In my book, 'Let Patients Help,' one chapter is titled 'Let patients vote on what's worth the cost.' That's sensible, right? In other industries, consumer preference is a key determinant in prices.
Please, let patients help improve healthcare. Let patients help steer our decisions, strategic and practical. Let patients help define what value in medicine is.
PBMs claim they help patients by negotiating lower prices from drug manufacturers. But the fact is PBMs rarely, if ever, pass those savings on to patients.
Lets take away the incentives to do 'to' patients and instead create incentives to do 'for' patients, to be 'with' patients. We don't need to do comparative effectiveness trials to see if that works; we can just ask patients.
There is an enormous amount of options that a physician can provide today, right down from curing patients, treating patients, or providing patients with psychic solace or pain relief. So, in fact, the gamut of medical intervention is enormous.
I am a spiritual person. I'm a Catholic. I treat my patients, the dead patients, as live patients. I believe there is life after death. And I talk to my patients. I talk to them, not loudly but quietly in my heart when I look at them. Before I do an autopsy, I must have a visual contact with the face.
Whenever you see shrinks on television, they're so clearly written by patients. They're either idealized or they're demonized or they love their patients. All they ever think about is their patients.
I think the way we think about cancer, the way we treat cancer, has dramatically changed in the last century. There is an enormous amount of options that a physician can provide today, right down from curing patients, treating patients or providing patients with psychic solace or pain relief.
Take MediCal and Medicaid patients. All people have a right to quality care and they will teach you as much or more as your insurance and cash patients do.
I wasn't afraid of treating Ebola patients in the isolation unit. That was the safest job. But seeing patients in the clinic, seeing patients in the emergency room, being in the community - those things gave me pause.
There are several patients - there are thousands of patients, tens of thousands of patients, that carry either a stimulator in the brain or in the periphery, in the inner ear, to restore neurological functions or to control diseases like Parkinson's disease.
I've seen so many patients, particularly elderly patients, over the years who become debilitated and changed by the process by which I cure them or another doctor cures them. And has it really been worth it?
Patients want to be seen as people. For me, the person's life comes first; the disease is simply one aspect of it, which I can guide my patients to use as a redirection in their lives. When doctors look at their patients, however, they are trained to see only the disease.
Regulation has gone astray. . . . Either because they have become captives of regulated industries or captains of outmoded administrative agencies, regulators all too often encourage or approve unreasonably high prices, inadequate service, and anticompetitive behavior. The cost of this regulation is always passed on to the consumer. And that cost is astronomical.
Patients are patients because they are out of rapport with their own unconscious... Patients are people who have had too much programming - so much outside programming that they have lost touch with their inner selves.
The rhythm of music is very, very important for people with Parkinson's. But it's also very important with other sorts of patients, such as patients with Tourette's syndrome. Music helps them bring their impulses and tics under control. There is even a whole percussion orchestra made up exclusively of Tourette's patients.
While an increasing number of cancer treatment centers have begun offering post-treatment care plans and support groups to help patients navigate these challenges, many patients continue to fall through the cracks.