Death by HMO

Death by HMO PDF Author: Dorothy Rose Cancilla
Publisher: Robert Reed Publishers
ISBN: 9780967192208
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
Do Health Maintenance Organisations deliberately neglect, or even kill off, their unprofitable patients? You may well think so when you read this book. There is a new world of medicine in the United States. It pulsates to the impersonal and incessantly driving rhythms of profit. Patients are not important in this world. They are little more than data entries in elaborate schemes to cut costs and bolster profits as much as possible. Jennifer Gigliello's case was all too typical. Instead of a caring and competent health care system, what the Gigliello family found in the largest American HMO was, among other discrepancies: A staff totally untrained to deliver the type of care that was required; A system unwilling to consult a specialist to determine the true cause of her excruciating pain; A system which was tactless, cruel, heartless and mean in the extreme; A system whose maximum financial liability in case of the death of a patient -- 250,000 -- was far less than the cost of caring for the patient, thus making it cheaper to let Jenny die than to continue to treat her. This book explores Jennifer Gigliello's medical tragedy and the family's impassioned search to find meaning in the totally needless death of their daughter at the hands of America's largest HMO.

Death by HMO

Death by HMO PDF Author: Dorothy Rose Cancilla
Publisher: Robert Reed Publishers
ISBN: 9780967192208
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 148

Get Book

Book Description
Do Health Maintenance Organisations deliberately neglect, or even kill off, their unprofitable patients? You may well think so when you read this book. There is a new world of medicine in the United States. It pulsates to the impersonal and incessantly driving rhythms of profit. Patients are not important in this world. They are little more than data entries in elaborate schemes to cut costs and bolster profits as much as possible. Jennifer Gigliello's case was all too typical. Instead of a caring and competent health care system, what the Gigliello family found in the largest American HMO was, among other discrepancies: A staff totally untrained to deliver the type of care that was required; A system unwilling to consult a specialist to determine the true cause of her excruciating pain; A system which was tactless, cruel, heartless and mean in the extreme; A system whose maximum financial liability in case of the death of a patient -- 250,000 -- was far less than the cost of caring for the patient, thus making it cheaper to let Jenny die than to continue to treat her. This book explores Jennifer Gigliello's medical tragedy and the family's impassioned search to find meaning in the totally needless death of their daughter at the hands of America's largest HMO.

Death House

Death House PDF Author: Larry R. Leichter
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1469766418
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
There is an excellent chance this book will save your life. You will see doctors, the practice of medicine, and community hospitals as you have never seen them before. You will learn about things you never could have believed existed before. For what is written in this book has never been told before in its entirety, anywhere and by anyone. Doctors with respectable credentials and good reputations are harming, maiming, and yes, murdering their patients. They are doing it with the support and blessings of the hospitals at which they work. And they are doing it with only their interests, not their patients' welfare in mind. The reason? In one word: MONEY. Dealing with a different incident of physician caused abuse, each chapter will contain an anecdotal story based on true events that happened to real patients at the hands of real doctors. Though in certain instances the patient's actual first name will be used, at all times the physician perpetrator's anonymity will be maintained. There should be nothing more important to you than your life and the lives of your loved ones. You must not let these DEATH HOUSE physicians who MURDER FOR MONEY take from you that which is most precious.

Making a Killing

Making a Killing PDF Author: Jamie Court
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Court, a nationally recognized consumer advocate and founder of a health care watchdog project, and Smith, an attorney and president of a public policy consulting firm, expose appalling practices of HMOs and the corrupt world of managed care. They telltrue stories of patient victims who got caught and killed in the system, and expose the profit motive behind the misery, revealing the collusion of the insurance industry's powerful lobbyists with Congress and state legislatures to block any serious reforms. They supply an HMO patients' self-defense kit to help patients overcome HMO stonewalling.

Approaching Death

Approaching Death PDF Author: Committee on Care at the End of Life
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309518253
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 457

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Book Description
When the end of life makes its inevitable appearance, people should be able to expect reliable, humane, and effective caregiving. Yet too many dying people suffer unnecessarily. While an "overtreated" dying is feared, untreated pain or emotional abandonment are equally frightening. Approaching Death reflects a wide-ranging effort to understand what we know about care at the end of life, what we have yet to learn, and what we know but do not adequately apply. It seeks to build understanding of what constitutes good care for the dying and offers recommendations to decisionmakers that address specific barriers to achieving good care. This volume offers a profile of when, where, and how Americans die. It examines the dimensions of caring at the end of life: Determining diagnosis and prognosis and communicating these to patient and family. Establishing clinical and personal goals. Matching physical, psychological, spiritual, and practical care strategies to the patient's values and circumstances. Approaching Death considers the dying experience in hospitals, nursing homes, and other settings and the role of interdisciplinary teams and managed care. It offers perspectives on quality measurement and improvement, the role of practice guidelines, cost concerns, and legal issues such as assisted suicide. The book proposes how health professionals can become better prepared to care well for those who are dying and to understand that these are not patients for whom "nothing can be done."

The Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America (Large Print 16pt)

The Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America (Large Print 16pt) PDF Author: Wesley J. Smith
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 145877841X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description
When his teenaged son Christopher, brain-damaged in an auto accident, developed a 106-degree fever following weeks of unconsciousness, John Campbell asked the attending physician for help. The doctor refused. Why bother? The boy's life was effectively over. Campbell refused to accept this verdict. He demanded treatment and threatened legal action. The doctor finally relented. With treatment, Christopher's temperature subsided almost immediately. Soon afterwards he regained consciousness and today he is learning to walk again. This story is one of many Wesley Smith recounts in his groundbreaking new book, The Culture of Death. Smith believes that American medicine ''is changing from a system based on the sanctity of human life into a starkly utilitarian model in which the medically defenseless are seen as having not just a 'right' but a 'duty' to die.'' Going behind the current scenes of our health care system, he shows how doctors withdraw desired care based on Futile Care Theory rather than provide it as required by the Hippocratic Oath. And how ''bioethicists'' influence policy by considering questions such as whether organs may be harvested from the terminally ill and disabled. This is a passionate, yet coolly reasoned book about the current crisis in medical ethics by an author who has made ''the new thanatology'' his consuming interest.

To Err Is Human

To Err Is Human PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309068371
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Experts estimate that as many as 98,000 people die in any given year from medical errors that occur in hospitals. That's more than die from motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, or AIDSâ€"three causes that receive far more public attention. Indeed, more people die annually from medication errors than from workplace injuries. Add the financial cost to the human tragedy, and medical error easily rises to the top ranks of urgent, widespread public problems. To Err Is Human breaks the silence that has surrounded medical errors and their consequenceâ€"but not by pointing fingers at caring health care professionals who make honest mistakes. After all, to err is human. Instead, this book sets forth a national agendaâ€"with state and local implicationsâ€"for reducing medical errors and improving patient safety through the design of a safer health system. This volume reveals the often startling statistics of medical error and the disparity between the incidence of error and public perception of it, given many patients' expectations that the medical profession always performs perfectly. A careful examination is made of how the surrounding forces of legislation, regulation, and market activity influence the quality of care provided by health care organizations and then looks at their handling of medical mistakes. Using a detailed case study, the book reviews the current understanding of why these mistakes happen. A key theme is that legitimate liability concerns discourage reporting of errorsâ€"which begs the question, "How can we learn from our mistakes?" Balancing regulatory versus market-based initiatives and public versus private efforts, the Institute of Medicine presents wide-ranging recommendations for improving patient safety, in the areas of leadership, improved data collection and analysis, and development of effective systems at the level of direct patient care. To Err Is Human asserts that the problem is not bad people in health careâ€"it is that good people are working in bad systems that need to be made safer. Comprehensive and straightforward, this book offers a clear prescription for raising the level of patient safety in American health care. It also explains how patients themselves can influence the quality of care that they receive once they check into the hospital. This book will be vitally important to federal, state, and local health policy makers and regulators, health professional licensing officials, hospital administrators, medical educators and students, health caregivers, health journalists, patient advocatesâ€"as well as patients themselves. First in a series of publications from the Quality of Health Care in America, a project initiated by the Institute of Medicine

Care Without Coverage

Care Without Coverage PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309083435
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
Many Americans believe that people who lack health insurance somehow get the care they really need. Care Without Coverage examines the real consequences for adults who lack health insurance. The study presents findings in the areas of prevention and screening, cancer, chronic illness, hospital-based care, and general health status. The committee looked at the consequences of being uninsured for people suffering from cancer, diabetes, HIV infection and AIDS, heart and kidney disease, mental illness, traumatic injuries, and heart attacks. It focused on the roughly 30 million-one in seven-working-age Americans without health insurance. This group does not include the population over 65 that is covered by Medicare or the nearly 10 million children who are uninsured in this country. The main findings of the report are that working-age Americans without health insurance are more likely to receive too little medical care and receive it too late; be sicker and die sooner; and receive poorer care when they are in the hospital, even for acute situations like a motor vehicle crash.

Death of Compassion

Death of Compassion PDF Author: Jeffrey Thurston
Publisher: WRS Group
ISBN:
Category : Cost control
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Contains 253 extended abstracts from the August 1995 meeting, grouped into 12 topics including metallogeny in the evolution of orogenic belts, gold and precious metal deposits, submarine hydrothermal processes and volcanic-hosted deposits, sediment-hosted mineral deposits, vein and shear zone deposits, granitoid related deposits, industrial minerals, environmental aspects, organics and mineral deposits, metamorphism and mineralizations, and mineralization in black shales. The volume is directed to pure and applied economic geology researchers, and mining industry specialists. No index. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Describing Death in America

Describing Death in America PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309087252
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 124

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Book Description
National expenditures for medical care in the months and days preceding death are enormous. But we do not know whether that money is buying good quality care or optimizing the quality of life of those dying, or whether the situation is getting better or worse over time. The information that exists "describing death" at a national level â€" though some of it is very informative â€" is fragmentary. This report recommends ways to fill the information gaps by better use of existing nationally-representative data, and through some new measures, in particular, a new, ongoing National Mortality Followback Survey. The aim is to allow us to benchmark where we are today as a society, and what goals we can set to minimize pain and suffering and maximize the quality of life of all of us who will die in the years to come.

The Rise and Fall of HMOs

The Rise and Fall of HMOs PDF Author: Jan Coombs
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 9780299202408
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
"Drawing upon a wealth of research, Coombs compares HMOs throughout the nation with the one in Marshfield, which came as close as any HMO to realizing the ideal of early advocates. This book is a resource for specialists in the fields of health policy research and analysis, health care management, health law and politics, public health, and social and organizational history of medicine. It will also appeal to many readers who are disturbed by the current stae of America's health care system and are curious about its future."--BOOK JACKET.