Long-term exposure to nitrate in drinking water may be a risk factor for prostate cancer
The nitrate ingested over the course of a person’s adult lifetime through the consumption of tap water and bottled water could be a risk factor for prostate cancer, particularly in the case of aggressive tumours and in younger men. This is the conclusion of a study conducted in Spain and led by the Barcelona Institute […]
Doxycycline Fails to Protect Women Against STIs
SEATTLE — Researchers were scratching their heads over findings that doxycycline prophylaxis failed to prevent sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among African cisgender women, unlike its success among men who have sex with men. In a trial conducted among 449 women in Kenya who were taking daily pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV infection, 50 of […]
NC Nonprofit Hospital Execs Made Over $1.75B Since 2010, Report Shows
Over the past decade, CEOs and other top executives at North Carolina’s nonprofit hospitals raked in massive amounts of money as worker wages were stymied, medical debt mounted, and a lack of transparency persisted, according to a new report. Nonprofit hospitals in the state paid their top executives more than $1.75 billion from 2010 to […]
Medicare Advantage Plans Fielded 35 Million Prior Auth Requests in 2021
Over 35 million prior authorization requests were submitted to Medicare Advantage insurers in 2021, according to a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF). Two million of these requests, or 6%, were fully or partly denied, according to Jeannie Fuglesten Biniek, PhD, associate director of the Program on Medicare Policy, and Nolan Sroczynski, MSPH, […]
Opinion | The Agonizing Decision of Caring for an Abusive Parent
“My parents abused me as a child. I went ‘no contact’ with them over 10 years ago, but now my dad is in the hospital with a serious diagnosis and the discharge planner keeps asking me to be involved. I don’t want to. What are my rights?” I read the lengthy message several times, feeling […]
Patient Accused of HIPAA Violation, Threatened With Jail for TikTok Posts
A confrontation between hospital staff and a patient over wait times and patient rights was documented in a series of viral TikTok videos, according to a local news report. Denise Bradley, a patient at Beaumont Hospital in Dearborn, Michigan, was confronted by hospital security and a nurse after she was found to be recording an […]
Proposed Budget Deal Would Partially Delay Cut to Medicare Physician Payments
WASHINGTON — Physician groups wasted no time Tuesday expressing their dismay over a proposed $1.7 trillion budget deal in Congress that would rescind upcoming Medicare physician payment cuts — but only partially. “MGMA is deeply dismayed by the failure of Congress to adequately address the full 4.5% cut to the Medicare conversion factor set to […]
Doc Groups Unhappy With 4.5% Cut in the 2023 Medicare Fee Schedule Final Rule
WASHINGTON — Physician groups expressed concerns over what one group called a “substantial” decrease in Medicare fee-for-service physician payments under a final rule for 2023 issued Tuesday by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The 2023 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule includes a 4.5% decrease in the conversion factor — the multiplier that Medicare […]
Year in Review: Multiple Myeloma
Developments in multiple myeloma over the past year were marked by the approvals of a first-in-class drug for relapsed or refractory disease and a second chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, as well as some encouraging news and disappointments on the research front. New Approvals Last month, the FDA granted accelerated approval to teclistamab (Tecvayli) […]
Dementia Strikes One in Ten Americans Over 65
About one in 10 U.S. adults over 65 has dementia and even more have mild cognitive impairment, updated national estimates suggested. In a nationally representative cross-sectional study of about 3,500 older adults, 10% (95% CI 9-11) were classified as having dementia and 22% (95% CI 20-24) as having mild cognitive impairment, according to Jennifer Manly, […]