Filed under: General Problems | 1 Comment »
Medicare Advantage :you get what you pay for – OR – end up paying for what you get ?
Posted on December 3, 2019 by Pharmaciststeve
Medicare Advantage Enrollees Discover Dirty Little Secret
https://www.medpagetoday.com/resource-centers/meeting-challenge-multiple-sclerosis/early-imaging-ms-may-predict-long-term-outcomes/2612
Getting out is a lot harder than getting in
Like many of the 22 million seniors now enrolled in Medicare Advantage (MA) plans, Tom Mills belatedly discovered its dirty little secret.
Also called Part C, these plans can cover a broad array of health services at low cost — that is, until one gets sick, at which point out-of-pocket costs can soar. But once in an MA plan, getting out can be even less affordable.
After Mills underwent a mitral valve repair and suffered a mild stroke with no lasting effects, the San Diego resident’s plan now charges him hundreds of dollars in monthly copays for drugs and other medical services. He had to pay $295 a night for his hospital stay.
But there was a much bigger shock. Mills, 71, learned that switching out of his MA plan will incur exorbitantly higher costs the next time he needs a serious medical intervention. If he moves to traditional Medicare and a prescription plan, he still needs a supplemental Medigap plan to pick up his 20% copays and deductibles.
Though the retired environmental geologist is training for his 57th half marathon, he now has a pre-existing condition.
Medigap plans in all but four states can and do reject people like him or require prohibitively higher premiums. Diabetes, heart disease, or even a knee replacement can be criteria for exclusion.
A health insurance broker told him no supplemental plan would cover him, and he’d be wasting his time if he applied.
No one told him about this side of MA when he enrolled at age 65. “You hear the pros, but nobody lists the cons.”
In the run-up to the Dec. 7 deadline to sign up for Medicare coverage, broadcast ads like one with Joe Namath tout Medicare Advantage’s array of services: dental as is described in this weblink, vision, hearing, gym membership, rides to medical appointments, doctor and nurse visits by phone, and even meal delivery and home aid. “Get what you deserve … at no additional cost,” Namath says. “Call now — it’s free.”
But some advocacy groups, including the American Medical Association (AMA), are pushing to mandate tighter plan rules and disclosure, with lists of network specialists. The AMA recently approved a resolution calling on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and other stakeholders, including the senior citizens’ lobby AARP, to make the process of choosing Medicare plans less confusing and more transparent.
A similar AMA resolution in 2018 declared that
“seniors are lured to these advantage plans by misinformation and confusing sales techniques,”
and that plan inadequacies result in “delay in nursing home placement for some members,” produce “poor service for some members … due to difficulties with physical therapy and rehab services. The number of days approved (for payment) has tended to be too short and the extent of rehab services too limited.”
Kevin Burke, MD, and Deepak Azad, MD, primary care doctors in Indiana, are members of the delegation that sponsored both resolutions.
“If your health is good, maybe these plans represent value for some patients, like providing gym memberships,” Burke said. “But that can change in the blink of an eye … with a stroke or an accident or some acute medical condition and they need a rehabilitation stay.” Then, services are restricted so much that “they can’t recover adequately from the stroke, or they bankrupt themselves staying another month to get a good recovery.”
Then they’re eligible for Medicaid, which pays doctors much less.
Burke and Azad think Medicare should not let people with serious health risks buy MA plans in the first place. And some critics say MA across the board is basically a scam.
‘Confusing’ Tools
Medicare.gov websites aren’t always clear about the process of transferring out of MA to traditional Medicare with a Medigap plan, but the general bottom line is that getting accepted by a Medigap plan is guaranteed only within the first 12 months after enrolling in Medicare at age 65.
MA plans, which are managed by private insurers, can be very complex, with the potential for substantial out-of-pocket costs when beneficiaries get sick played down. Medigap policies, which pay for many expenses not covered in basic Medicare, may cost more in monthly premiums up front, but once one is enrolled, premiums are set solely through “community rating” and beneficiaries’ age. New-onset health issues do not lead to premium increases.
The catch is that if one initially enrolls in an MA plan and then decides to switch out more than a year later, Medigap insurers will take into account the individual’s pre-existing conditions, and may decline coverage or demand high premiums.
