Just because the brain develops a new mode of operation it doesn't mean the brain forgets the old mode. Did you forget how to ride a bike? Forget how to swim? Forget how to play chess or play video games? Forget how to read?
Just because you learn to speed read it doesn't means you forgot how to read. And just because you pay close attention and don't use the internet it doesn't mean you've developed the ability to reason. The ability to reason comes from discrimination of good and bad information. Also what about the benefits to vocabulary? We will know way more words if we read a greater variety of text.
Yeah, but the *why* of it is what is important. Some drugs treat one cause, some treat other causes.
Most of the time doctors don't know why. Doctors don't know why some people have high blood pressure any better than the person does. I do agree its good to consult with a doctor but a lot of the time the doctor are even more clueless as to why than the patient.
"Safe enough" to use properly is a world apart from "safe enough" to just let people get them on demand. Also, xanax is HIGHLY addictive.
Food is highly addictive too. Not everyone has an addiction problem so that's not a good enough reason to ban me from being able to solve my sleep problem.
But since you wont let me get Xanax over the counter will you let me use cannabis instead?
NMR(c) Lipoprofile - $120.00 The NMR(c) LipoProfile Test utilizes the latest testing technology, NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance), for a thorough analysis of your cardiovascular risk. This test frequently reveals the presence of hidden but manageable lipid-related risk, which when treated diminishes the occurrence of cardiovascular events. Fast for 12-14 hours prior to testing.
This is how it should be done but then where would the patient go to get the blood drawn? We should be able to go to a Pharmacy to get blood drawn and then have the blood forwarded to the lab for testing.
Uh, $60 is just the sticker price for those basic blood tests. Most insurance companies pay about $15, including the blood draw and all. Only suckers pay $60 - ie those without insurance. Actually, if you don't have insurance you can beg and plead with them and they'll knock the price down to $40 and you'll talk to your friends about how you get such a better deal without insurance.
Trust me, the insurance companies don't have a monopoly on greed in the healthcare industry. The pricing system is completely out of control.
The real fun thing is that now whenever I go to have blood taken they lady behind the counter says "you have an estimated patient responsibility of $120 - how would you like to pay that? We take cash, checks, and credit cards." I tell them to bill me, and they say, "no problem." They sure don't offer that up-front though. When the bill comes in typically the insurance pays about $15 and tells me I owe the lab $2 or so. Of course, if I had paid the $120 up-front I'm sure it wouldn't be any hassle at all to get that money back, right...?
Are blood tests even covered by insurance? I doubt it. Also not every doctor is going to agree with you that you need to be tested so you'll ultimately have to pay out of pocket for some tests.
So, medical kiosk, I'm sleepy and my back hurts and I have trouble staying asleep, please give me some rittalin, some morphine and some xanax.
With the exception of Morphine why not? Morphine is addictive but ritalin if it's safe enough to give to children should be over the counter and especially xanax. If xanax were OTC I'd stockpile some.
This is a very bad idea! There is a reason that doctors go through all of that training and we go to see doctors for our ailments: because it is neither a good idea nor within our abiliyt and training to diagnose ourselves. Even doctors never self-diagnose, they go to other doctors for a diagnosis. I am sure that Big Pharma would positively drool at the opportunity to be able to easily push more pills on us. I don't trust some computer kiosk to do that for me. Computers follow a black and white algorithm whereas practicing medicine is something done with "outside of the box thinking."
Speak for yourself. Yes doctors are necessary for sophisticated conditions but for other conditions a blood test alone can diagnose them. It doesn't take years of medical school to figure out you have high blood pressure,or high cholesterol, or high blood sugar, or that you're fat. All of this stuff can be diagnosed by the patient without the need to see a doctor.
The reason it's a win for doctors is that in our "fee for service" system they don't make much on a simple office visit, especially if they have to take the time to write a prescription. There's also ongoing overhead for prescriptions - whenever you run out of refills the pharmacy has to reauth, which takes up staff time. (This last is why the office where my son works has additional staff on hand on fridays, which is the day that everyone does their refills.) It may also reduce liability, although exactly how that will play out is harder to predict.
