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Is Hepatitis C Treatment Cost-effective?

One catch phrase in health care reform is cost-effectiveness.  To paraphrase, this label means that a medical treatment is worth the price.  For example, influenza vaccine, or ‘flu shot’, is effective in reducing the risk of influenza infection.  If the price of each vaccine were $1,000, it would still be medically effective, but it would no longer be cost-effective considering that over 100 million Americans need the vaccine.  Society could not bear this cost as it would drain too many resources from other worthy health endeavors.  Economists argue as to which price point determines cost-effectiveness for specific medical treatments.  As you might expect, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies might reach different conclusions when the each perform a cost-benefit analysis.  Remember, it’s not just cost we’re focusing on here, but also effectiveness.  If a medicine is dirt cheap, but it doesn’t work, it’s not cost-effective.  Get it? Pharmaceutical companies who are

Why I Won't Refill Your Prescription

Giving prescription refills is not quite as fun as it used to be.  Years ago, we doctors would whip out our prescription pads – often sooner than we should have – and we’d scribble some coded language that pharmacists were trained to decipher.  I’m surprised there were not more errors owing to doctors’ horrendous penmanship.  On occasion, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would require a pharmaceutical company to change the name of a drug so it wouldn’t be confused with another medicine with a similar name.   The name of the heartburn drug Losec was too similar to congestive heart failure drug Lasix, so the former drug name was changed to the familiar Prilosec.  Pharmacists Used the Rosetta Stone to Decode Prescriptions Photo Credit Nowadays, we physicians refill medicines with point and click techniques within our electronic medical record (EMR) system.  When this works, it’s a breeze.  Three clicks and the refill has been transmitted to the patient’s pharmacy. Alert

Which Medical Specialty Should Medical Students Choose?

A medical student recently asked my advice on her decision to pursue a career in dermatology.  It was about 25 years ago when my own parents encouraged me to pursue this specialty.   What was their deal?  Perhaps, they anticipated future developments in the field and were hoping for free Botox treatments?   As readers know, I rejected the rarefied world of pustules and itchy skin rashes for the glamor of hemorrhoids, diarrhea and vomit.  My parents were making a lifestyle recommendation.     Dermatologists are doctors who sleep through the night.  Spying one in a hospital is a rarer sighting than spotting a liberal Democrat at a Michelle Bachmann rally (unless a planted heckler).  Nocturnal acne medical emergencies are uncommon.   And anyone who has had cosmetic work done understands painfully that this is a cash business. Diagram of Skin Luckily, the Whistleblower is thick-skinned Here’s where some readers or Dermophiles will accuse me of skin envy.  Not true.  Some d

Medical Complications Torture Doctors Too

If you are a physician like me who performs procedures, then rarely you will cause a medical complication.  This is a reality of medical life.  If perforation of the colon with colonoscopy occurs at a rate of 1 in 1500, and you do 3000 colonoscopies each year, then you can do the math. Remember that a complication is a blameless event, in contrast to a negligent act when the physician is culpable.  These days, for many reasons, an actual complication is confused or misconstrued as an error. Some complications are more difficult on physicians than others.  For example, if I prescribe a medication and the patient develops a severe rash, I do not feel personally responsible.  It’s the drug’s fault.  However, when I perforate someone’s colon as a medical complication, I feel responsible even if this act was a blameless event which will occur at a very low but finite rate.  (Of course, there are perforations of the colon which result from medical negligence, but I am leaving these as

Should You Trust Your Doctor's Advice?

Is your doctor a hammer and you're a nail?  Here's some insider's advice coaxing patients to be more wary and skeptical of medical advice.  Should you trust your doctor?  Absolutely.  But you need to serve as a spirited advocate for your own health or bring one with you.  Ask your physician for the evidence.  Sometimes, his medical advice may result more from judgement and experience as there may not be available medical evidence to guide him.  Make sure you have realistic expectations of the medical out me.  And most importantly, try as best you can to verify that the proposed solution is targeted to your problem. Is Your Doctor a Hammer? Consider a few hypothetical scenarios. A 66-year-old patient has chronic right lower back pain.  Physical therapy has not been helpful.  Radiological studies show a moderate amount of hip arthritis.  A hip replacement is flawlessly performed.  The orthopedist discharges the patient from his practice.  The pain is unchanged.

Bariatric Surgery: Pulling the Gastric Bypass Trigger Too Soon

If losing weight were easy, we'd all be skinny.  If exercise were fun, we'd all be doing it.  If quitting cigarettes were effortless... What should our response be toward rising societal tonnage? A Weighty Issue Photo Credit Pass laws restricting access to the wrong type of food.  Former Mayor Bloomberg got stiff-armed on this approach by the courts.  It's also always fun to watch folks argue over the definition of a 'wrong food'.  The debate on which foods warrant prohibition at least brings some entertainment into the public square.  Imagine trying to achieve consensus over 20 or so food items that should be banned.  If this task were actually accomplished, cigarettes and alcohol would still be legal.  Make sense? Initiate a massive public education campaign to scare us skinny. Show ads of scary pictures with scary music reminiscent of an iconic anti-drug ad (This is your brain on drugs...) from a few decades ago.          "This is yo