Archives: December 2008

Choosing a Doctor, Part 2

Vitals is a health care site that helps consumers find and analyze physicians. They have a helpful e-book that is worthwhile. It helps set the stage for using their online tools for physician selection. Actually there is so much information available through Vitals and other sites that consumers face information...

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Patient Photos in Chart Lead to Better Care?

A study presented at the Radiological Society of North America suggests that radiologists should have pictures of the patients whose scans they are examining as they begin their analysis. Fifteen radiologists in Jerusalem reviewed computed tomography images along with a photograph of the patient. Months later they reviewed the same...

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Nursing Home Compare

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) rolled out its 5-Star Rating System on Nursing Home Compare, the federal government’s site for consumer research on nursing homes. The rating system is based on information from the last three years of surveys and complaints, staffing information collected at survey and...

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Choosing a Doctor

A number of health care sites are popping up that help you choose/rate a physician. Vitals is one of them. Any site that starts to use the power of community will become important. The cumulative voice of thousands can definitely provide you with some information of value. But I would...

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Linking Credit Scores to Hospital Care

We have talked about this before ‰ÛÒ hospitals using credit scores to help determine whether a person has the ability to pay their hospital bill. Of course the industry assured us that this would be done retrospectively, that is they would use the data to start trending and benchmarking but...

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Warding Off Alzheimers

Applause to FirstBaptistChurch in Jacksonville, N.C. They were featured on ABC News last night for their fight against Alzheimer‰Ûªs Disease. During the week, some of the older church members, many of whom are well into their 80s, get together to exercise their hearts and minds. Congregation members take part in...

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Insurance for Your Insurance?

Is this called kicking you while you are down or anticipating that you will be down and we‰Ûªll have already kicked you? United Health has rolled out a product called UnitedHealth Continuity. It is not insurance but the right to buy insurance should you find yourself without any, say losing...

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Teens and Elder Abuse is Bad News

You would think that young people who work in nursing facilities would have a deep appreciation for older folks and want to give them their utmost respect. Right? Well consider that six, rather wholesome young women are accused of groping and taunting seven residents at the Good Samaritan nursing home...

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