It's an obvious win for insurance because most OTC stuff isn't covered. And likewise for drug companies, who will sell more product, a lot of it to people who don't really need it.
The big losers will be patients. Sure, some people will have easier access to the meds they need. But costs will overall be higher, and some of the meds they are talking about aren't all that safe. Statins, for example, may be great at treating high cholesterol, but over time they can cause liver damage. Most of the antihypertensives are reasonably safe when taken at the correct dose, but take a bit too much and things like positional vertigo can occur. And as others have pointed out, the inability to track OTC meds can result in serious drug interactions or overdoses. Indeed, this is already a serious problem with acetaminenophen - so many different products contain it that it's easy to get an overdose, and boom goes your liver.
The newer Statins do not cause liver damage.Also it should be the patients choice to choose between heart damage and liver damage if they are using the older statins. The patient ultimately has to make these decisions.
Statins and albuterol are quite safe for most people, but letting the average guy decide to use them is pretty dangerous. To quote George Carlin: think of how stupid the average person is, then realize that half of them are stupider than that.
I think what makes a lot more sense is for long-term prescriptions - a kid with asthma is going to need an inhaler for years, and a kid allergic to bee stings or peanuts or something is going to need an Epi-Pen for the rest of his life. It makes a lot of sense to give a prescription for a year or two.
But on the other hand, the prescription is a good "timer" - my father has high cholesterol (even on a near-no cholesterol diet) so he's on Lipitor and will be for the foreseeable future. His prescription lasts almost exactly 3 months, at which time he goes to his cardiologist for bloodwork anyway. That makes sense to me - most of these conditions require some attention, and having the prescription run out is a good way to get it.
He could save money by not having to go to a cardiologist. And statins aren't necessarily dangerous if it's the newer kinds. It's still a drug but the potential benefits far outweigh the risks when considering the typical western diet.
I think patients need to take some responsibility for themselves to a certain degree. Statins are potentially dangerous like asprin is but we all can buy asprin if we really want to, and you can even get statins if you know the ingredients and really want to. The internet has changed things.
Also consider not having to go to a cardiologist for a blood test and just getting a blood test at the Pharmacy.
In some places, patients can. I haven't been able to nail it down, but some law changed somewhere, and labs are no longer willing to permit walk in patients. Maybe this is just a California thing. Don't know. (Our laws are notoriously messed up.)
You should be able to walk into a lab and receive a test, any test, just as long as you pay for it. To deny patients this ability is to deliberately increase both risk and cost.
Doctors are busy enough they don't need to do things just "to make more money." We have a shortage of doctors in the USA, ever try to get an appointment with a specialist who doesn't have a several week wait?
Fact is these are serious chronic conditions that need some monitoring by doctors. This is backed up by the evidence. So please stop with the "docs are greedy" bull shit.
Why can't a computer or electronic devices do the monitoring? I would think a computer could monitor glucose levels, blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen levels, weight, body fat percentage, temp, and a bunch of other stuff in real time.This could be continuously updated and uploaded to the internet and then forwarded to the doctor upon complications.
As someone who had high blood pressure and triglycerides and was put on medications for both, I will tell you that the kind of monitoring the doctor did was minimal and could easily be replaced.
My "monitoring" was a couple of lipid panels run by the lab in his office, which could easily be outsourced to any place with lab techs who can draw blood. The rest of the monitoring was me taking my own damn blood pressure and charting the results in Excel.
The doctor's value was near zero as far as I can tell, and less than zero if you add in the work I did changing my diet and losing a bunch of weight (all of which I did in spite of his advice), which lowered my blood pressure and totally altered my lipid profile.
IMHO, what's needed is a new, "basic doctor" type degree that has the power to prescribe most meds and monitor most medical conditions but doesn't 8-10 years of education and training costing the GDP of a small country.
We have a doctor "shortage" because it costs $250k to become a doctor, the people who actually get the degree specialize where the easy money is (high level of non-insurance reimbursed business which is paid in cash, up front, no on call hours, etc, like dermatology) and nobody wants to practice in high-voume, low-margin areas like being a GP.
