Our friends at The Pulse from WHYY explore the economics behind the rise of urgent care and how it’s changing American medicine.
Primary Care
Posted inInsurance
Everyone’s Mad at Health Insurers, But ‘There’s Plenty of Blame to Go Around’
The murder of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO has put health insurance companies in the spotlight. But insurers are just one piece of America’s broken and expensive health care system.
Posted inHealth Equity
A New Kind of Primary Care Comes to America
A group of nurses in East Baltimore is piloting a bold plan to bring basic primary care to everybody no matter their age, income or insurance. Can this idea from abroad take root in the United States?
Posted inPublic Health
An Insurance Company Bought This Doctor’s Practice. She’s Worried About Her Patients
One doctor debates whether to work for the nation’s largest insurance company after it purchased the independent practice she worked for in Oregon.
Posted inHealth Equity
One Doctor’s Quest to Improve Health Care for People with Disabilities
As adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities strive to live more freely and fully than ever before, many of America’s doctors, hospitals and insurers are getting in the way.
Posted inHealth Technology
Hope, Hype or Harm? What We Know About New Cancer-Screening Tools
A doctor walks us through the risks and benefits of new cancer-detecting body scans and blood tests.
Posted inWorkforce
How a Doctor’s Peers Shape Prescribing Habits
A new NBER working paper reveals that doctors practicing alone write more inappropriate opioid prescriptions than doctors working in groups.
Posted inCost of Care
Promising Primary Care Program Cuts Unnecessary ER Visits
A randomized study finds that easing undocumented immigrants’ access to primary care cuts their use of the emergency room.
Posted inPublic Health
A Quarter of Clinic Visits are No Longer with Doctors
A new study in The BMJ reveals that nurse practitioners and physician assistants now handle 25% of Medicare visits. The way those visits are billed makes it hard to know how that shift away from doctors is impacting care.
Posted inHealth Technology
How Smartwatches Could Lead Doctors to Overtreat Patients
A new study suggests doctors struggle to know when and how to act on heart rhythm data generated by patients’ smartwatches.