The newly revised Medicare Plan Finder tool does not explain this possibility. Nor does another CMS website, “Join, switch, or drop a Medicare Advantage plan.”
A third Medicare.gov website, “When can I buy Medigap?” is more specific, explaining in the third section that “there’s no guarantee that an insurance company will sell you a Medigap policy if you don’t meet the medical underwriting requirements,” meaning the Medigap issuer’s stance on pre-existing conditions.
Yet another Medicare publication does explain that if beneficiaries enroll in a Medicare Advantage plan at age 65 and want to get out, they must do so within 1 year, and then they have another 63 days from the disenrollment date to buy a Medigap plan without risk of coverage denial or being subject to underwriting.
Other Complaints
Besides MA’s lack of transparency on costs, critics also cite problems with insurers’ provider networks. The AMA wants CMS to make sure networks are adequate and list physicians, their specialties and subspecialties, and how many actually cared for plan members the prior year.
AMA spokesman Robert Mills (no relation to Tom Mills) referenced a Kaiser Family Foundation report that found 35% of plans studied were served by a “narrow” physician network, meaning that fewer than 30% of the physicians in that county were contracted.
“Plans may purposefully understaff specialties to avoid attracting enrollees with expensive pre-existing conditions like cancer and mental illness,” he said.
David Lipschutz, an attorney with the Center for Medicare Advocacy in Washington, D.C., also hears about limitations. “It’s a common scenario,” he said. “Often you have to jump through certain hoops or over certain barriers to access care, or it’s subject to prior authorization.”
His colleague, attorney Toby Edelman, has heard beneficiaries complain about plans that have two nursing homes in their network. “There are 50 in your area, but they have two and these are not the best.”
At California’s Health Insurance Counseling and Advocacy Program, San Diego manager David Weil hears horror stories too. “If they answer yes [on a questionnaire] to something the company doesn’t like, the company won’t sell them a policy. Almost anything can be on their list.”
Why do people want to switch? Weil described it as a “funnel effect, the feeling that you have to squeeze through an ever-closing hole in order to get services … Or you have to wait eight weeks to see a specialist. People get fed up with that.”
Last month, veteran consumer advocate Ralph Nader blasted MA plans as nothing more than a way to enrich health insurers at seniors’ expense. Calling the plans “Medicare Disadvantage” and a “corporate trap,” Nader took the AARP, which offers its brand of Medicare Advantage through UnitedHealthcare, to task for being asleep on the issue, and in conflict because it gets a 4.95% commission.
AARP spokesman Gregory Phillips responded: “AARP supports increasing access through guaranteed issue to Medigap coverage, in addition to eliminating medical underwriting and age rating, to ensure that older Americans will get the coverage they need when they need it most.”
And he agreed that many beneficiaries may not be aware that plans “may terminate their relationship with Medicare in any given year; change the premiums, cost-sharing charges, or benefits from year to year (including drug coverage); and drop physicians from their networks during the year.”
“Beneficiaries may also not be aware that if they want to voluntarily leave an MA plan and return to traditional fee-for-service Medicare, they may be subject to medical underwriting for a Medicare supplement (Medigap) policy. This underwriting may result in their being refused a policy or being required to pay higher rates.”
But Phillips defended AARP’s participation in MA, saying it provides information on both MA and traditional Medicare plans.
Filed under: General Problems | 3 Comments »
Death by Doctor: Coming Soon to a State Near You
Posted on December 2, 2019 by Pharmaciststeve
Death by Doctor: Coming Soon to a State Near You
https://thebulwark.com/death-by-doctor-coming-soon-to-a-state-near-you/
This past September in the Netherlands, the Hague District Court acquitted a doctor accused of wrongfully euthanizing a woman. The doctor put drugs in her coffee and her relatives held her down while the doctor carried out an injection of a fatal dose of drugs, the Associated Press reported. This passed muster because the woman, who had Alzheimer’s, had previously requested euthanasia. Upon hearing the verdict, courtroom spectators broke out in applause. Think it could never happen here? Think again. The law in the Netherlands, which allows euthanasia, goes further than physician-assisted suicide (PAS) laws in the United States, but both kinds of laws share a basic premise: a deeply vulnerable person decides when it’s time to die, and a doctor conveys the means. America is now well down that road.