I think the patient should be able to monitor themselves, and go to Pharmacists for blood work. I think the time to see a doctor is when you have a real life threatening type problem. If you do the necessary monitoring and blood work you'll have a much lower probability of an emergency room visit.
Fuck 'em. The vast majority of minor problems and many major ones could be addressed by a "checklist/flowchart" system.
Physicians only have a few minutes to go through their PERSONAL checklist/flowchart, and they often know less about the problem than the patient.
My wife had Lyme and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, courtesy of the tick invasion of the South that so many LOCAL physicians don't even think to consider. She had to download and present info to (multiple) docs until they sent her for testing which verified HER self-diagnosis.
What we need are more ways to use computers to do repetitive tasks that TASK-SATURATED physicians don't need to do. Sitting in an office for four hours to get a couple of minutes of interaction is bullshit, and it's also NORMAL.
This is exactly the problem with the healthcare industry. We should be allowed to get blood tests OTC. Get diagnosed OTC. As long as we are willing to pay our own money to do it then we should be able to do the test without a doctors permission.
The source of the problem is we have to ask a doctor for permission for a blood test. In reality we should be able to buy a blood test kit and test ourselves to monitor our condition. We should also be able to go to any Pharmacy and get any blood test we can afford. More expensive tests might require a doctor, an X-Ray or something like that, but a blood test should be provided by the patient to the doctor. I don't see any reason why we need doctors for monitoring.
Sure, it is *theoretically* possible for doctors to provide more, but they generally don't.
I'm in Canada and I'm on thyroid medication. Every single year:
I go to the doctor He orders the same blood test I take it The results come in. He uses a computer program to see the dosage required (I see the program) , and writes a prescription.
I could do this whole thing myself given that computer program and ability to prescribe myself. Well, a nurse could certainly do it and a pharmacist could certainly do it.
This is the case for most general practice. You simply don't need a family doctor for most things. A lesser health professional will do in most cases.
If there are complications, you will no doubt be referred to a specialist anyways.
I 100%, we need a new 'basic doctor'... or empower nurses or nurse practitioners more like they do in Washington State.
If engineers worked like doctors worked, you'd need a licensed professional engineer with a PhD to install a wireless router in your home.
You should be able to go to a Pharmacy and buy a blood test. You shouldn't need a doctor to order it. That is the main problem because blood tests are relatively cheap but prevent the majority of problems.
Testing is something the patient should be able to pay out of pocket for. If the patient wants a test for anything and is willing to pay for it then the test should take place.
Thanks for raising all our insurance rates. Nothing like unnecessary testing.
If Insurance rates are too high then let people test themselves with their own money. A blood test only costs 60 bucks and a comprehensive test is maybe 200 bucks max. You should be able to walk into CVS or Walgreens and buy a blood test on the spot and have your blood analyzed at a lab. You shouldn't have to ask your doctor for a blood test.
As someone who had high blood pressure and triglycerides and was put on medications for both, I will tell you that the kind of monitoring the doctor did was minimal and could easily be replaced.
My "monitoring" was a couple of lipid panels run by the lab in his office, which could easily be outsourced to any place with lab techs who can draw blood. The rest of the monitoring was me taking my own damn blood pressure and charting the results in Excel.
The doctor's value was near zero as far as I can tell, and less than zero if you add in the work I did changing my diet and losing a bunch of weight (all of which I did in spite of his advice), which lowered my blood pressure and totally altered my lipid profile.
IMHO, what's needed is a new, "basic doctor" type degree that has the power to prescribe most meds and monitor most medical conditions but doesn't 8-10 years of education and training costing the GDP of a small country.
We have a doctor "shortage" because it costs $250k to become a doctor, the people who actually get the degree specialize where the easy money is (high level of non-insurance reimbursed business which is paid in cash, up front, no on call hours, etc, like dermatology) and nobody wants to practice in high-voume, low-margin areas like being a GP.
