An American Sickness

An American Sickness
Title An American Sickness PDF eBook
Author Elisabeth Rosenthal
Publisher Penguin
Pages 434
Release 2017-04-11
Genre Medical
ISBN 0698407180

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A New York Times bestseller/Washington Post Notable Book of 2017/NPR Best Books of 2017/Wall Street Journal Best Books of 2017 "This book will serve as the definitive guide to the past and future of health care in America.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene At a moment of drastic political upheaval, An American Sickness is a shocking investigation into our dysfunctional healthcare system - and offers practical solutions to its myriad problems. In these troubled times, perhaps no institution has unraveled more quickly and more completely than American medicine. In only a few decades, the medical system has been overrun by organizations seeking to exploit for profit the trust that vulnerable and sick Americans place in their healthcare. Our politicians have proven themselves either unwilling or incapable of reining in the increasingly outrageous costs faced by patients, and market-based solutions only seem to funnel larger and larger sums of our money into the hands of corporations. Impossibly high insurance premiums and inexplicably large bills have become facts of life; fatalism has set in. Very quickly Americans have been made to accept paying more for less. How did things get so bad so fast? Breaking down this monolithic business into the individual industries—the hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, and drug manufacturers—that together constitute our healthcare system, Rosenthal exposes the recent evolution of American medicine as never before. How did healthcare, the caring endeavor, become healthcare, the highly profitable industry? Hospital systems, which are managed by business executives, behave like predatory lenders, hounding patients and seizing their homes. Research charities are in bed with big pharmaceutical companies, which surreptitiously profit from the donations made by working people. Patients receive bills in code, from entrepreneurial doctors they never even saw. The system is in tatters, but we can fight back. Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal doesn't just explain the symptoms, she diagnoses and treats the disease itself. In clear and practical terms, she spells out exactly how to decode medical doublespeak, avoid the pitfalls of the pharmaceuticals racket, and get the care you and your family deserve. She takes you inside the doctor-patient relationship and to hospital C-suites, explaining step-by-step the workings of a system badly lacking transparency. This is about what we can do, as individual patients, both to navigate the maze that is American healthcare and also to demand far-reaching reform. An American Sickness is the frontline defense against a healthcare system that no longer has our well-being at heart.

For-Profit Enterprise in Health Care

For-Profit Enterprise in Health Care
Title For-Profit Enterprise in Health Care PDF eBook
Author Institute of Medicine
Publisher National Academies Press
Pages 580
Release 1986-01-01
Genre Medical
ISBN 0309036437

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"[This book is] the most authoritative assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of recent trends toward the commercialization of health care," says Robert Pear of The New York Times. This major study by the Institute of Medicine examines virtually all aspects of for-profit health care in the United States, including the quality and availability of health care, the cost of medical care, access to financial capital, implications for education and research, and the fiduciary role of the physician. In addition to the report, the book contains 15 papers by experts in the field of for-profit health care covering a broad range of topicsâ€"from trends in the growth of major investor-owned hospital companies to the ethical issues in for-profit health care. "The report makes a lasting contribution to the health policy literature." â€"Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law.

Making Medicine a Business

Making Medicine a Business
Title Making Medicine a Business PDF eBook
Author Pierre-Yves Donzé
Publisher Springer
Pages 208
Release 2018-03-24
Genre Business & Economics
ISBN 981108159X

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This book goes back to the origins of the transformation of health and medicine into a business, during the first part of the twentieth century, focusing on the example of Japan. In the past hundred years, medicine has gone from being a charitable activity to a large economic sector, amounting to 12–15% of the GDP in many developed countries, and one of the fastest-growing businesses around the world. Despite the mounting presence of the medical industry, there is a lack of academic work detailing this major transformation. The objective of this book is to fill this gap and address the following question: how did medicine become a business? Using over ten years of research in the field, Pierre-Yves Donzé argues that economic factors and business factors were decisive in transforming the way that medicine enters our lives. This book will be of interest to historians of medicine, business historians, health economists, scholars in medical humanities, and more.

