Aetna Ranked Number One In Paying Doctors On Time

In a recent article released by the Wall Street Journal, a study done by Aetnahealth, Aetna was the fastest insurer to pay doctors back for claims. The other fastest insurance companies were Humana at 30 days, Cigna at 33 days, Medicare-B and UnitedHealth at 35 days.

Other factors associated with ranking the fastest health care company were how long it took to pay their bills, percentage of claims solved after one submission and the rate of claim denials.

Other reasons Aetna was ranked at the top were 96% of their claims were solved after the first submission, and they also had the lowest denial rate at 10.6%.

New Law Could Affect Perscription Labeling for Pregnant Women

In a recent article at ABC News, they shed light on the FDA’s proposal to change the labeling of drugs in order to provide more information on the effects on pregnant and nursing women.

This new law would require two extra categories on the drug label: pregnancy effects and lactation effects. The pregnancy category would detail the health effects of that drug on the baby, and the lactation category would give the effects on the milk produced by the mother. However, on average, a pregnant woman takes three to five medications a day, so this could interfere with their current medication schedules.

Doctors were in favor of the decision, as they would become more educated on the effects, as well as be able to help expecting mothers with their questions on the medication they are taking.

"As a pediatrician, I frequently am asked about the safety of various medications by mothers and mothers to be," said Dr. Phil Fischer, medical director at the Mayo Clinic's Mayo Eugenio Litta Children's Hospital in Rochester, Minn. "The new FDA rules should help ensure that understandable information is readily available to physicians and to patients and families."

Has Child Obesity in the U.S. Reached its Peak?

According to today’s article in BBC News, the results from data compiled from 1999 to 2006 shows that obesity rates remain stable in the U.S. at 16%. Obesity rates have been growing exponentially in the United States in the past three decades.

Health experts claim that public health campaigns aimed at raising awareness of the obesity problem and healthier school meals has directly attributed to the stable rates we now see.

Cynthia Ogden, epidemiologist for the National Center for Health Statistics, mentions:

"It doesn't mean we've solved it, but maybe there is some opportunity for some optimism here."

Studies will continue to monitor this trend as the influence to live a healthier lifestyle goes on.

Latest Study Ties Air Pollution to Increased Blood Cots

The NY Times reports that a study conducted on 871 deep vein thrombosis patients in Italy shows that in areas where air pollution is higher, the conditions of blood cots worsen.

The study compared the 871 D.V.T. patients to 1,210 healthy patients in a controlled environment where the levels of air pollution were carefully measured using monitors. According to the study which was published in The Archives of Internal Medicine on May 12^th, for every increase of 10 micrograms per cubic meter in particulate matter, the risk for blood cots increased by 70 percent.

The effects of air pollution were smaller in women and those taking hormone therapies. Air pollution is not the only risk for D.V.T., but it is an important factor.

Insulin Injections Help Decrease Progression in Early Diabetes

According to a Chinese study conducted which is mentioned in this article in BBC News, patients with type 2 diabetes who had an initial course of insulin injections did better than those who only received oral diabetes tablets.

During the trial, one group was administered daily insulin injections for a period of two weeks while the other group only received anti-diabetic tablets. After a year, 45% of those given insulin injections were able to maintain a healthy glucose level, but only 27% of those who took the tablets were able to maintain a healthy glucose level.

Pav Pank, care advisor at Diabetes UK mentions:

"The research shows that considering using insulin early when people are first diagnosed with type 2 diabetes might be an additional way to achieve good diabetes management. Nevertheless decisions about treatment need to be made on an individual basis for each patient."

More research will have to be done though, before any conclusions and practices begin to be advocated.

New Study on Quitting Smoking: Are Social Groups the Key?

There have been many methods of quitting smoking over the years; some examples include the nicotine patch, taking prescription medication, and chewing nicotine gum. Yet, according to this NY Times article the best method might be programs that involve group involvement, since quitting has a ripple effect and causes the entire group to follow.

