Topic: pregnancy

Health Commissioner receives flu vaccination, stresses the importance to prevent flu

September 25, 2009 |

State Health Department Launches Flu Information Line

Nashville – Health Commissioner Susan R. Cooper, MSN, RN today reiterated the importance for everyone who can to get vaccinated to prevent the flu. Cooper demonstrated the simplicity of the process by receiving her own seasonal flu vaccine.

“This year, it is particularly important for people to receive the vaccines – both seasonal and H1N1 – to prevent the flu since both strains will be circulating this fall and winter,” said Cooper. “In addition to covering coughs and sneezes, washing hands regularly and staying home when sick, vaccination offers the best possible protection. It is proven to lessen the severity of flu symptoms.”

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A day in the life of a primary care physician: prior authorizations, denials, & delays in treatment

June 28, 2009 |

The national debate on health reform has uncovered innumerable “health care horror stories” in which cancer patients worry more about their bills than their malignancy or where pregnant women are laid off and dropped from their insurance soon before their due date.  These stories are tragic, and unconscionable for the richest country in the world, however, as a physician, this is not my typical experience.  Instead, what I see every day is patients with private health insurance who cannot afford the copays for their medications, delays in treatment as I grovel for prior authorization with a non-physician utilization reviewer, and patients stuck with huge bills for routine services that they thought they were covered for.

In my practice, patients have a mix of private and public coverage.  While I work with some extremely impoverished patients who qualify for public insurance through Medicaid, it is the people with employee sponsored private insurance who are most at risk for roadblocks to care.  As a primary care physician, it is hard enough to fit all of the recommended screening, health education, and chronic disease management that complex patients need into a fifteen minute visit.  When the burden of battling with insurance companies is added to the equation, there is no way that I can succeed.  My patients, especially the ones with private insurance, are forced to deal with the high copays, denials of claims, and delays in care. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Commentary | 2 Comments

Let’s Strike Out CMV

June 25, 2009 |

Four years ago last month, my oldest son, Conner, was born with congenital CMV (cytomegalovirus), a horrible virus that most people have never even heard of.  We found out when I was 20 weeks pregnant that Conner had CMV.  In the days that followed the diagnosis I did a lot of research on CMV and was shocked and saddened that this horrible disease which is easily preventable if only people were aware of it. CMV is only harmful to a fetus, and to people who have compromised immune systems. Most people have had this virus as a child and have developed an immunity to it.  The symptoms mimic those of the common cold, and most never discover that they have had it. For some reason, the first time I was exposed to the virus was in my first trimester of pregnancy – which is the worst possible time to be exposed. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Events | 1 Comment »

Obama overturns Bush decision to cut international funding for family planning

By Christine Anne Piesyk | January 23, 2009 |

Without a doubt, President Barack Obama hit the ground running this week, putting pen to paper and reversing a Bush administration ruling that kept U.S. dollars from funding worldwide family planning clinics that promote abortion and counseling services related to abortion and family planning. Until today, the law prohibited any organization receiving family-planning funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development from offering abortions or counseling for abortions.

President Obama said he did not want family planning to be used a “political wedge” and refused to continue that “stale and fruitless debate.” «Read the rest of this article»

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