Mar 2008
Crohn's costs
Sunday, March 30, 2008 Filed in:
Medical
I just came across an
article about a lottery in Oregon for covering
healthcare expenses. The woman mentioned in the story is $15,000 in
debt from the year's treatment of her Crohn's disease.
I've learned of a natural therapy for Crohn's disease that achieved remission in 62% of patients and improvement in 76%, much better than conventional medicine. When I initially looked into it, I thought it was expensive, with a standard first course of therapy costing in the neighborhood of $4000, but now I see that is substantially less than then conventional treatment and with much better outcomes. The treatment does seem a bit odd, but the science makes sense and it seems to work. The duration of remission is longer the younger people are, with the elderly maintaining remissions up to 2 years.
It seems like it may be helpful in other autoimmune disorders as well (asthma, MS, eczema, psoriasis, food allergies). Time will tell.
I've learned of a natural therapy for Crohn's disease that achieved remission in 62% of patients and improvement in 76%, much better than conventional medicine. When I initially looked into it, I thought it was expensive, with a standard first course of therapy costing in the neighborhood of $4000, but now I see that is substantially less than then conventional treatment and with much better outcomes. The treatment does seem a bit odd, but the science makes sense and it seems to work. The duration of remission is longer the younger people are, with the elderly maintaining remissions up to 2 years.
It seems like it may be helpful in other autoimmune disorders as well (asthma, MS, eczema, psoriasis, food allergies). Time will tell.
Announcing our nurse practitioner!
Sunday, March 16, 2008 Filed in:
Office
Gaia brings a strong background in mind-body medicine to the office and has trained with the Center for Mind-Body Medicine. He has been involved in natural approaches to healing for many years in the Ann Arbor area and has worked with the University of Michigan's Complementary and Alternative Research Center.
He has been eagerly picking up Dr. Sickels' approach to medicine over the past few weeks and will often start the work-up on patients and sit in on visits, in addition seeing patients on his own.
Learn more about Gaia here.
Crashing the Airborne plane
Friday, March 14, 2008 Filed in:
Medical
I remember the first time I came across
Airborne at a regular grocery store. I was a little taken aback
that the box was so boldly asserting itself as a "miracle cold
buster". I figured that with that tall claim on the outside of the
box, they must have some good data to back it up or they'd be
eating their words.
Turns out they are eating their words for this advertising: they are offering refunds to people who bought it between May 2001 and November 2007 as part of a settlement for false advertising.
When I first saw Airborne, a quick look at the nutrition facts showed it had some reasonable stuff in it: a gram of vitamin C, a good bit of vitamin A, and a smattering of other nutrients and herbs. While the mix of nutrients seemed OK, I noticed that it has mineral oil (a petroleum product) as an ingredient and wasn't eager to buy it since. Later, my wife brought a tube of it home and I had a opportunity to look at the ingredients a little more closely. Besides mineral oil, it also has sucralose (the same stuff that's in Splenda), an artificial sweetener that may have some health effects. Not something I' d eagerly put in my body nor would I recommend it to others.
If they're making poor judgements about the non-nutritional ingredients in the product, why should I trust them about the nutritional ones (remembering that there is virtually no oversight of nutritional products: the FDA only looks into them if there is a complaint, and (besides being chronically underfunded) is too busy harassing (at the behest of Wyeth) compounding pharmacies for using a safe naturally occurring hormone in hormone preparations to do anything useful)? Seems like a good reason to get a refund for the tube that we've barely touched.
An interesting side note (in case I haven't made enough already) is whether this offering refunds really means anything since the tube already declares "100% Guaranteed Satisfaction", so they'd be potentially giving refunds to anyone who wants one already. Once again, the consumer gets precious little while the lawyers get a big chunk of the $23.3 million settlement.
Turns out they are eating their words for this advertising: they are offering refunds to people who bought it between May 2001 and November 2007 as part of a settlement for false advertising.
When I first saw Airborne, a quick look at the nutrition facts showed it had some reasonable stuff in it: a gram of vitamin C, a good bit of vitamin A, and a smattering of other nutrients and herbs. While the mix of nutrients seemed OK, I noticed that it has mineral oil (a petroleum product) as an ingredient and wasn't eager to buy it since. Later, my wife brought a tube of it home and I had a opportunity to look at the ingredients a little more closely. Besides mineral oil, it also has sucralose (the same stuff that's in Splenda), an artificial sweetener that may have some health effects. Not something I' d eagerly put in my body nor would I recommend it to others.