The study was done by Dr. Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler over a span of 32 years, and throughout those years they followed the patterns of both smokers and non-smokers. The study concluded that people genereally begin and stop smoking in groups.

Duncan Watts, principal research scientist at Yahoo! Research in New York mentions:

“We tend to think of individuals as atomized units, and we think of policies as good or bad for individuals. This reminds us that we are all connected to each other, and when we do something to one person, there are spillover effects.”

Influence seems to be the driving key in the success of smoking cessations. Smokers aren’t stopping one by one; instead they are stopping in groups.

eICU Helps Smaller Hospitals

A new device, the eICU, is allowing smaller hospitals to monitor their patients better. According to this article at the Wall Street Journal Health Blog, Visicu, Inc’s new product is being used by 156 hospitals around the nation, and those hospitals have a lower mortality rate as well as shorter stays in the ICU.

This machine monitors things such as a patient’s pulse, temperature, blood pressure, and blood oxygen content constantly. Even though this is an expensive way to monitor patients health levels, a 160 hospital bed in Kansas has seen dramatic improvement since implementing the use of the eICU. Although it costs $160,000 to keep in operation, they’ve seen a fall in nursing staff turnover and revenue at the hospital has risen by 15.3%.

How are you preparing Your Vegetables?

It’s a common fact that we should eat more vegetables, but this latest article in the NY Times explains that how we prepare the vegetables is just as important.

Studies show that a diet rich in vegetables have attributed to decreasing rates in heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and hypertension. A study down on 198 Germans who adhered to a strict raw food diet showed that even though they had normal levels of Vitaman A and a high level of beta carotene, they fell short on their lycopene levels. There are several techniques that can either stimulate the growth or lessen the amount of vitamins in vegetables. For example, boiling carrots increases the carotenoid levels while boiling broccoli caused a 22 to 34 percent loss of vitamin C.

Read the full article to see how different methods of preparing your vegetables can affect your health.

Night Shift Radically Different from Day

In a recent report at the New England Journal of Medicine, David J. Shulkin, M.D. writes about the dramatic difference in care that is available during day hours versus those at night. This post at the Wall Street Journal gives some of the differences of what people will find during the day: fewer nurses, longer waits, few managers and a huge change in the quality of care available.

What does this result in? Often times during the night shift at hospitals, statistics show that there is a higher mortality rate, more complications arise during surgery, and errors happen more often. There maybe more reasons for this due to a nursing shortage, fewer residents being able to work, and less funding from the federal government.

New Chiropractic Laws in Florida

According to a recent post at the Health Care Fraud Blog, as of July 1, 2008, a health clinic must have a director that is a MD or DO (Doctor of Osteopathy) before employing a chiropractor. This new law is being put into place so that Doctors of Chiropractics aren’t running these clinics.

Florida Lawmakers cite this as the reason for this new law:

The purpose of this section is to prevent a person other than a licensed chiropractic physician from influencing or otherwise interfering with the exercise of a chiropractic physician's independent professional judgment.

Americans take alarming rate of prescription drugs

According to this article at ABC News, the number of Americans on prescription drugs has reached an alarming level. An alarming amount of men, women and children are on pills:

--Two out of every three women twenty or older

--One out of every four teenagers

--52% of adult men

--Three out of four people over the age of 65

Dr. Robert Epstein of New Jersey made this claim:

"Honestly, a lot of it is related to obesity," he said. "We've become a couch potato culture (and) it's a lot easier to pop a pill" than to exercise regularly or diet.”

However, an up side to the USA’s pill popping culture is the fact that medicine has made previously fatal diseases such as AIDS and some cancers into chronic diseases instead of fatal.

Placebo Surgeries

In a recent article at Is It A Good Idea, they address a recent article that was written in Out Patient Surgery Magazine. Recently, placebo operations were tested in a clinical trial for knee surgeries. There were three groups tested: two performed actual surgeries and the third, just incisions were made into the knee and no operation was made. At the beginning of the trial, patients were told there was a possibility that they could receive a fake surgery.

