Marshall Allen Posts

Patients may think their insurers are fighting on their behalf for the best prices. But saving patients money is often not their top priority. Just ask Michael Frank.

Hospitals throw out so many valuable supplies that a cottage industry of charities has sprung up to collect this stuff and ship it to the developing world.

An epidemic of unnecessary treatment is wasting billions of health care dollars a year. Patients and taxpayers are paying for it.

The line drive ripped off the hitter’s bat and rocketed into the right hand of Dr. Lawrence Schlachter, shattering bones and ending his career as a neurosurgeon. The Atlanta doctor, then 52, turned to an unusual place for a new challenge: Law school. He became, of all things, a medical malpractice attorney. Schlachter has been practicing law for a dozen years and says he sees the medical world differently than he did from the operating room. Now it is from the perspective of patients, who too often suffer infections and injuries while undergoing medical care and then are unable to get answers from doctors and medical officials.

Medical experts testifying before Congress this week said patients are no better protected from patient harm, preventable deaths and injuries in hospitals now than they were 15 years ago, when a landmark Institute of Medicine report set off alarms about deaths due to medical errors and prompted calls for reform. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the panel's chairman, said afterward that most patients probably don't know that preventable patient harm is the third-leading cause of death in America.

The top executive at the country’s pre-eminent health care quality organization is being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by two large medical companies that have a stake in the group’s work. The organization, National Quality Forum, endorses benchmarks that Medicare uses to compensate hospitals.

Medical care has its own code and culture, which often does not put patients first, according to Dr. Marty Makary, a cancer surgeon and researcher at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the School of Public Health. And providers who speak against that code can pay a heavy price.

Makary’s new book, “Unaccountable,” explores why patient harm persists in the medical system and what can be done about it.