In recent years, as reimbursement rates fell further behind, outpatient clinics lost staff to acute and psychiatric hospitals, primary care practices, schools, and state agencies. These settings can offer significantly better salaries, benefits, and work-life balance. They have become the proverbial greener pastures that not everyone can afford to resist.
Health Care
Posted inOpinion
Panelists who impressed at health cost trends hearing
The Health Policy Commission’s annual cost trends hearing didn’t attract much media coverage this year, so I thought I’d summarize what I thought was most interesting.
Posted inHealth Care
Senate pushing again for drug pricing legislation
The Senate is preparing to take up drug pricing legislation that would also create a licensing process for pharmacy benefit managers.
Posted inOpinion
Pharmacy benefit managers are engaging in thievery
Pharmacy benefit managers were created with the intention they would negotiate discounts and pass them on to patients. Instead, they’ve taken advantage of not being regulated using several tactics to reap profits, sometimes in the billions.
Posted inOpinion
SJC case raises interesting questions about tenure
Can Tufts Medical School cut the pay of tenured professors who fail to reach targets for outside fundraising? The Supreme Judicial Court will decide.
Posted inOpinion
Advice from 2 mothers whose children died from meningitis
AS MOTHERS who have both lost a child, we often say we’re in a club that we want no one else to ever join. We started our individual foundations and […]
Posted inHealth Care
PBMs aren’t the pharmacy boogeyman
LET’S START with something that we can all agree with: the rising cost of health care in Massachusetts and the entire country is a crisis that threatens not only the […]
Posted inOpinion
Could Dana-Farber deal reduce health care spending?
EVERYONE IS TALKING about the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s decision to abandon its long-term affiliation with Brigham and Women’s Hospital and partner instead with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, which is […]
Posted inOpinion
Radical change needed to address physician shortage
THE UNITED STATES is facing a severe shortage of physicians in the coming years – a crisis that could push our already fractured health care system beyond the brink. A […]
Posted inOpinion
Bill filed by Neal would devastate life sciences
THE BIOTECHNOLOGY and pharmaceutical sector in the Boston area is about to hit some rough water. According to the Brussels-based consulting firm Vital Transformation, the prescription drug price controls in […]
Posted inHealth Care
Transit offered as mitigation for maternity ward closure
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE UMASS MEMORIAL Medical Center officials intend to work with transit officials to help redirect patients to other area hospitals, especially UMass Memorial Medical Center’s campus in […]
Posted inHealth Care
A game plan for turning Tufts Medicine around
Second of two parts. Read the first part here. IF TUFTS MEDICINE is going to turn around financially, clearly there are short-term issues for management focus, but there are also […]
Posted inOpinion
Tufts Medicine facing existential challenges
First of two parts. Read part two here. I’M WORRIED about Tufts Medicine. The latest news, that its current financial woes could trigger violations of bond covenants by late September, raises the […]
Posted inOpinion
Drugs extending my life, but Boston institute disagrees
WHEN I WAS diagnosed 6 years ago with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis—ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease as most people know it—it was a shock to my system, both figuratively and literally. […]
Posted inOpinion
New mothers shouldn’t suffer in silence
USUALLY THE BIRTH of a child is anticipated with wonder and joy. When something goes wrong, our expectations shatter into jagged pieces that cut deep. How could this happen? That […]
Posted inHealth Care
Mass General Brigham says cost cutting on track
MASS GENERAL BRIGHAM, the state’s largest and most expensive health care system, says it is on track to meet the cost savings target it agreed to as part of a […]
Posted inOpinion
The transit crisis for doctors in training
By 6 a.m. that Friday, hour 25 of a long call shift in the hospital, a routine restlessness had set in. Yet, I found solace knowing that I helped patients […]
Posted inHealth Care
DiZoglio’s MassHealth audit disputed by Healey administration
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE MASSHEALTH ERRANTLY paid more than $84 million related to care for residents who were living in other states, Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s office concluded in a new […]
Posted inOpinion
Treating behavioral health in the home
THE BEHAVIORAL HEALTH crisis has reached its breaking point in Massachusetts – and across the United States. From severe nursing shortages and long wait times, to rising supply costs and […]
Posted inHealth Care
Mass. health care spending spiraling upward
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE MASSACHUSETTS REGULATORS delivered one of their most forceful warnings yet that health care prices are spiraling out of control, ramping up the pressure on lawmakers who […]
Posted inOpinion
Abrupt Compass shutdown exposes regulatory flaws
THE ABRUPT hutdown of Compass Medical on May 31 exposed a serious flaw in the state’s health care regulatory system. Compass is an 80-clinician, multi-site practice that provides primary care […]
Posted inHealth, Health Care, State House News Service
Healey gives life science firms $24.4m in tax breaks
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE GOV. MAURA HEALEY and the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center announced $24.4 million in tax incentive awards Tuesday that they expect will help 43 life sciences companies […]
Posted inOpinion
With small investment, medical errors can be prevented
WE NEED to invest in ways to reduce medical errors and improve patient safety. The House rejected an amendment that would have provided $3.5 million to address these problems, so […]
Posted inOpinion
I’m worried about going to hospitals without a mask
CLARIFICATION: After this op-ed was completed for publication, Mass General Brigham updated its masking FAQs site to remove the answer prohibiting patients from asking their medical care team to wear […]