As patients we should be able to monitor ourselves, we should be able to do research into our conditions ourselves. We need doctors for sophisticated treatments, expensive diagnostic exams, and specific information about our conditions. We don't need doctors appointments for asthma if we know what medication we are on and have had a prescription in the past. We don't need mandatory appointments for GERD if acid reflux medication is OTC and we can afford it. We don't need doctors appointments for blood glucose monitoring, cholesterol monitoring, and other blood tests as these should be something we can do from the Pharmacy.
Basically we shouldn't need a doctor's permission to do a blood test or any test we are willing to pay for and we shouldn't require a doctor for a diagnosis. This would lower costs and reward people who would prefer to take matters into their own hands. Cholesterol, glucose, iron, blood pressure, and virtually all diagnostic tests could be performed in any lab and should not require a permission slip from any doctor. The majority of people in this country are going to be affected by the same illnesses, will need statins, will need to wear glasses, will need drugs for stomach acid, constipation, allergy, I think this is a positive step by the FDA.
The next step would be to develop the technology to allow for better self monitoring, or perhaps real time monitoring, and better remote diagnosis.
Underhanded C contests prove that it's possible to slip a bug into a critical piece of software in such a way that it looks like programmer error. This allows for plausible deniability from the company (Apple). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underhanded_C_Contest
I think this is a very good idea and there should be lots of research in this area. If we discover that animals have thoughts similar enough to ours then we will have to give them rights. Depending on how complex the thoughts they might require person status.
This would at least in theory suggest we will need to consider animal rights when making political or economic decisions. Dogs in specific if they could communicate with us could completely change the relationship humans have with them.
Although I'm going to be honest I don't expect talking dogs anytime soon.
"The only way to catch a terrorist is by being a terrorist. You can't catch a terrorist if you're not a terrorist and you can't get intelligence from terrorist organizations if you're not a terrorist.The FBI uses false flag operations, they become Al Qaeda and they contact the new recruits and train them in a mock terrorist training camp and bring them up to the point of launching an attack and then arrest."
So what you are saying is that the FBI is a Agent-Provocateur Agency ? They make their own "Customers" ? So that they can justify their very existence ? Now quickly give them the powers of the NKVD ! It is said Stalin gave them quotas for Terrorits, errm, counter-revolutionaries. Every rayon had to supply 20 traitors per quarter to be shot; if they didn't deliver this was proof of them being themselves traitors - who had to be shot. So the NKVD-FBI produces their own "terrorists" to justify their existence. NIIICCE !
That's not how I would word it because I don't have access to the sort of information to know what the FBI is doing. Corruption is a possibility I cannot rule out, but your view is very cynical if you think the majority of the FBI would agree to that. Yes I'll admit it's possible but you have to also admit most people in the FBI would have nothing to do with that sort of corruption if that is what it is.
It's much more probable that the FBI actually does fight terrorism and most of the time the security protocol works, corrupt agents are probably rare. I can say that for sure the FBI "fake" terrorists different from the real terrorists in their willingness to do mass violence. Real terrorists don't mind setting off a WMD or blowing up a building with children in it, FBI fake terrorists will talk about these things and plan these things but they don't actually commit to doing it. They merely set up others into committing to doing it so that the FBI has terrorists to catch.
Slashdot Mirror
Just because the brain develops a new mode of operation it doesn't mean the brain forgets the old mode.
Did you forget how to ride a bike? Forget how to swim? Forget how to play chess or play video games? Forget how to read?
Just because you learn to speed read it doesn't means you forgot how to read. And just because you pay close attention and don't use the internet it doesn't mean you've developed the ability to reason. The ability to reason comes from discrimination of good and bad information. Also what about the benefits to vocabulary? We will know way more words if we read a greater variety of text.
Stallman heads the Free Software Foundation, and I agree that they need both a new leader, and a new name. Call it Liberated Software Committee
Software liberation association?
Yeah, but the *why* of it is what is important. Some drugs treat one cause, some treat other causes.
Most of the time doctors don't know why. Doctors don't know why some people have high blood pressure any better than the person does. I do agree its good to consult with a doctor but a lot of the time the doctor are even more clueless as to why than the patient.
