No, they don’t.

In many cases, drug companies like to leave sample medications for doctors to dispense. In most cases, they are for heavily publicized medications, and are often expensive or on a high co-pay tier. So although these medications may initially be “free,” when patients ask for a refill, they will eventually pay more for their treatment course.

Matthew Mintz, in his piece where he gives tips for patients on saving Read more »

“The nation is too precariously balanced right now to risk having him burst into tears, or march off in a snit, or take to his bed with the glums.”

So says a cheeky op-ed this past weekend by novelist Amy Goldman Koss (via the WSJ Health Blog), who worries about the instability that smoking cessation often causes.

Seeing if this could be true, the WSJ asked a nicotine addiction expert about the possibility of “irritability, slowed Read more »

The specialist-heavy physician organization says all the right things regarding the proposed primary care medical home, but will their support withstand “budget-neutral” payment reforms?

An emergency physician comments that “current compensation mechanisms for health insurance in federal plans . . . doesn’t place any significant value at the physician spending time at the bedside,” and a urologist proclaims “the concept of the medical home Read more »