicine. In ancient cultures, village medicine men served as the doctors of the community, passing on medical knowledge to the apprentices that followed them.
Many categories of the healing methods fall under natural medicine. Among these are traditional medicine, complementary medicine, and alternative medicine.
Usually, natural medicine refers to medical practices that were in place before the advent of modern medicine.
This includes herbal medicine, or phytotherapy, which is prevalent in Chinese, Ayurvedic(or Indian), and Greek medicine.
Upon the advent of modern medicine, many professionals discarded the use of herbs in favor of man-made medicine. The fact that these treatments are based on the healing properties of some herbs was forgotten.
For example, opium, digitalis, quinine, and aspirin all have their roots in traditional medicine.
Natural medicine can be considered as a lost art. This does not mean that it has lost efficacy over time. In some cases, natural therapy is actually better than modern medicine. This has lead me, a Ventura chiropractor to seriously consider and study the possible uses of natural medicine
Before we continue, it is important to stress that not all the natural remedies are legitimate. It would help to only try those remedies which have been thoroughly studied and are relatively risk free.
Take herbal medicine for example. There are many well-documented and studied herbal remedies available. However, only those that deal with minor ailments such as cough, colds, fever, skin rashes, and its ilk are likely to be recommended by health professionals. These remedies are sometimes superior to synthetic medicine. This is because herbal medicines are less likely to cause negative side effects.
Currently there are numerous organizations that study the effects and advocacy of natural medicine among which is herbal medicine. Some governments and health agencies openly advocate the use of natural methods since they are inexpensive and relatively risk-free.
As their studies compile, more herbs and treatments are added to the list of accepted medicines. However, many herbs and treatments have been proven to be bogus medicine. This represents a challenge for both the user and the agencies because they have to ascertain that the treatments they either use or advocate are legitimate.
There exist today many alternative medical treatments that fall under natural medicine. However, not all of them have been proven to be effective. You could mention homeopathy, aromatherapy, acupuncture, and other alternative medical treatments. It would pay to consult the experts as to the legitimacy of these treatments.
Natural medicine should also be thought of as an accompanying medicine, and the rights of patients needs to be taken into concideration. Right now, the current collective medical thought suggests that natural medicine be used only to supplement accepted modern medical practices. In that case of minor ailments your expert we actually advise you to take natural therapies instead.
The practice of modern medicine revolves around diagnosing an illness and prescribing treatments for such. Natural medicine is helpful because it suggests that treatment be not necessarily given only when sick. Natural medicine strives to make each patient practice good health habits. These habits include good diet, healthy living, and the regular natural treatment.
It is this same line of thought that leads our parents to tell us to eat our vegetables. Yes, a healthy lifestyle and will do no harm to our well-being. And this is the foundation of natural medicine,may it be massage, herbal medicine, aromatherapy or others.
It is funny but true that science, in its quest for excellence, is studying the knowledge of sages past. This, surprisingly, leads us back to the remedies nature offers. The possibilities of finding remedies to everyday illnesses in natural medicine are encouraging. So staying tuned to studying these remedies is worthwhile until we can verify that these therapies are truly helpful to our health and our society.
Posted in rights of patients |
Tags: acupuncture, alternative medicine, chiropractic, massage, natural medicine, patient advocacy, rights of patients |
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Cerebral Palsy Attorney: Knowing Their Legal Rights
Cerebral palsy is a brain disorder that affects the motor skills of a person. This affliction is usually acquired before, during, and after birth and will tend to stay for the rest of their life. There are treatments and therapy available to make cerebral palsy patient’s lives more normal. It is a necessary to know your patient rights.
Cerebral Palsy can alter the lives of children and their family. If you have a child with Cerebral Palsy, it can drastically change the way you live your life forever. Most families don’t have the financial capability to cover the cost of treatment and therapies for their child who has Cerebral Palsy. For this, you can consult a Cerebral Palsy Attorney to get the compensation you need and in some cases, get you discounts on medications and treatments in the hospital.
You can join Cerebral Palsy Associations for additional help, but these organizations can only do so much. There are many patient issues. They often have so many Cerebral Palsy patients that are in need of financial support that they tend to make you wait for your turn.
They can investigate if your child has acquired the condition because of mishandling them during birth, causing brain damage so they can file a lawsuit against the doctor or the hospital. If you want the proper compensation, you can obtain it by hiring a Cerebral Palsy lawyer.
If you think that there has been birth or delivery mistakes that may have caused the child’s condition, you should immediately contact a Cerebral Palsy attorney in order to get you the right compensation.
These kinds of lawsuits can really provide you with more than enough money for the treatment and medication for your child who has Cerebral Palsy.
Another great thing about Cerebral Palsy attorneys is that you won’t have to pay them a dime until they get you your compensation.
Mishandling a child during birth is a very common cause of Cerebral Palsy. So, you should not erase this on the list of possible causes and you can really make the doctor or the hospital pay for what they are responsible for.
You can also hire a Cerebral Palsy Attorney to let the hospital give you a cheaper treatment fee for your child. This can really benefit you because Cerebral Palsy therapy is often a long term therapy and can really cost a lot of money.
Always remember that Cerebral Palsy treatment can be expensive. You can always seek help from Cerebral Palsy attorneys to get you the proper compensation and also get you a cheap treatment for your child with Cerebral Palsy.
Posted in patient issues, patients rights |
Tags: Cerebral Palsy, patient issues, patient rights |
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