All of the patients reported improvements after their surgeries, even those who did not receive any actual surgery. As stated by the article:

This was particularly significant, because previous studies conducted without a sham group had reported that the majority of arthroscopy patients got relief from knee pain.

Doctors believe this is the same concept as the placebo effect. With patients minds set that they are receiving medical attention, they believe that they are getting better.

Leading Study on Healthy Food Snacks in Children

BBC News recently wrote an article on the latest study performed by Cardiff University, in which they measured the amount of healthy food snacks of children from ages 9 to 11 that was consumed in 43 schools. All 23 schools were asked to start selling fruit snacks at a variety of different prices, and to stop selling all sweets. Each school also continued their own existing policies on bringing food into school.

After the children were surveyed on how much fruit they eat, there was a limited increase in the number of fruit snacks children ate with the addition of fruit snacks alone. There were though, a much higher percentage of children who ate fruit snacks in schools that had a “no food” policy, and schools that only allowed children to bring in healthy fruit snacks to school.

Professor Laurence Moore, from the Cardiff Institute mentions:

"Our results suggest that children are more willing to use fruit tuck shops and eat fruit as a snack at school if they and their friends are not allowed to take in unhealthy snacks. This highlights the importance of friends' behaviour and of peer modelling, and of the need for schools to put policies in place to back up health interventions."

This in turn has led to talks of banning unhealthy food snacks in all schools across the UK.

Disciplinary Doctors

According to a recent blog post at the NY Times, Alaska reports the most disciplinary actions at 8 per 1,000 doctors, making it the state with the most disciplined doctors. The others at the bottom of the list are Kentucky, Arizona, Ohio and Nebraska. At the top of the list with less than two actions per 1,000 doctors are South Dakota, Mississippi, Wisconsin and South Carolina.

An interesting point brought up in the article was that often, the better funded state boards proved to have fewer disciplinary actions. The NY Times pointed out that maybe this was because since they were better funded and well staffed, they took action and prevented the disciplinary action before it had to happen.

Survival for Early Babies

As reported by BBC News, the latest study done by BMJ research in the UK shows us that babies born 23 weeks or earlier are no more likely to survive than they were a decade ago, while there are significant improvements in survival rates for babies born 24 weeks and on.

The survival rate for 24-week babies rose from 24% in 1994-1999 to 41% in 2000-2005. Those rates were even better for 25-week babies, 52% to 63%.

Professor David Field, University of Leicester, mentions:

“What we've tried to do is give people the raw numbers and then they can make their own mind up

This study was special because instead of focusing on one hospital with a specialist neonatal unit, the work was span across 16 different hospitals in the UK.

Watch this video from BBC News to see Professor David Field talk more about his results.

To Vaccinate or Not to Vaccinate

When approved by the FDA in 2006, the HPV vaccine was created in order to reduce the number of cervical cancer patients among women. The vaccine has a higher protection rate when the female has never been sexually active, therefore the best time to receive the vaccine in preteen years. However, according to this report at ABC News, only half of mothers intend to vaccinate their daughters against this virus by the age of 13.

Here are the statistics out of 10,000 mothers stated what they would do according to the age of their daughter:

49% -- Vaccinate if daughter was 9 – 12

68% -- Vaccinate if daughter was 13 --15

86% -- Vaccinate if the daughter 16 -- 18

Doctors and insurance agencies need to find a way to come together and educate mothers about the benefits of this vaccine, especially when their daughters are young. With education, this form of cancer can severely decrease its numbers, improving the health of millions of women.

Destination Medical Care: The way of the future?

In a recent edition of the McKinsey Quarterly, they discuss the relatively growing phenomenon of destination surgery. The MKQ defined destination surgery as anyone who travels abroad in order to receive healthcare, which does not include emergency cases treated in foreign countries or residents living in foreign countries and receiving medical care there. Currently, the numbers are small, but there is a potential for this industry to grow for a variety of reasons.