Ten U.S. jurisdictions permit terminally ill patients to kill themselves with a doctor’s help. Two of those states—Maine and New Jersey—enacted laws just this summer. Four others have PAS arising from legislative action (California, Vermont, Hawaii, District of Columbia), three by referenda (Oregon, Washington, Colorado) and one by court decision (Montana).
It’s a fractious issue; the laws and referenda passed by thin margins. Still, the grassroots “death with dignity” movement shows no sign of slowing down. Another 18 states are considering assisted-suicide laws. The trend is not limited to red or blue states. In this era of fractious politics, it seems at least some Americans are finding common ground: They want to kill themselves and expect doctors to help them.
New Jersey has the nation’s most recent assisted suicide provision, and a Catholic governor signed it into law. Its proponents, like those of other states, loudly asserted their “rights.” The U.S. Supreme Court, however, has said there is no such right: In Washington v. Glucksberg (1997), the Court held that suicide is not a protected liberty interest under the Due Process Clause. In another case handed down the same day, however, Quill v. Vacco, the Court ruled that New York’s ban on physician-assisted suicide didn’t run afoul of the Equal Protection Clause.
Here’s how a typical PAS law works. A patient has six months or less to live. A psychologist deems him mentally “capable.” A doctor must ask him, on two occasions, if he wants to die. The patient—this is crucial—puts the lethal pill in his mouth himself, though some laws are not entirely clear about this. And the suicide must be witnessed. These measures create the aura of independence around the deathbed.
PAS laws are carefully crafted by lawyers and politicians to keep the whiff of euthanasia from fouling the proceedings. Yet PAS and euthanasia are close cousins. PAS laws are separated solely by that “autonomous” hand gesture. Historically, PAS and euthanasia are closely linked medically, philosophically, and politically. The late Jack Kevorkian—the unconscious id of the right to die movement—knew this, and was blunt about it.
In 1990, Dr. Kevorkian famously provided his mobile death service with a gizmo that released carbon monoxide. His “services” eventually landed him both in prison and the media spotlight, jump-starting a national conversation about the role of doctors and patient suicide. PAS laws were too tame for Dr. Kevorkian because they ignored deathbed reality: Some sick patients can’t manage the pill-pop on their own.
Who’s Using PAS
A common trope among right-to-die advocates is that patients are driven by unbearable—and untreatable—physical pain. But data collected from states where assisted suicide is legal show that’s not often the case.
Patients with private insurance are far less likely than patients on Medicare or Medicaid to commit suicide with PAS, data from Oregon and Washington reveal. The majority are elderly people with cancer, but pain is not what drives them.
During the first three years of PAS in Oregon—from 1998 to 2000, when Oregon was the only state with PAS on the books, and back when palliative care was less effective than today—out of 70 patients who availed themselves of physician-assisted suicide, pain was not given as priority reason, the Oregon Public Health Division reported. Most cited concerns about being a burden, loss of bodily function, and autonomy.
Since then, we have continued to see reasons other than pain as the primary motivations for patient suicide in Oregon. Between 1998 and 2015, 90 percent of patients choosing PAS in Oregon reported that they feared being “less able to engage in activities making life enjoyable,” and losing “autonomy,” the OPHD reported. Over the same period, about a quarter of PAS patients reported that fear of pain is a factor in the decision. Data from Washington in 2018 shows PAS patients cited loss of dignity and autonomy as leading reasons for wanting to commit suicide. Despite these anxieties, almost none of the patients were referred for psychiatric evaluation.
When we offer such patients a pill and a quick death, we not only fail them on a human level, but we fail society on a policy level. Every death by PAS creates a model for insurance companies of a cheap, efficient alternative to humane—and more costly—end of life care overseen by physicians. One can now google “How much does physician-assisted suicide cost?” Here’s a hint: Not much.
The data that has emerged from Washington and Oregon is consistent with the clinical observations of Dr. Yosef Glassman, a Harvard-trained doctor practicing in New Jersey who is board certified in geriatric medicine.
“Often it is those with existential pain that utilize these laws, versus true physical pain, which can be effectively treated,” said Dr. Glassman.