"Safe enough" to use properly is a world apart from "safe enough" to just let people get them on demand. Also, xanax is HIGHLY addictive.
Food is highly addictive too. Not everyone has an addiction problem so that's not a good enough reason to ban me from being able to solve my sleep problem.
But since you wont let me get Xanax over the counter will you let me use cannabis instead?
yes and all this data will be available to your insurance company...
Dear Elucido,
We are sorry to inform you that as of Tuesday May 08, @02:21PM your insurance has been canceled.
have a nice day
That would be illegal. They cannot cancel you based on pre-existing conditions.
http://www.personalabs.com/howitworks.php
I just googled for "order my own lipid panel"
Here are the prices
NMR(c) Lipoprofile - $120.00
The NMR(c) LipoProfile Test utilizes the latest testing technology, NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance), for a thorough analysis of your cardiovascular risk. This test frequently reveals the presence of hidden but manageable lipid-related risk, which when treated diminishes the occurrence of cardiovascular events. Fast for 12-14 hours prior to testing.
Lipoprotein-associated Phospholipase A2 (PLAC) - $190.00
The PLAC© test is a proprietary test used to selectively screen for risk factors for coronary artery disease and cerebral vascular disease associated with atherosclerosis.
l
Apolipoprotein B - $72.00
This test measures Apolipoprotein B. LDL and its major protein, Apolipoprotein B, play an essential role in lipid transport and metabolism. Apo B may regulate cholesterol synthesis through its interaction with specific cell membrane receptors and by inhibition of HMG Co A reductase. This enzyme has been identified as the rate controlling enzyme in cholesterol biosynthesis. Apo B may be important in the genesis of atherosclerosis and its quantitation useful in the evaluation of patients at risk for or having coronary atherosclerosis (CAD). High levels indicate increased risk for CAD.
This is how it should be done but then where would the patient go to get the blood drawn? We should be able to go to a Pharmacy to get blood drawn and then have the blood forwarded to the lab for testing.
Uh, $60 is just the sticker price for those basic blood tests. Most insurance companies pay about $15, including the blood draw and all. Only suckers pay $60 - ie those without insurance. Actually, if you don't have insurance you can beg and plead with them and they'll knock the price down to $40 and you'll talk to your friends about how you get such a better deal without insurance.
Trust me, the insurance companies don't have a monopoly on greed in the healthcare industry. The pricing system is completely out of control.
The real fun thing is that now whenever I go to have blood taken they lady behind the counter says "you have an estimated patient responsibility of $120 - how would you like to pay that? We take cash, checks, and credit cards." I tell them to bill me, and they say, "no problem." They sure don't offer that up-front though. When the bill comes in typically the insurance pays about $15 and tells me I owe the lab $2 or so. Of course, if I had paid the $120 up-front I'm sure it wouldn't be any hassle at all to get that money back, right...?
Are blood tests even covered by insurance? I doubt it. Also not every doctor is going to agree with you that you need to be tested so you'll ultimately have to pay out of pocket for some tests.
So, medical kiosk, I'm sleepy and my back hurts and I have trouble staying asleep, please give me some rittalin, some morphine and some xanax.
With the exception of Morphine why not? Morphine is addictive but ritalin if it's safe enough to give to children should be over the counter and especially xanax. If xanax were OTC I'd stockpile some.
This is a very bad idea! There is a reason that doctors go through all of that training and we go to see doctors for our ailments: because it is neither a good idea nor within our abiliyt and training to diagnose ourselves. Even doctors never self-diagnose, they go to other doctors for a diagnosis. I am sure that Big Pharma would positively drool at the opportunity to be able to easily push more pills on us. I don't trust some computer kiosk to do that for me. Computers follow a black and white algorithm whereas practicing medicine is something done with "outside of the box thinking."
Speak for yourself. Yes doctors are necessary for sophisticated conditions but for other conditions a blood test alone can diagnose them. It doesn't take years of medical school to figure out you have high blood pressure,or high cholesterol, or high blood sugar, or that you're fat. All of this stuff can be diagnosed by the patient without the need to see a doctor.
