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Featured Posts

The Great Myth: Why Health Care Reform is Failing both Patients and Medicare

A Novel Way to Present Health Information

Deception about Dementia: Why Early Detection can be Dangerous

Curing Medicare to be republished by Cornell University Press in 2016

Cancer screening: how conventional wisdom, quality indicators, and payment incentive equals poor ou

Rat Poison in the Nursing Home

PPI Use and Heart Attacks: Really?

The Real Value of Primary Care

The CDC and diseases of the elderly: Less factual than advertised

Baltimore Sun Op Ed Post

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Health Care’s Ominous Transformation under MIPS: An Orwellian twist to the push for Quality and Val

A year ago HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell announced that Medicare would be dramatically altering the way doctors are paid. She stated that starting in 2019 physician and NP salaries will be based on Quality and Value, a very noble proclamation that, on the surface, sparkles of a transformative change in the landscape of health care. At the time of her announcement I wrote an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun (CLICK HERE for a link to the article) questioning how CMS intended to defi

MIPS Part 3: True Value in Health Care

There is no question that CMS has every right to demand better value in health care. Medicare’s coffers are being drained, as a significant amount of funding is being spent on fruitless efforts to keep people alive in their last weeks of life, on expensive tests and procedures that have no proven efficacy, on needless hospitalization, and on a proliferation of specialization that increases cost with worse outcomes. The Institute of Medicine estimated that in 2009 there was

MIPS Part Two: How "Quality" will slay real quality in geriatric health care

How can quality be measured in health care? Certainly Medicare feels that they have the answer. Half of primary care doctors’ MIPS grades will be based on how we prove that our care is “quality” care. And since our grade will determine our salary, this stuff is really important. You may think that if we are taking good care of our patients based on their individual wants and needs, if we take time to talk to them about their medical problems, if we avoid overtreatment and

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Anticipating & Planning for Long-Term Care Needs

Does Tamiflu help if you have Influenza? The answer says a lot about our health care system.

A new Video Podcast: Running Doc Unhinged. Subscribe Today!

New Blood Pressure Guidelines: Good for Doctors, Bad for Patients.

A 105 year old doctor advocates a better path to improved health and wellness

Isn't it time we finally stop this nonsense and actually fix the system???

Reforming Health Care by Putting Patients in Charge: Our Op-Ed in the Sun

Marginalizing Primary Care in the Hospital: My article in Medical Economics

"We are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of our patients": The seeds of our hea

Marching for better health care: The Science March, April 22nd, DC

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An Inside Look at Health Care for the Elderly and Medicare