Glassman was a plaintiff in a lawsuit to stop New Jersey’s new PAS law. The suit challenged the law’s constitutionality on the grounds that it interferes with Dr. Glassman’s fiduciary duties to his patients and violates his First Amendment rights “to freely practice” his religion in which “human life is sacred and must not be taken.” His lawsuit briefly succeeded in blocking implementation of the law in August, but that lower court ruling was overturned and the state supreme court refused to hear his emergency appeal.
A Suicidal Nation
Over about the last 20 years, suicide has both become more normalized in our culture and also responsible for a higher percentage of deaths, to the point that it’s the 10th leading cause of death in the United States.
In 2017, the most recent year for which data is available, 47,173 people in America killed themselves, the Centers for Disease Control found. In Montana, which has the highest suicide rate in the nation, suicide is about as common as succumbing to Alzheimer’s or diabetes, the CDC says.
The CDC statistics on rates of American suicide don’t include death by PAS. The “CDC does not track or have information on physician assisted suicide,” Julie Eschelbach, Health Communications Specialist at the CDC, said in an email. Physician-assisted deaths are recorded “as the terminal illness,” she said.
The Road to Euthanasia
Kevorkian was typical of early-1990s right-to-die proponents: He unabashedly favored euthanasia. Early activists advocated for assisted suicide and euthanasia, but realized that was too radical. They dialed it back and came up with a gentler message: “death with dignity.” The focus shifted away from euthanasia to having the doctor as an incidental helper for an empowered individual—who just happens to be at death’s door. (The Death with Dignity National Center did not return repeated requests to comment on this article.)
That’s a slippery slope to full-on euthanasia. Canada and the Netherlands provide cautionary tales. Canada has had PAS since 2016 and is considering extending it to children, according to the National Post. The Canadian government has asked a group of experts that includes doctors and ethicists to study the issue and they have published an exploration of the topic in a medical journal. The government also surveyed pediatricians to get a sense of their views. The survey revealed that many pediatricians had been approached by parents of severely disabled children requesting to end their lives—which would be euthanasia.
In the Netherlands, euthanasia occurred under the radar before it was legalized in 2000. According to the Patients Rights Council—a U.S. based organization critical of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia—the law permits doctors to end a life for patients with “psychic suffering” or even “the potential disfigurement of personality.” Government statistics show that euthanasia now accounts for 4 percent of deaths in the Netherlands.
In 2014, Belgium made physician-assisted suicide available to minors.
With all this death-for-the-asking, Europe now has a “death tourism” problem. “Going to Switzerland” has become a euphemism in the U.K. for seeking physician-assisted suicide, according to Medical Daily.
Do . . . Some Harm?
At present there are no indications that American doctors will go as far as their European counterparts. But there has been movement away from the “do no harm” admonition of the Hippocratic Oath. About a third of U.S. medical schools opt for an oath that doesn’t contain that provision, according to a 2009 survey. Time will tell how the PAS laws impact doctors and medical practice.
Meanwhile, Glassman and his co-plaintiffs returned to court earlier this month with their lawyers, arguing once more against New Jersey’s new PAS law. According to NJ.com, an assistant attorney general argued that Dr. Glassman and the other plaintiffs lack legal standing for the lawsuit, since they “have not suffered any harm” themselves.
There are some cases in which the harm or injury ends before a person can seek judicial relief, but is the sort of harm or injury likely to occur again. This was the sort of injury the U.S. Supreme Court had in mind in Roe v. Wade when it famously held that Roe, who was no longer pregnant but, like many women, might someday be in such a position again, presented facts “capable of repetition yet evading review.” Such a case, the court, said, may be heard.
In Glassman’s case, the people harmed by the new law are patients. As the data show, they are very sick, typically old, often poor, and frightened. The harm they experience will be most certain upon their death, when it will do them little good to have the right to sue. That sounds like a situation capable of repetition yet evading review.
Rudolf Virchow, the great 19th-century German doctor and scientist, wrote: “The doctor is the natural attorney for the poor.” Who is more impoverished than a patient who believes he has no better option than death? Who better to plead his case than a doctor who would “do no harm”?
Filed under: General Problems | 4 Comments »
how did Baby Boomers and early X-Gen make it to ADULTHOOD ?
Posted on December 1, 2019 by Pharmaciststeve
Filed under: General Problems | 1 Comment »
Could this be why the DEA only raids practitioners’ offices ?