But mostly a lose for patients.
The reason it's a win for doctors is that in our "fee for service" system they don't make much on a simple office visit, especially if they have to take the time to write a prescription. There's also ongoing overhead for prescriptions - whenever you run out of refills the pharmacy has to reauth, which takes up staff time. (This last is why the office where my son works has additional staff on hand on fridays, which is the day that everyone does their refills.) It may also reduce liability, although exactly how that will play out is harder to predict.
It's an obvious win for insurance because most OTC stuff isn't covered. And likewise for drug companies, who will sell more product, a lot of it to people who don't really need it.
The big losers will be patients. Sure, some people will have easier access to the meds they need. But costs will overall be higher, and some of the meds they are talking about aren't all that safe. Statins, for example, may be great at treating high cholesterol, but over time they can cause liver damage. Most of the antihypertensives are reasonably safe when taken at the correct dose, but take a bit too much and things like positional vertigo can occur. And as others have pointed out, the inability to track OTC meds can result in serious drug interactions or overdoses. Indeed, this is already a serious problem with acetaminenophen - so many different products contain it that it's easy to get an overdose, and boom goes your liver.
The newer Statins do not cause liver damage.Also it should be the patients choice to choose between heart damage and liver damage if they are using the older statins. The patient ultimately has to make these decisions.
Statins and albuterol are quite safe for most people, but letting the average guy decide to use them is pretty dangerous. To quote George Carlin: think of how stupid the average person is, then realize that half of them are stupider than that.
I think what makes a lot more sense is for long-term prescriptions - a kid with asthma is going to need an inhaler for years, and a kid allergic to bee stings or peanuts or something is going to need an Epi-Pen for the rest of his life. It makes a lot of sense to give a prescription for a year or two.
But on the other hand, the prescription is a good "timer" - my father has high cholesterol (even on a near-no cholesterol diet) so he's on Lipitor and will be for the foreseeable future. His prescription lasts almost exactly 3 months, at which time he goes to his cardiologist for bloodwork anyway. That makes sense to me - most of these conditions require some attention, and having the prescription run out is a good way to get it.
He could save money by not having to go to a cardiologist. And statins aren't necessarily dangerous if it's the newer kinds. It's still a drug but the potential benefits far outweigh the risks when considering the typical western diet.
I think patients need to take some responsibility for themselves to a certain degree. Statins are potentially dangerous like asprin is but we all can buy asprin if we really want to, and you can even get statins if you know the ingredients and really want to. The internet has changed things.
Also consider not having to go to a cardiologist for a blood test and just getting a blood test at the Pharmacy.
In some places, patients can. I haven't been able to nail it down, but some law changed somewhere, and labs are no longer willing to permit walk in patients. Maybe this is just a California thing. Don't know. (Our laws are notoriously messed up.)
You should be able to walk into a lab and receive a test, any test, just as long as you pay for it. To deny patients this ability is to deliberately increase both risk and cost.
Doctors are busy enough they don't need to do things just "to make more money." We have a shortage of doctors in the USA, ever try to get an appointment with a specialist who doesn't have a several week wait?
Fact is these are serious chronic conditions that need some monitoring by doctors. This is backed up by the evidence. So please stop with the "docs are greedy" bull shit.
Why can't a computer or electronic devices do the monitoring? I would think a computer could monitor glucose levels, blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen levels, weight, body fat percentage, temp, and a bunch of other stuff in real time.This could be continuously updated and uploaded to the internet and then forwarded to the doctor upon complications.
As someone who had high blood pressure and triglycerides and was put on medications for both, I will tell you that the kind of monitoring the doctor did was minimal and could easily be replaced.
My "monitoring" was a couple of lipid panels run by the lab in his office, which could easily be outsourced to any place with lab techs who can draw blood. The rest of the monitoring was me taking my own damn blood pressure and charting the results in Excel.
The doctor's value was near zero as far as I can tell, and less than zero if you add in the work I did changing my diet and losing a bunch of weight (all of which I did in spite of his advice), which lowered my blood pressure and totally altered my lipid profile.
