The looming physician shortage, coupled with expanded health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act, an aging population and other pressures on the U.S. healthcare system are driving some occupational medicine providers to reposition themselves to take on primary care.
Work-related stress can kill.
I used to give weekly depositions on the status of patients who were referred to me for the resolution of contested workers’ compensation cases.
Prior to the Supreme Court’s decision on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), I wrote “You Be the Judge: Predicting the Supreme Court Ruling on the Affordable Care Act.” My analysis included an exercise for readers to learn more about this controversial case by reviewing the fundamental issues and reaching their own conclusions […]
In my last blog, I discussed the background and main issues regarding The Affordable Care Act, which may be the most significant event in the history of employee health since the creation of OSHA.
In late June, the United States Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This ruling may be the most significant event in the history of employee health since President Nixon signed the act creating the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 1970.
When I was a senior medical student, I became obsessed with finding the reason why certain of my professors and fellow students were so much better at medical diagnosis than I was. My search for the answer led me to the mathematics of probability theory. I continued my research when I was a surgery resident […]
On November 9, 2011, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics released data showing that the 2010 incidence of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses requiring days away from work was 2 ½ times higher in health care support workers than in the population as a whole. And the rate is increasing: musculoskeletal disorder […]
When he delivered the keynote address at PureSafety’s 2011 User Conference in Nashville, former Tennessee Governor Philip Bredesen presented a well-reasoned critique of President Obama’s health care reform plan contained in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. Because he is a Democrat and has extensive health care experience in both the public […]
Trang Nguyen MD, PhD and her colleagues from the University of Cincinnati, using their own money to avoid funding bias, conducted an important study to determine whether lumbar fusion was a useful treatment for workers’ compensation patients with herniated or degenerating lumbar discs. Since the FDA approved the use of interbody cages in 1996, the […]