money
Healthcare’s Biggest Conflict of Interest
The doctor-patient relationship is a one-on-one interaction, and so conflicts of interest are concrete and directly personal. Medical decisions can be swayed by money, even unconsciously, regardless of whether it’s from insurance companies or from industry. But the most basic conflict of interest is that health care access is tied to health insurance. Presence or absence or extent of health insurance is the most powerful influence on how doctors care for patients. More
Should Med Schools Be Renamed for Donors?
24 of the country’s 141 medical schools sport a donor’s name rather than the plain old university name. The pace is increasing, as are the number of eyebrows being raised. More
The Small Costs
We all hear about “health care costs,” a lumbering behemoth that dominates the news. But it is the smaller amounts, literally the pocket money, that often has the strongest effect on the concrete currency of health. Sometimes doctors find themselves in the position of offering their patients a few dollars to help with a co-pay or transportation home. More
