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$18 For A Baby Aspirin? Hospitals Hike Costs For Everyday Drugs For Some Patients

Susan Jaffe | Kaiser Health News | April 30, 2012

Sudden chest pains landed Diane Zachor in a Duluth, Minn., hospital overnight, but weeks later she had another shock – a $442 bill for the same everyday drugs she also takes at home, including more than a half dozen common medicines to control diabetes, heart problems and high cholesterol. Read More »

Cutting More But Not Saving More

Kim Bellard | Blogspot: Kim Bellard Blog | December 2, 2014

There's an epidemic in American health care, and I don't mean the commonly lamented ones like obesity, diabetes, or even Ebola.  It's surgery...

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I'm OK -- You, Maybe Not So Much

By Kim Bellard | November 28, 2016

It is widely agreed that competition, or lack thereof, in health care is a problem.  The Wall Street Journal recently showed how Viagra and Cialis prices seem to move -- up, of course -- in lockstep. USA Today found Walgreens charging 1237% more than Costco, for the same drug.  Economists like Martin Gaynor have been discussing problems with competition in health care for years. The Harvard Business Review just published a lengthy article on the problem. But, it turns out, we may be ignoring an important competition that has real impacts on our health: with each other...

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Interoperability and the Trough of Disillusionment

By John D. Halamka, MD | May 31, 2015

Every technology has an adoption journey. The classic Gartner hype curve travels from a Technology Trigger  to the Peak of Inflated Expectations followed by the Trough of Disillusionment. It often takes years before organizations reach the Slope of Enlightenment and finally achieve a Plateau of Productivity. Have you noticed that Congress and the popular press have entered the Trough of Disillusionment for EHRs and interoperability over the past month? Congressional staffers writing the 21st Century Cures bill (which is not yet law) seem to have concluded...

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Number of Painkiller-addicted Newborns Triples in 10 Years

Liz Szabo | USA Today | May 1, 2012

The number of babies born addicted to the class of drugs that includes prescription painkillers has nearly tripled in the past decade, according to the first national study of its kind. Read More »

The Patient Is Mentally Ill. Why Are We Only Treating His Broken Hand?

By Edmund Billings, MD | April 29, 2015

Nationwide, the patchwork nature of mental health care—most mental health hospitals lack electronic health records (EHRs)—drives up overall health care costs primarily through expensive emergency department (ED) visits by people who present with apparent mental health challenges. Of course, the disparity between mental and acute health care in the United States is caused by far more than a lack of EHRs in behavioral health settings. But more information enables better care and helps control costs, making it a necessary component in reforming the health care system.

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