A Central Florida woman sought a mammogram at two different medical facilities. Both said no.

She had a doctor’s order. She had insurance coverage. She’d had a breast ultrasound. She had a family history of breast cancer and a personal history of breast lumps. She’d had a benign breast lump removed the previous year, after an ultrasound and a mammogram.

But she … read more »

A Utah state senator is pushing a bill that would encourage radiologists to include information about breast density in the report that women receive after a mammogram. The bill originally required the inclusion, but it was amended to merely encourage it.

Dense breast tissue may mask tumors on a mammogram and is a risk factor for breast cancer.

Senator Karen Mayne, D-West … read more »

The new Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) will get more than $3 billion over the next decade to conduct “comparative effectiveness” research and suggest the best ways to treat various illnesses. Will anybody listen?

Don’t bet on it, suggests a Kaiser Health News article. Writer Julie Appleby cites the example of vertebroplasty—the injection of medical cement into compression fractures of the … read more »

The University of Missouri Department of Radiology appears to be under investigation.

The Columbia Daily Tribune newspaper of Columbia, Missouri (home of the university), reported Sunday that:
Multiple sources have told the Tribune that radiology employees, including low-level staff members, recently were instructed by the UM System General Counsel’s office not to delete e-mails or destroy documents, indicating an investigation.
The newspaper also … read more »

The recession may have accidentally created an experiment in the effects of market forces on health care costs.

Some have argued for years that health care costs have risen faster than overall inflation because employer- or government-provided health insurance has insulated consumers from the full costs of their health care decisions. Therefore, they don’t bother to be smart shoppers.

Well, in 2010, … read more »

Mayo Clinic is building two new proton beam treatment facilities, one in Minnesota and one in Arizona. They exemplify either “what is wrong with American health care today” or an “investment to ensure that [Mayo's] patients have access to proven, effective, safe treatment for serious illnesses.”

Or maybe both. Or neither.

The “what’s wrong” assessment comes from Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, … read more »

Health insurance companies spent tens of millions of dollars trying to stop the health care reform law, and now the law has turned out to be a financial bonanza for them.

So says a Blooomberg Government study released last week. A Bloomberg news story quoted Peter Gosselin, the study author, as saying:
The industry that was the loudest, most persistent critic of … read more »

Parsimonious: characterized by parsimony; miserly; close. Synonymn: stingy.

Parsimonious: 1. exhibiting or marked by parsimony; especially: frugal to the point of stinginess. 2. sparing, restrained. Synonym: see stingy.

Parsimonious: unwilling to spend money or use resources; stingy or frugal.

Parsimonious: very unwilling to spend money or use resources.

Those definitions come from, respectively, Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition; Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Ninth … read more »