Dialysis Treatment – A Punch in the Kidneys
April 2, 2008
Here’s a fact that may surprise you: kidney failure is the one disease that you can get coverage for – from the Federal Government - no matter what.
For this reason, after 30 months of treatment by a private insurer, dialysis facilities bill Medicare regardless of whether the patient is over 65 or financially stable. For those with kidney failure (End Stage Renal Disease) due to diabetes or other causes, having a machine take over the complicated (and therefore expensive) task of cleaning their blood several times a week allows them to live.
Professional Health Care Helpers
February 27, 2008
If you or a loved one have ever been diagnosed with a serious disease or admitted to a hospital, you know the stress that comes not just from the illness itself but from making sure you’re getting the best care. Overworked nurses and doctors with poor bed-side manners can be aggravating. Sometimes, if mistakes are made or directions are misunderstood, they can even be fatal.
But the average person lacks the medical expertise needed to measure the work of a provider or insurer. What’s the best course of treatment? Why is my condition not getting better? Why are the nurse and the residents giving me totally different information? How can I make sure my insurance will cover this necessary procedure?
Hospitals Pushed to Prevent Infections
February 20, 2008
In the past three decades, more and more patients enter hospitals only to get sicker. The seriously ill are acquiring serious infections through the tubes they are connected to or through bedsores. This happens some two million times a year. Studies have shown that patients with hospital-acquired infections:
- spend many more days in the hospital
- undergo more extensive procedures
- are more likely to die
One out of five times hospital infections are fatal. And even if they don’t kill you, they drive up costs for everybody. Different studies have proposed different solutions:
Nurses Prefer Contact to Computers
January 9, 2008
Picture yourself in a hospital bed. Unpleasant, for sure. But aside from family and maybe friends and a super-competent doctor, what’s the most reassuring presence? A nurse. Nurses are often the lifeblood of hospital care - performing the doctors instructions, making sure you’re as comfortable as possible, administering the pain meds and fetching an extra blanket. But the question is now becoming: would you rather have a nurse hovering over you or hovering over a computer? As hospitals move to adopt new technology to help insure quality of care and to reduce medical errors, nurses find they’re getting more and more face-time with a computer screen than with their patients.
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