Month: February 2013
Overused Medical Tests? Doctors Issue Potentially Dangerous List
Major medical specialty groups have recommended that doctors greatly reduce their use of 90 “widely used but largely unnecessary tests and treatments”, including echocardiograms and...
Caffeine Consumption Can Affect Birth Weight
A study recently published in the journal BMC Medicine suggests caffeine consumption during pregnancy has no link to preterm birth, but does raise the risk...
Therapy “Plateau” No Longer Stops Medicare Coverage
A class-action lawsuit last month has prohibited Medicare from denying patients coverage for reaching a “plateau,” meaning their conditions are not improving. Medicare patients with...
M&M Conferences Shield Errors from Patients
“Morbidity and mortality” – or M&M – conferences emerged in the early 20th century as a way for physicians to review cases that had gone...
Misdiagnoses of Pediatric Stroke Damaging
Delayed treatment after an emergency room misdiagnosis could have cost a Parma Heights, Ohio teen his life last April. When James Finnerty, a 15-year-old rugby...
Confused by Health Care Costs? So Are Hospitals
How much should a hip replacement cost? $11,100? $125,798? The difference in figures may seem extreme, but those are just some of the actual quotes...
FDA Orders More Tests of Long-Acting Insulin
The Food and Drug Administration has demanded additional tests of potential heart risks in a new long-acting insulin, potentially delaying its approval in the U.S....
Dangerous Pneumonia Strand Spreads
A dangerous pneumonia strand, with an estimated mortality rate as high as 40 percent, has spread across the nation and outside of health care facilities,...
Widespread Hip Implant Failure
A hip implant recalled by Johnson & Johnson in 2010 has been estimated to fail within five years in nearly 40 percent of patients who...