Posted on December 1, 2019 by Pharmaciststeve
Mexico gunbattle near Texas border between suspected cartel members, police leaves at least 21 dead
https://www.foxnews.com/world/mexico-cartel-member-gunbattle-police-texas-border
Four police officers were among nearly two dozen people killed after security forces engaged in an hour-long gunbattle with suspected cartel members Saturday in a Mexican town near the U.S. border, days after President Trump said he was moving to designate Mexican drug cartels as terror organizations.
The shootout happened around noon in the small town of Villa Union, a town in Coahuila state located about an hour’s drive southwest of Eagle Pass, Texas.
Coahuila state Gov. Miguel Angel Riquelme told local media that four of the dead were police officers killed in the initial confrontation and that several municipal workers were missing. On Sunday, the Coahuila state government said that security forces killed seven additional members of the gang, bringing the death toll to at least 21.
THE IMPACT OF DESIGNATING MEXICAN CARTELS A ‘FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION’
The armed group of suspected cartel members stormed the town of 3,000 residents in a convoy of trucks, attacking local government offices and prompting state and federal forces to intervene. Ten alleged members of the Cartel of the Northeast were initially killed in the response.
The City Hall of Villa Union is riddled with bullet holes after a gun battle between Mexican security forces and suspected cartel gunmen, Saturday, Nov. 30, 2019. (AP Photo/Gerardo Sanchez)
Riquelme told reporters the state had acted “decisively” to take back the town, as videos of the shootout posted on social media showed burned-out vehicles and the facade of Villa Union’s municipal office riddled with bullets.
The City Hall of Villa Union is riddled with bullet holes after a gun battle between Mexican security forces and suspected cartel gunmen, Saturday, Nov. 30, 2019. (AP Photo/Gerardo Sanchez)
A damaged black pickup truck with the C.D.N. of the Cartel del Noreste, or Cartel of the Northeast, written in white on its door could be seen on the street in an Associated Press photo.
A damaged pick up marked with the initials C.D.N., that in Spanish stand for Cartel of the Northeast, is on the streets after a gun battle between Mexican security forces and suspected cartel gunmen, in Villa Union, Mexico, Saturday, Nov. 30, 2019. (AP Photo/Gerardo Sanchez)
Riquelme told reporters that police had identified 14 vehicles involved in the attack and seized more than a dozen guns. Three of the suspected gunmen were killed by security forces in the initial pursuit of the gang members as they fled into rugged terrain, according to Reuters.
In the wake of the assault, the governor said that security forces will remain in the town for several days to restore a sense of calm. The town is about 12 miles from the site of a 2011 cartel massacre where officials say 70 died.
“These groups won’t be allowed to enter state territory,” the government of Coahuila said in a statement.
MEXICO’S ANNUAL HOMICIDE COUNT ON PACE TO BE HIGHEST IN DECADES AS NEARLY 100 KILLED DAILY
Mexico’s murder rate has increased to historically high levels, inching up by 2 percent in the first 10 months of the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Federal officials said recently that there have been 29,414 homicides so far in 2019 – up from 28,869 over the same period last year.
Members of family massacred in Mexico had been previously victimized by cartel violence
Nine Americans were killed when their convoy was ambushed in broad daylight by gunmen believed to be affiliated with a drug cartel; insight from Robbie Whelan, Wall Street Journal correspondent covering Latin America.
The release of the figures comes at a time when López Obrador is facing growing criticism for his government’s “hugs, not bullets” policy of not using violence when fighting violent drug cartels.
In early November, Mexico made international headlines when a drug cartel ambush killed nine Americans, focusing world attention on rising violence in the country.
The three women and six children — all members of dual-citizen families that lived in La Mora, a decades-old settlement in the Sonora State founded as part of an offshoot of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — were on their way to see relatives in the U.S when they were targeted about 70 miles south of Douglas, Ariz., by cartel members.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP
At the time, Trump called on Mexico to “wage war” on the cartels. He told author and former Fox News Channel host Bill O’Reilly in an interview posted last week his administration is “well into that process” to designate drug cartels as terror organizations. While the president did not indicate how the U.S. policy would change from past years, Trump said he told López Obrador that the U.S. stands ready to “go in and clean it out.”