IMHO, what's needed is a new, "basic doctor" type degree that has the power to prescribe most meds and monitor most medical conditions but doesn't 8-10 years of education and training costing the GDP of a small country.
We have a doctor "shortage" because it costs $250k to become a doctor, the people who actually get the degree specialize where the easy money is (high level of non-insurance reimbursed business which is paid in cash, up front, no on call hours, etc, like dermatology) and nobody wants to practice in high-voume, low-margin areas like being a GP.
I think the patient should be able to monitor themselves, and go to Pharmacists for blood work. I think the time to see a doctor is when you have a real life threatening type problem. If you do the necessary monitoring and blood work you'll have a much lower probability of an emergency room visit.
Fuck 'em. The vast majority of minor problems and many major ones could be addressed by a "checklist/flowchart" system.
Physicians only have a few minutes to go through their PERSONAL checklist/flowchart, and they often know less about the problem than the patient.
My wife had Lyme and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, courtesy of the tick invasion of the South that so many LOCAL physicians don't even think to consider. She had to download and present info to (multiple) docs until they sent her for testing which verified HER self-diagnosis.
What we need are more ways to use computers to do repetitive tasks that TASK-SATURATED physicians don't need to do. Sitting in an office for four hours to get a couple of minutes of interaction is bullshit, and it's also NORMAL.
This is exactly the problem with the healthcare industry. We should be allowed to get blood tests OTC. Get diagnosed OTC. As long as we are willing to pay our own money to do it then we should be able to do the test without a doctors permission.
The source of the problem is we have to ask a doctor for permission for a blood test. In reality we should be able to buy a blood test kit and test ourselves to monitor our condition. We should also be able to go to any Pharmacy and get any blood test we can afford. More expensive tests might require a doctor, an X-Ray or something like that, but a blood test should be provided by the patient to the doctor. I don't see any reason why we need doctors for monitoring.
Exactly.
Sure, it is *theoretically* possible for doctors to provide more, but they generally don't.
I'm in Canada and I'm on thyroid medication. Every single year:
I go to the doctor
He orders the same blood test
I take it
The results come in. He uses a computer program to see the dosage required (I see the program) , and writes a prescription.
I could do this whole thing myself given that computer program and ability to prescribe myself. Well, a nurse could certainly do it and a pharmacist could certainly do it.
This is the case for most general practice. You simply don't need a family doctor for most things. A lesser health professional will do in most cases.
If there are complications, you will no doubt be referred to a specialist anyways.
I 100%, we need a new 'basic doctor'... or empower nurses or nurse practitioners more like they do in Washington State.
If engineers worked like doctors worked, you'd need a licensed professional engineer with a PhD to install a wireless router in your home.
You should be able to go to a Pharmacy and buy a blood test. You shouldn't need a doctor to order it. That is the main problem because blood tests are relatively cheap but prevent the majority of problems.
Testing is something the patient should be able to pay out of pocket for. If the patient wants a test for anything and is willing to pay for it then the test should take place.
Thanks for raising all our insurance rates. Nothing like unnecessary testing.
If Insurance rates are too high then let people test themselves with their own money. A blood test only costs 60 bucks and a comprehensive test is maybe 200 bucks max. You should be able to walk into CVS or Walgreens and buy a blood test on the spot and have your blood analyzed at a lab. You shouldn't have to ask your doctor for a blood test.
As someone who had high blood pressure and triglycerides and was put on medications for both, I will tell you that the kind of monitoring the doctor did was minimal and could easily be replaced.
My "monitoring" was a couple of lipid panels run by the lab in his office, which could easily be outsourced to any place with lab techs who can draw blood. The rest of the monitoring was me taking my own damn blood pressure and charting the results in Excel.
The doctor's value was near zero as far as I can tell, and less than zero if you add in the work I did changing my diet and losing a bunch of weight (all of which I did in spite of his advice), which lowered my blood pressure and totally altered my lipid profile.
IMHO, what's needed is a new, "basic doctor" type degree that has the power to prescribe most meds and monitor most medical conditions but doesn't 8-10 years of education and training costing the GDP of a small country.