Health services, the underinsured, and those luring in patients from other countries, and foreign health services providers are just some of the people that stand to be affected by this new, growing trend.

The majority of people going to other countries for medical services so do for better services. Forty percent have surgery in another country in order to be treated by the advanced technologies. This category mostly includes people from Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Canada traveling to the United States for specialists. In the second largest group, at 32%, those living in the developing world travel to other countries for better quality health care. The United States is 99% of patients in the fourth group. Nine percent of patients leave their own country for surgery in order to find lower costs for necessary procedures. For the most part, people leaving their home country for medical services in another are equally spread through out the developed and developing world.

With one of the best medical staffs in the world, it’s easy to see why the USA attracts patients from around the world for specialty procedures. But, with the expense of health care, should medical companies be afraid of loosing simple procedures to other doctors in other countries?

High Fat Diet Study in Epileptic Children

BBC News reports that a recent high-fat diet trial in the UK has seen great results in the reduction of seizures in children who suffered from epilepsy. The trial is being conducted in Lancet Neurology, and the diet consists of high-fat, low carbohydrates, and a controlled amount of protein.

Throughout the trial, two groups of children who suffered from epilepsy were given two different diets. The group that received the high-fat diet, saw a reduction of 66% in the amount of seizures, while the percentage remain unchanged for the other group who did not start the high-fat diet.

Professor Helen Cross mentions:

"The parents say the first two weeks are quite difficult, but then it becomes much easier because you can make foods in bulk and it especially helps if you can see the benefits from it.”

While it seems that the trial is successful so far, there are some side-effects, which include constipation, vomiting, lack of energy and hunger. Many hope that this trial will be wide-spread over epileptic children who do not see good results from drug treatment.

‘I Do’….For Insurance

While financial support has been an important criteria for many who marry, a study, from Kaiser Family Foundation, recently came out about the growing influence that healthcare has on the decision to marry. An astounding 7% of Americans within the past year have either married or know someone who has married for healthcare coverage. This post on the Wall Street Journal provides more detail, including highlighting some issues about how respondents perceived the survey question, resulting in the percentage of 4.5 million Americans who marry with cost of healthcare in mind. Even though the overall percentage is small, it is still a significant part of the population. Here is more information from the full story at the Houston Chronicle.

Cash Up Front Please

In a recent blog post at the Wall Street Journal Health blog, they report on a serious crisis going on in today’s hospitals: patients are being rejected if they don’t pay their medical bills up front. With the hospital industry’s debt at $31.2 billion in 2006, and rising, the hospitals have a valid reason to ask for the money up front. But most of the time, medical bills more than double a person’s income for the year. Is there a happy median for this situation?

As WSBT TV reports, Lisa Kelly was requested to pay $105,000 before she received her leukemia treatment at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Her insurance did not cover the full amount, and so she had to pay cash before she could even be admitted to the hospital. This hospital is now demanding billing up front instead of invoicing patients later due to the increasing amount of charity cases and those who refuse to pay their doctors bills after they’ve left the hospital.

Baby Boomers May Face Deficit in Doctors

In a recent article at Medical News Today, it considers the number of doctors available to aging Baby Boomers. At this time, the medical workforce is too small to support the growing needs of the generation as it turns 65. Adjustments need to be made in order for more doctors to go into geriatrics. Instead, the current portion of doctors specialized in geriatrics is barely growing.

According to this article at AMNews, there are 7,100 geriatricians today. Most startling is:

By 2030, there will be an estimated 8,000 geriatricians, but the nation will need 36,000, according to the Assn. of Directors of Geriatric Academic Programs.

This lack of growth appears to be the result of doctors working in a poorly compensated specialty; geriatric doctors are reimbursed far less than doctors who specialize in other areas. In turn, this seems to contribute to the long term stagnation of medical school graduates specializing in internal and family medicine.