"Nearly A Third Of Doctors Won't See New Medicaid Patients" (Kaiser Health News, 8/6/2012).
One big question is whether the government will compel doctors to see Medicaid/Medicare patients, perhaps as a condition of retaining their medical licenses.
"Metastatic disease reduced in PSA screening era" (American College of Physicians, 8/7/2012)
PSA screening may or may not be right for any individual patient. But doctors and patients should decide the medical appropriateness for themselves, rather than having a one-size-fits-all guideline imposed upon them by the federal government. (And ICYMI, "Is President Obama's Prostate Gland More Important Than Yours?")
"Beware legal ramifications of unnecessary tests" (Medical Economics, 7/25/2012)
In other words, if a doctor orders a test deemed "unnecessary", they could be sued. Of course, if they don't order one of those tests that in retrospect might have detected a serious problem, they can still be sued for "delay in diagnosis".
So doctors face a potential"damned if you don't, damned if you do" medicolegal scenario with these "unnecessary" tests. (Via Dr. Art Fougner.)
The blog of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine (FIRM)