Making Medicines Affordable

Making Medicines Affordable
Title Making Medicines Affordable PDF eBook
Author National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher National Academies Press
Pages 235
Release 2018-03-01
Genre Medical
ISBN 0309468086

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Thanks to remarkable advances in modern health care attributable to science, engineering, and medicine, it is now possible to cure or manage illnesses that were long deemed untreatable. At the same time, however, the United States is facing the vexing challenge of a seemingly uncontrolled rise in the cost of health care. Total medical expenditures are rapidly approaching 20 percent of the gross domestic product and are crowding out other priorities of national importance. The use of increasingly expensive prescription drugs is a significant part of this problem, making the cost of biopharmaceuticals a serious national concern with broad political implications. Especially with the highly visible and very large price increases for prescription drugs that have occurred in recent years, finding a way to make prescription medicinesâ€"and health care at largeâ€"more affordable for everyone has become a socioeconomic imperative. Affordability is a complex function of factors, including not just the prices of the drugs themselves, but also the details of an individual's insurance coverage and the number of medical conditions that an individual or family confronts. Therefore, any solution to the affordability issue will require considering all of these factors together. The current high and increasing costs of prescription drugsâ€"coupled with the broader trends in overall health care costsâ€"is unsustainable to society as a whole. Making Medicines Affordable examines patient access to affordable and effective therapies, with emphasis on drug pricing, inflation in the cost of drugs, and insurance design. This report explores structural and policy factors influencing drug pricing, drug access programs, the emerging role of comparative effectiveness assessments in payment policies, changing finances of medical practice with regard to drug costs and reimbursement, and measures to prevent drug shortages and foster continued innovation in drug development. It makes recommendations for policy actions that could address drug price trends, improve patient access to affordable and effective treatments, and encourage innovations that address significant needs in health care.

The Business of Medicine

The Business of Medicine
Title The Business of Medicine PDF eBook
Author Julie K. Silver
Publisher
Pages 404
Release 1998
Genre Medical
ISBN

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This highly practical, physician-friendly book lays out the basics of the business aspects of medicine and shows the physician how to make these principles work. Filled with practical insights and strategies from top authorities in the field, this book has all the information a physician will need for running the office without a glitch, planning for financial success, using the media to promote one's practice, and much more.

Bad Pharma

Bad Pharma
Title Bad Pharma PDF eBook
Author Ben Goldacre
Publisher Macmillan
Pages 479
Release 2014-04
Genre Business & Economics
ISBN 0865478066

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Originally published in 2012, revised edition published in 2013, by Fourth Estate, Great Britain; Published in the United States in 2012, revised edition also, by Faber and Faber, Inc.

The Physician's Guide to the Business of Medicine

The Physician's Guide to the Business of Medicine
Title The Physician's Guide to the Business of Medicine PDF eBook
Author Jeffrey T. Gorke
Publisher Greenbranch Pub Llc
Pages 155
Release 2010-01-01
Genre Business & Economics
ISBN 9780981473802

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Nationally known healthcare consultant Jeffrey Gorke translates his 20 years of experience into a winning playbook for joining, starting or running a "dream" practice. Packed with tips, insights and action-oriented tools, this fast-paced guide helps readers rapidly master the language, players, management structures and culture issues and use what they've learned to ask all the right questions in identifying, seeking and landing the absolute best job. Learn how to size up location, compensation, work-life balance, and the freedom to practice medicine! NOTEWORTHY FEATURES - A comprehensive, step-by-step check list makes sure you cover every question in the practice-selection process and lets you do revealing side-by-side comparisons of all the practices under consideration. - Practical tips and reality checkpoints on what to expect in the private practice setting. - Instant financial mastery: Spreadsheets and graphical presentations make it easy for readers to evaluate business and financial data to learn what's really happening in a practice — and what questions you'll need to keep asking if you decide to join. - Clear action steps: How to evaluate factors such as a practice's location or culture and what plusses and minuses to look for in terms of managers, consultants, and business structure. - And a Bonus! Illustrative real-life anecdotes from the medical practice trenches.