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In a case watched closely as a harbinger of what can happen when a health care provider undertreats pain, two doctors and two health care facilities reached settlements just before the case was scheduled for trial.
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Home care providers and patients remain concerned about the decisions that managed care organizations (MCOs) and other payers make about whether to pay for care. Both groups often perceive that the true decision-makers about treatment may be payers, not providers. This perception has resulted in a number of lawsuits against payers related to payment denials.
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Palliative care consultations can lead to improved patient outcomes, including relief of dyspnea, anxiety, and sleeplessness, and may reduce the number of times patients must seek primary or urgent care, according to a new study.
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While the debate over Medicare reform swirled around how to provide relief to senior citizens burdened by the high cost of prescription drugs, care for the dying was quietly improved. Once the massive Medicare reform bill was signed into law Dec. 8, hospices became the recipients of changes that industry experts say will help increase access to hospice care.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention note that fractures were the fourth-leading cause of injury-related emergency department visits in 2000, accounting for 3.8 million visits. Patients may develop serious and life-threatening complications of orthopedic trauma. Because signs and symptoms of these complications may not be readily apparent when patients present, emergency physicians and nurses need to be cognizant of high-risk presentations. This months issue focuses on these high-risk presentations, including open fractures, compartment syndromes, malignancies, and septic joints.
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New research indicates that installing ultra-violet lamps in ventilation systems could significantly reduce sickness among office workers.
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Occupational health professionals seem to paying an ever-increasing amount of attention to return-to-work efforts, and yet, argue some experts, they and their employers are often overlooking the most important piece of the return-to-work puzzle: the first-line supervisor.
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there often is a fine line between peak performance and burnout. In the current environment, it is incumbent upon occ-health professionals to learn all they can about identifying that fine line, knowing when it is being approached and, if possible, preventing it from being crossed.
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