If they're making poor judgements about the non-nutritional ingredients in the product, why should I trust them about the nutritional ones (remembering that there is virtually no oversight of nutritional products: the FDA only looks into them if there is a complaint, and (besides being chronically underfunded) is too busy harassing (at the behest of Wyeth) compounding pharmacies for using a safe naturally occurring hormone in hormone preparations to do anything useful)? Seems like a good reason to get a refund for the tube that we've barely touched.
An interesting side note (in case I haven't made enough already) is whether this offering refunds really means anything since the tube already declares "100% Guaranteed Satisfaction", so they'd be potentially giving refunds to anyone who wants one already. Once again, the consumer gets precious little while the lawyers get a big chunk of the $23.3 million settlement.
Good-bye BCBS PPO
Saturday, March 08, 2008 Filed in:
Office
Well, that was quick. I went out to the
Southfield offices of BCBSMi PPO on Wednesday (after the big
snowstorm, so it took me nearly 2 hours to get there, but they were
gracious enough to still see me despite my being late, though I did
leave my lights on and had to push-start my car when I got back
out). Friday morning, we got the letter that said they were
upholding their decision to remove me from the PPO, effective march
21.
What does that mean for my patients with BCBSMi PPO? I will no longer be in the lowest tier of reimbursement: rather than just the regular co-pay (which varies from plan to plan), visits would be subject to the next tier up payment, which also varies from plan to plan. In general, it is often a 20-50% copay and subject to the deductible (which, of course, varies from plan to plan). So, it's time to dig out that benefits book you got when you enrolled and see what your plan will do for visits to doctors who participate in BCBS but not in the PPO.
Also, if you want to find a provider in the network, it easy enough: go to the BCBSMi website and look up your plan and see who's covered.
Other interesting things from the meeting:
The fundamental issue is that I don't fit in their business model, which groups things together by objective criteria (like doctor's specialties) and then looks for places where costs are going out of the normal range for that group. Since I'm not practicing the way the average family doc is practicing (which also happens to be the reason many people seek me out), I'm and outlier and not compatible with their plan. In a way, it acts as a gatekeeper for people in their PPO: to go to Dr. Sickels, patients would have to need to see me enough to justify their going out of the PPO network.
They did bring up the previous entries on this blog about the audit, seemed a bit miffed about them, and asked me why I posted them. As I told them, the potential for them take all that money back is a big deal for me: it can put me out of business and leave my patients out in the cold. As far as I know, I didn't sign away my right of free speech when I signed up for the PPO. I think it's important for people to know what's going on and if my office suddenly closes, I want people to know why.
I don't know what this means for MiChild. I suspect this means it will no longer cover visits and they'll have to pay to see me themselves. Too bad they can't take the thousands of dollars I've already saved them and use it for other people.
What does that mean for my patients with BCBSMi PPO? I will no longer be in the lowest tier of reimbursement: rather than just the regular co-pay (which varies from plan to plan), visits would be subject to the next tier up payment, which also varies from plan to plan. In general, it is often a 20-50% copay and subject to the deductible (which, of course, varies from plan to plan). So, it's time to dig out that benefits book you got when you enrolled and see what your plan will do for visits to doctors who participate in BCBS but not in the PPO.
Also, if you want to find a provider in the network, it easy enough: go to the BCBSMi website and look up your plan and see who's covered.
Other interesting things from the meeting:
The fundamental issue is that I don't fit in their business model, which groups things together by objective criteria (like doctor's specialties) and then looks for places where costs are going out of the normal range for that group. Since I'm not practicing the way the average family doc is practicing (which also happens to be the reason many people seek me out), I'm and outlier and not compatible with their plan. In a way, it acts as a gatekeeper for people in their PPO: to go to Dr. Sickels, patients would have to need to see me enough to justify their going out of the PPO network.
They did bring up the previous entries on this blog about the audit, seemed a bit miffed about them, and asked me why I posted them. As I told them, the potential for them take all that money back is a big deal for me: it can put me out of business and leave my patients out in the cold. As far as I know, I didn't sign away my right of free speech when I signed up for the PPO. I think it's important for people to know what's going on and if my office suddenly closes, I want people to know why.
I don't know what this means for MiChild. I suspect this means it will no longer cover visits and they'll have to pay to see me themselves. Too bad they can't take the thousands of dollars I've already saved them and use it for other people.
