“Psychologists sometimes act like we’re compiling a how-to book for life. Year by year, we scratch out the old wives’ tales, folk theories, and cognitive biases, and then replace them with evidence-based guidance for making better, happier decisions. We are not compiling a how-to book for life. Many of our studies fail to replicate, but even if every paper were 100 percent true, you could not staple them together into an instruction manual, for two reasons. First, people are just too diverse. Almost nothing we discover is going to be true for every single human. In my own research, for … Read More
All posts by Anupam
“ONC seeks to implement provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act and make updates to the ONC Health IT Certification Program (Certification Program) with new and updated standards, certification criteria, andimplementation specifications in 45 CFR Part 170. The proposed rule also includes multiple requests forinformation (RFI) to inform potential future rulemaking. RFI topic areas include electronic prior authorization, lab interoperability, predictive decision support interventions, and advanced Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR®) capabilities, among others across parts 170 and 171. We look forward to receiving public comment on these proposals and direct interested parties to the following link in order to … Read More
Excerpt – Florida is among the states that have abandoned a decades-old regulation meant to keep medical costs in check. The requirement, used nearly nationwide until the 1980s, allowed new hospital construction only if a state issued a “Certificate of Need,” or CON. The process involves would-be hospital builders applying to the state and the state government evaluating need based on criteria such as population growth and existing hospital capacity. About two-thirds of states still require a CON. But several, including Georgia, Kentucky, and South Carolina, have this year debated whether to scrap or loosen restrictions. West Virginia relaxed its … Read More
“I’ll propose in a moment what I believe are some achievable, common-sense solutions to the labor-shortage problem. But first, it helps to quickly understand why policymakers and industry leaders believe a crisis will come. It boils down to three elements. First, the number of older Americans is growing and will continue to grow – peaking in 2030 at roughly 56 million adults – and the impact on our health system will be enormous. A typical senior’s health is arguably more complicated than at any point in history, with many managing two or more chronic illnesses, and thanks to treatment advances … Read More
“Over several hours and multiple Zoom and phone calls in April, I spoke with Fauci about that: how he saw the full story of this historic public-health emergency and the role he played in it. At times, he was defensive, even combative, particularly when it came to episodes in which he felt that his own positions had been misconstrued and on the matter of gain-of-function research and the origins of the pandemic. But on the whole, he was reflective, even humble, especially about the way that Covid-19 exposed the limits of public health and, in his telling, kept surprising him … Read More
“Ozempic itself is technically a diabetes drug, but its active ingredient, semaglutide, has been approved by the FDA for weight loss under the brand name Wegovy, and can reduce a person’s body weight by up to 20 percent through a weekly injection. An even more powerful drug, known as tirzepatide, or Mounjaro, may soon be approved for weight loss, and a host of new medications are coming down the pipeline. All signs suggest that America is on the verge of a weight-loss revolution. But for people with obesity, semaglutide isn’t even the most effective weight-loss treatment around—not even close. Bariatric … Read More
“There is a long history of policy analyses of the use of the 3-day prior hospital stay rule. It was introduced very early in the history of the Medicare SNF [skilled nursing facility] benefit at a time when most nursing homes (NHs) offered primarily custodial care and extended hospital stays were common. To ensure an adequate medical evaluation, hospitalization was deemed critical, so direct admissions to SNF for medical treatment were considered inappropriate. Direct admissions from home to NHs were for custodial care and not post short-term care, and when long-stay NH residents became sick, the lack of available resources in … Read More
“There is little consensus about how to protect young people seeking treatment for eating disorders from harmful ideas about weight, or whether treatments for obesity and eating disorders can safely coexist at all within the medical system. And while the vast majority of eating disorder professionals would never prescribe weight loss to somebody recovering from an eating disorder, each clinician’s approach to treatment is affected by their individual beliefs about, and understanding of, obesity. The strong disagreements within the profession about how to best address obesity and weight stigma may leave patients susceptible to inappropriate or harmful care. [..] Clinicians … Read More
“When I first started out in addiction medicine to now, I thought that this made sense as a last-ditch approach [involuntary commitment]. But my thinking has changed as I’ve seen the clear evidence of its lack of benefit and heard stories and observed data indicating its harm. I also know intimately the feeling of powerlessness that comes with being a close family member to someone dealing with addiction. When I see medical professionals and loved ones reaching to involuntary treatment as a solution, I know it is out of a desperate wish to do something, anything, to respond to the … Read More
Excerpt – “Lessons From the Covid War: An Investigative Report,” which will be published Tuesday, was written by a consortium of scientific and public health experts, many intimately involved in the pandemic response. The group’s members originally came together to do the spade work for what they thought would be an eventual independent commission tasked with investigating the response to Covid. That inquiry, which they thought would mirror the well-regarded 9/11 Commission, never came into being. So the Covid Crisis Group, as they call themselves, have published their analysis of what went wrong and what needs to be done to … Read More