At least 14 people were killed, four of them police officers, after an armed group in a convoy of trucks stormed the town, in Coahuila state, prompting security forces to intervene, state Gov. Miguel Riquelme Solis said. (AP Photo/Gerardo Sanchez)
On Friday — the day before the deadly gunbattle — Mexico’s president said he would not accept any foreign intervention in Mexico to deal with violent criminal gangs after Trump’s comments.
A damaged pick up is on a street of Villa Union, Mexico, after a gun battle between Mexican security forces and suspected cartel gunmen on Saturday. (AP Photo/Gerardo Sanchez)
Riquelme on Saturday made similar comments to Lopez Obrador on how Mexico should handle the problem.
“I don’t think that Mexico needs intervention. I think Mexico needs collaboration and cooperation,” he told reporters. “We’re convinced that the state has the power to overcome the criminals.”
U.S. Attorney General William Barr is scheduled to visit Mexico this week to discuss cooperation over security, according to Reuters.
Filed under: General Problems | 6 Comments »
The Joint Commission launches educational campaign on patient rights
Posted on November 29, 2019 by Pharmaciststeve
The Joint Commission launches educational campaign on patient rights
OAKBROOK TERRACE, Illinois, Nov. 13, 2019) – The Joint Commission today launched its Speak Up™ For Your Rights campaign to educate patients and their advocates on their rights before, during and after receiving care. The campaign includes an infographic and animated video, in English and Spanish, available for free download and use.
New #SpeakUp campaign includes video and infographic for free download and use on #PatientRights
TWEET THIS
Understanding patient rights is critical to receiving the best possible care. Patients who know their rights are better prepared to ask the right questions, helping them make informed decisions about the care and treatments right for them. By informing patients of their rights, providers can help ensure more patients are satisfied with their care.
Not everyone has extensive experience in health care, so understanding what information, respect and types of care patients deserve can prove challenging. To help, the campaign’s animated video provides an example of a patient and her advocates navigating the emergency room. In the video, parents Grant and Manuel seek care for their daughter after she breaks her wrist. As their daughter receives care, Grant and Manuel learn about their daughter’s rights as a patient, including their right to have an interpreter present and receive copies of their daughter’s medical records.
“Health care organizations’ recognition and respect for patients’ rights, along with patients’ understanding of their own responsibilities to uphold their rights, supports a positive provider-patient relationship necessary for the delivery of safe, quality care,” said Kathryn Petrovic, MSN, RN-BC, field director in surveyor management and development, Accreditation & Certification Operations.
The Speak Up™ For Your Rights infographic explains the rights patients should know to advocate for. Some of these rights include:
Being informed and making decisions about their care.
Being treated with courtesy and respect.
Having a patient advocate with them during their care.
Privacy of their health information.
Speaking to a patient representative about their rights.
The campaign also encourages patients to be active in their care. To help their caregivers help them, patients should ask questions about diagnoses, medicines and treatments, and they should inform caregivers about medicines, allergies and life-saving actions such as being put on a ventilator. Additionally, the campaign explains how advocates can help a patient seek the best care for them and how patients can improve care or report complaints if they believe a violation of patient rights took place.
Receiving care at a health care facility doesn’t have to be confusing. Patients who know their rights and when to speak up for them can place themselves in the right position to receive the best possible care.
About the Speak Up™ program
Launched in 2002, the award-winning Speak Up™ program has been used in more than 70 countries. It encourages patients to be their own advocates and to:
Speak up
Pay attention
Educate yourself
Advocates (family members and friends) can help
Know about your new medicine
Use a quality health care organization
Participate in all decisions about your care
The Joint Commission’s refreshed Speak Up™ program debuted last year, after national market research including focus group feedback from patients and their families.
For updates on new Speak Up™ campaigns as they become available, sign up for email alerts or subscribe to the e-newsletter Joint Commission Online. For more information about the Speak Up™ program, visit The Joint Commission website.
###
About The Joint Commission
Founded in 1951, The Joint Commission seeks to continuously improve health care for the public, in collaboration with other stakeholders, by evaluating health care organizations and inspiring them to excel in providing safe and effective care of the highest quality and value. The Joint Commission accredits and certifies more than 22,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States. An independent, nonprofit organization, The Joint Commission is the nation’s oldest and largest standards-setting and accrediting body in health care. Learn more about The Joint Commission at www.jointcommission.org.