We have a doctor "shortage" because it costs $250k to become a doctor, the people who actually get the degree specialize where the easy money is (high level of non-insurance reimbursed business which is paid in cash, up front, no on call hours, etc, like dermatology) and nobody wants to practice in high-voume, low-margin areas like being a GP.
As patients we should be able to monitor ourselves, we should be able to do research into our conditions ourselves. We need doctors for sophisticated treatments, expensive diagnostic exams, and specific information about our conditions. We don't need doctors appointments for asthma if we know what medication we are on and have had a prescription in the past. We don't need mandatory appointments for GERD if acid reflux medication is OTC and we can afford it. We don't need doctors appointments for blood glucose monitoring, cholesterol monitoring, and other blood tests as these should be something we can do from the Pharmacy.
Basically we shouldn't need a doctor's permission to do a blood test or any test we are willing to pay for and we shouldn't require a doctor for a diagnosis. This would lower costs and reward people who would prefer to take matters into their own hands. Cholesterol, glucose, iron, blood pressure, and virtually all diagnostic tests could be performed in any lab and should not require a permission slip from any doctor. The majority of people in this country are going to be affected by the same illnesses, will need statins, will need to wear glasses, will need drugs for stomach acid, constipation, allergy, I think this is a positive step by the FDA.
The next step would be to develop the technology to allow for better self monitoring, or perhaps real time monitoring, and better remote diagnosis.
Underhanded C contests prove that it's possible to slip a bug into a critical piece of software in such a way that it looks like programmer error. This allows for plausible deniability from the company (Apple).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underhanded_C_Contest
That is a good argument if you want to convince people *not* to encourage this research.
The research is already being done encouraged or not. If you want to encourage it then you'll have to find some military application for it.
I think this is a very good idea and there should be lots of research in this area. If we discover that animals have thoughts similar enough to ours then we will have to give them rights. Depending on how complex the thoughts they might require person status.
This would at least in theory suggest we will need to consider animal rights when making political or economic decisions. Dogs in specific if they could communicate with us could completely change the relationship humans have with them.
Although I'm going to be honest I don't expect talking dogs anytime soon.
"The only way to catch a terrorist is by being a terrorist. You can't catch a terrorist if you're not a terrorist and you can't get intelligence from terrorist organizations if you're not a terrorist.The FBI uses false flag operations, they become Al Qaeda and they contact the new recruits and train them in a mock terrorist training camp and bring them up to the point of launching an attack and then arrest."
So what you are saying is that the FBI is a Agent-Provocateur Agency ? They make their own "Customers" ? So that they can justify their very existence ? Now quickly give them the powers of the NKVD ! It is said Stalin gave them quotas for Terrorits, errm, counter-revolutionaries. Every rayon had to supply 20 traitors per quarter to be shot; if they didn't deliver this was proof of them being themselves traitors - who had to be shot.
So the NKVD-FBI produces their own "terrorists" to justify their existence. NIIICCE !
That's not how I would word it because I don't have access to the sort of information to know what the FBI is doing. Corruption is a possibility I cannot rule out, but your view is very cynical if you think the majority of the FBI would agree to that. Yes I'll admit it's possible but you have to also admit most people in the FBI would have nothing to do with that sort of corruption if that is what it is.
It's much more probable that the FBI actually does fight terrorism and most of the time the security protocol works, corrupt agents are probably rare. I can say that for sure the FBI "fake" terrorists different from the real terrorists in their willingness to do mass violence. Real terrorists don't mind setting off a WMD or blowing up a building with children in it, FBI fake terrorists will talk about these things and plan these things but they don't actually commit to doing it. They merely set up others into committing to doing it so that the FBI has terrorists to catch.
I'd rate the government going out of control as a far more imminent threat. Terrorists kill way less people than government every year.
What about government sponsored terrorists?
Yes you have a right to fear the government, but you should fear the most immediate threat.
That would be the government, by a huge margin.
That you don't think so leads me to believe all of your history teachers should be publically flogged.
What about all the other governments and their state sponsored terrorists? Don't you fear them more?