NEWS
By Jay Wolvovsky | March 23, 2009
Lack of health insurance drives many people to under- and over-utilize health services in ways that are costly to taxpayers and damaging to their long-term health. The ranks of the uninsured are swelling each day, and we can expect the human and financial costs of inadequate preventive and primary care to rise in proportion. Recent local reports have highlighted a classic example: our health financing system's shortsighted investment in acute care over preventive care. This newspaper's recent call for expanding coverage for women who have had a poor pregnancy outcome does not go far enough.
NEWS
By Tyeesha Dixon | December 20, 2008
The Maryland insurance commissioner is weighing whether "concierge" medical care - in which physicians provide comprehensive services for a flat annual fee - should be considered a form of health insurance and thus regulated. "Our concern is whether the practices are structured in a way to constitute insurance," Ralph Tyler, the commissioner, said after a holding an information hearing on the issue yesterday. But advocates of the model argued that patients have the right to pay extra for services that are not covered by insurance.
NEWS
By Larry Carson | November 30, 2008
With the economy in trouble, 50-year old Elizabeth McCarthy is unemployed, but she and her husband Jay, 57, aren't worried about health care. The Ellicott City couple were among the first of more than 1,100 Howard County residents who flocked to apply for the county's new health access plan for the uninsured when it launched last month. "It takes an awful lot of stress off you," said Jay, a self-employed furniture finisher. Elizabeth added, "We've gone without when we should have had care."
NEWS
July 31, 2008
The Medicare system is far more expensive than it should be, but with some simple tinkering, its inefficient backbone could easily be repaired ("Fixing Medicare," editorial, July 28). Under Medicare's current reimbursement policies, high-cost tests and procedures are well-reimbursed while preventive care is not. Yet study after study has demonstrated that primary care medicine emphasizing prevention is more cost-effective and leads to better health outcomes than our present procedure- and specialist-oriented medical system.
NEWS
By Daniel Yi | April 4, 2007
The nation's largest health insurer announced yesterday what is believed to be the country's first effort to tie the pay of its employees to the well-being of its consumers. WellPoint Inc., with 34 million insured members nationwide, including nearly 8 million through its Blue Cross of California unit, will base part of its workers' annual bonuses on how well its consumers fare in things like immunization rates, cancer screenings and diabetes management. Employees will be rewarded, for example, if they get more diabetic patients to undergo preventive care that might ward off blindness or limb amputations, common complications of the disease.
NEWS
By Roni Rabin | May 12, 2004
A report card that evaluated the quality of U.S. health care has concluded that American adults receive only about half of the treatments recommended for both acute and chronic conditions and half the recommended preventive care. The Rand Corp. report, based on one of the largest studies of health care quality ever undertaken, says inadequate care translates into tens of thousands of deaths and unnecessary complications, posing "serious threats" to the public's health. The study was published in the journal Health Affairs.
NEWS
By Alec MacGillis | August 19, 2002
PRINCESS ANNE - The first thing that strikes a visitor to the University of Maryland Eastern Shore is its size: more than 600 acres, beautifully landscaped and dotted with dozens of large, handsome buildings, many of very recent vintage. It is easy to imagine the campus supporting a university of 10,000 students - and surprising to learn that it holds 3,200. Into this setting comes new UMES President Thelma B. Thompson, a former vice president at Norfolk State University in Virginia. Thompson arrives at the historically black university with ideas that vary widely but share a common goal: to give UMES ambitions equal to its real estate.
NEWS
By Jane E. Allen | April 8, 2001
Doctors are said to make lousy patients. Now comes a study indicating that many docs avoid being patients altogether. Researchers at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine decided to examine how well doctors took care of their health after previous studies suggested that doctors' bad habits -- among them smoking and drinking -- influence what they tell patients. Using annual health surveys completed by graduates, they found that a surprising number of physicians -- about one in three -- had no regular source of care, even though they had ready access and were better educated and could more easily afford it than the average American.
NEWS
By Edward D. Miller, M.D. | October 29, 2000
For a physician who has spent his entire professional life in the staid environs of academic medical centers, it's been a bit of a jolt to read columns by television critics comparing a series about my institution to "Survivor" and "Big Brother." Last year, when ABC-TV news executives persuaded me to allow them extraordinary access to film "Hopkins 24/7," a six-part, prime-time series, I hadn't even heard of the other reality shows that would make Johns Hopkins part of this summer's popular genre.
NEWS
By Paul Delaney | October 11, 1998
IS ANYBODY out there concerned about where health care is headed?Advice: You should be more than merely concerned. You should be scared. You should also be angry. No, furious.Let's dispense with I told you so, although the inevitable should have been clear from the start.Health care in the marketplace? The market dictates bottom-line considerations even as they clash with quality, access, etc. In the marketplace, poorer Americans are excluded and neglected by the millions, now approaching 50 million.