Filed under: General Problems | 2 Comments »
This video is 5 yrs old …but… unfortunately still pertinent
Posted on November 28, 2019 by Pharmaciststeve
Filed under: General Problems | 3 Comments »
Open letter to all those Federal Bureaucrats interfering with pain pts getting their therapy
Posted on November 28, 2019 by Pharmaciststeve
Open letter to all those Federal Bureaucrats interfering with pain pts getting their therapy:
I‘m one of millions of Americans that live in constant chronic pain. I’m on social media and I connect with many like me, and worse. There are two major groups of people who are very different, yet being grouped together and compared as one. There’s the addicted– and then there’s pain patients. We do not seek pain meds for anything other than pain relief and quality of life. I’m 56 yrs old with grown sons and grandsons. This is the make up of pain patients. We’re not in the streets seeking drugs, but forced to pain MGMT where we’re treated like addicts. We’re subjected to pill counts, urine screens, and a contract. We carry a stigma bc of this. We’ve lost friends, family, and have been humiliated. We’re subjected to injections in our spine that isn’t FDA approved and is not done properly. And because of this, I had to have major spine surgery. These injections were against my spine surgeon’s advice in his referral. I was told by pain MGMT if I didn’t have these injections, I couldn’t get my pain meds. I’m now left with nothing and my life consists of me and my sofa, with no quality of life. I can’t play with my grandchildren, I can’t do laundry, and I live on an income that I can’t live on because I was forced on disability. I live with my son, which I’ve been bounced back and forth between my two sons and their families. I want to work, even part time. I cannot. There are millions like me, some even worse. The torture we live in everyday is absolutely ludicrous as American citizens. Since we have to fight for the right to get our meds to live and have QOL, from this government entity, that shouldn’t even be involved in this, I’m not going to beg for my meds, I’m going to demand them. I’m a part of the We in We The PEOPLE.
Filed under: General Problems | 18 Comments »
Production at Teva API plant halted until next year – how many vital meds will be in short supply ?
Posted on November 27, 2019 by Pharmaciststeve
Production at Teva API plant halted until next year
https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/production-at-teva-api-plant-halted-till-next-year
Teva Pharmaceuticals is having issues with its active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) plant in Italy serious enough that it has had to stop production.
The Israeli drugmaker sent a “Dear Customer” letter to clients saying that it does not expect to restart production until after the first of the year.
“We have been asked by the regulatory authorities to submit new registration requests for products produced at the site. The submission of this documentation will be limited in scope and will not require resubmission of the DMFs (Drug Master Files),” the drugmaker said in an update on the Italian site in Bulciago.
The company said it is working to return to production as quickly as possible but does not expect that will happen “before the end of this year.”
A Teva spokesperson did not respond to two requests for comment on what led to the halt in production.
The problems have come up even as the drugmaker has been going through a major downsizing of its manufacturing operations over the last couple of years. That stemmed from CEO Kåre Schultz cutting $3 billion in annual operating expenses to return the drugmaker to firm financial footing after its troubled $40 million deal to buy generic drugmaker Actavis from Allergan. While the drugmaker has very nearly reached its financial goals, Schultz has said that Teva will continue to look at ways to trim the extended manufacturing network.
Cost has not been the only issue with the Actavis buy. Teva received a warning letter earlier this year for a former Actavis site in Florida over issues in the laser drilling of a schizophrenia drug. The FDA noted that the issues predated Teva’s 2016 deal but said the drugmaker hadn’t done enough to get on top of them. Teva, which has brought in an outside consultant, says it is working closely with the FDA.
Filed under: General Problems | 1 Comment »
Apparently this CVS/Target pharmacy customer was UNHAPPY
Posted on November 27, 2019 by Pharmaciststeve
CVS/Target pharmacy destroyed by woman with metal pole
https://www.koin.com/news/crime/target-pharmacy-destroyed-by-woman-with-metal-pole/
Target said nearly all the medication, medical supplies and selves were ruined and the total cost of damage was over $100,000.
Daniel was booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center on charges of criminal mischief, burglary and disorderly conduct.
Filed under: General Problems | 1 Comment »