A good friend of the blog just sent me this Youtube video on consumer directed health care:
and then I saw this and had to laugh as well:
Happy Halloween, nerds. pic.twitter.com/s03nvAlpUm
— Adrianna McIntyre (@onceuponA) October 31, 2014
Enjoy your open thread
balconesfault
I can see imaging and antibiotics … but coming out against annual exams?
Uncle Cosmo
If I were still teaching Intro Sadistics I would be so stealing that graphic for the cover of the class procedures handout.
Should add a brain in a glass jar as the Abby Normal Distribution. (Young Frankenstein, beeches! For those of you too jung & easily freudened to recall:)
Richard Mayhew
@balconesfault: there is some evidence that the annual well visit for people in generally good health and absolutely no other symptoms is a waste of time. The counter-argument is that it establishes a relationship and an expectation of going to a PCP pays off for whenever someone begins developping a chronic condition.
Honestly, at $100 to $200 per person per year or $8-$20 per person per month, this is a nothingburger.
SP
Sorry, that paranormal distribution just isn’t funny, because it’s not a valid single-valued continuous function.
What, they said it was directed at nerds, so a true nerd would respond accordingly.
Howard Beale IV
BREAKING: Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo exploded after launch from its carrier aircraft; status of pilots unknown.
Another Holocene Human
@Richard Mayhew: It’s pretty standard to recommend less frequent than annual exams for certain age ranges in good health, and certainly the chest xray that used to be SOP is now highly discouraged.
My employer finally stopped that crap after I fought it for years … they were paying a bill for an unnecessary procedure that raised everyone’s risk of cancer. You could tell it was a ripoff because they would do a breathing test (lung capacity) AFTER the xray. Since the xray is an advanced TB disease screen (why not do an antibody test if you’re so worried?) you should only be looking at those who fail lung capacity and get flagged with stethoscope–oh yeah, they did that after the xray too. Must be nice to be able to bill unneeded crap for hundreds of people every year for years and never get called on it.
raven
@Richard Mayhew: We were told we’d get a discount next year if we had a biometric health scan this year. Bad?
Another Holocene Human
@Howard Beale IV: WTF!
One dead, one injured.
Elie
In a victory for science, at last, Maine judge brings us back to the 21st century!
Thanks for Kaci Wilcox. Also, check out these credentials.. she truly was a “drum major” for science and facts:(lifted from a comment on the NYT article about this):
YAY!
delk
Took 588 AIDS deaths before it made it to the front page of the NYT.
http://www.nytimes.com/times-insider/2014/10/30/1983-having-claimed-558-lives-aids-finally-made-it-to-the-front-page/?smid=fb-share&_r=0
Trollhattan
@Elie:
She’s having none of it and the knucklehead governor is going to have a huge mess on his hands because of his knuckleheadedness. Hopefully he gets the ol’ boot next Tuesday and she gets as many bike rides as the weather allows.
Raven Onthehill
One of the problem of Too Many Checkups is they tend to encourage overtreatment. The US system is notorious for treating problems that are better left alone, while not dealing with major public health issues like obesity and antibiotic abuse. The common thread is that people make money, both ways.
Julie
Interesting, especially given the discussion a couple days ago about the True the Vote voter fraud (or “fraud”) database from a couple days ago: Oregon is planning to try implementing online voting by 2020. There are security considerations, of course, but I’m intrigued by the idea. No more ‘multiple’ voters on the rolls with more than one address — it would let people update their registration and vote right from the iPhone (and in multiple languages). Thoughts? It seems like a net win to me, but there might be issues I’m not considering.
Elie
@Trollhattan:
I’m not getting what you mean about “she’s having none of it”?
The judge lifted the quarantine. She is free. Help me understand what you mean
John Revolta
@Elie: It’s a fairly common expression meaning “She’s not putting up with it”.
Elie
No I get what the phrase means, but in the context that she (meaning Kaci), got what she asked for, ( a lifting o the quarantine) why wouldnt she “put up with it”. It doesn’t make sense in THAT context. Now, if the judge had supported the quarantine, then that expression would make sense. Get it?
elmo
Science is just finally catching up to us crotchety irritable types who can’t be arsed to do something so pointless and annoying as an annual checkup.
Seriously, this is a true story: My brother developed a benign brain tumor in 1987. It couldn’t be surgically removed, so he went through radiation to shrink it, and then had to have a shunt for the pressure, etc. It was a very traumatic time for him, and of course he had anxieties about his health for a while afterward. His oncologist finally told him, in essence, Look – you undergo a checkup every day when you wake up in the morning. If you feel fine, you probably are. Believe what your body is telling you and relax.
That’s been my way of thinking.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Elie:
I think he meant she wasn’t putting up with the governor’s attempts to curtail her freedom. That’s how I read it.
Mnemosyne
It makes sense to me to do screenings based on personal or family history but not necessarily screen for everything, every time. I have to get a pap test every year because they gave my mom DES while she was pregnant with me. Current screening guidelines are every three years … unless you have other risk factors.
My paranoia is that insurance companies decide that because other people without my risk factor don’t need a pap test every year, they should only have to pay for mine every three years. Basically, I would get penalized for my family history.
Mnemosyne
wrong thread
Uncle Cosmo
@Richard Mayhew:
You’re joking, right?
My PCP’s rapacious employer bills more than that for a 10-minute routine visit. Dogonlynose how many thousands they’d demand for anything approaching a complete physical (which I haven’t had in at least 5 years).
I dunno, Richard–I presumed that as a health-insurance insider you were au courant with this stuff, but damn…