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For Janis Ollson and her husband Daryl, wedding vows have taken on an entirely new significance. "In sickness and in health" was a promise made on their wedding day – and a promise they revisited just four months ago when they renewed their vows after 10 years of marriage. But as Ollson walked down the aisle this time, she leaned on a cane for support and had a prosthetic leg. It was, in many ways, a miracle she made the walk at all. It's been about three years since Ollson, who lives in the Canadian province Manitoba, went under the...

Health Reform: The white coats showed up again at the White House, helping the administration ram health care reform down our throats. Can you have a bipartisan bill without a bipartisan vote?It didn't work the first time, when the White House last year assembled enough sympathetic medical professionals to stage a photo-op in the Rose Garden trying to persuade us that, as the commercial goes, three of four doctors really, really support the administration's attempt to nationalize health care. Rather than a grass-roots uprising of physicians, last year's event was a classic case of astroturfing. Attendance was by invitation only,...

Open heart surgery generally conjures up images of a long, painful, rib-splitting slice down the middle of the chest. But doctors at the Mayo Clinic are hoping to change that. Heavy lifting goes with the territory for Teresa Van Hauer. She's in the sales territory for a designer shoe and boot representative, meaning she's lugging around 40- to 45-pound cases quite a bit. However, a failing heart valve threatened to close all her accounts. "And when that happens, it is, literally, you're just toast," she said. A critical valve in her heart was crusted with calcium deposits and worn out....

PRESIDENT OBAMA is a great admirer of the Mayo Clinic. Time and again he has extolled it as an outstanding model of health care excellence and efficiency. ...So perhaps the president will give some thought to the clinic’s recent decision to stop accepting Medicare payments at its primary care facility in Glendale, Ariz. More than 3,000 patients will have to start paying cash if they wish to continue being seen by doctors at the clinic; those unable or unwilling to do so must look for new physicians. For now, Mayo is limiting the change in policy to its Glendale facility....

Health Reform: President Obama suggested last summer that the Mayo Clinic was the model for government medical care. On Monday, the Mayo Clinic in Arizona stopped taking Medicare patients. Now what? If the nonprofit Mayo Clinic is "what works," as the president believes, then it's clear that government health care doesn't. If Washington can't manage a system with fewer than 50 million participants well enough for those who paid for it to get care, then it sure can't run a program that will eventually include every person in the country. Obama's comment didn't go unnoticed at the Mayo Clinic. While...

Phoenix - The Mayo Clinic in Arizona, as of tomorrow, will no longer accept patients who are on Medicare. Medicare patients are no longer going to be accepted due to the fact that the compensation paid out by Medicare is apparently not adequate to make up for the cost of care taken on by the clinic. What this means is that many patients on Medicare are either going to have to begin to pay in cash, or be turned away to go elsewhere outside of the Mayo Clinic. The Mayo Clinic has roughly 3,000 patients on Medicare who see their...

"Low reimbursements have led one West Valley medical facility to stop taking certain Medicare patients, a pilot program that an Arizona health-care expert says may become a long-term trend in the industry." "For Mayo Clinic, the cost of providing services to Medicare patients exceeded the total amount paid on behalf of Medicare patients by $840 million in 2008, according to the hospital." "Mayo Clinic was the first health-care system to go in this direction, and I don't think they will be the last," Rivers said. "Everyone else is facing the same pressures as Mayo Clinic, and I won't be surprised...

The Mayo Clinic, praised by President Barack Obama as a national model for efficient health care, will stop accepting Medicare patients as of tomorrow at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little.

About 3,000 Medicare patients who’ve been getting care at a Mayo Clinic facility in Arizona will have to pay out of their own pocket or find another doctor. Starting in 2010 (i.e., next week), the five primary care docs at a Mayo outpost in Glendale, Ariz. will stop accepting Medicare. Patients in the program who choose to stick around will be on the hook for about $1,500 per year, Mayo spokesman Michael Yardley told the Health Blog. The clinic expects that most of the patients will find another place to get their primary care. “We know it’s been incredibly difficult...

The Mayo Clinic will stop accepting Medicare patients at one of its primary care clinics in Arizona. Why? The government doesn’t pay enough: [snip] This is nothing compared to what might happen under Democratic health overhaul plans, which would slash Medicare spending by nearly $500 billion over 10 years.

ROCHESTER, Minn. — A new study has found that the amount of vitamin D (http://www.mayoclinic.org/news2008-mchi/4904.html) in patients being treated for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (http://www.mayoclinic.org/non-hodgkins-lymphoma/)was strongly associated with cancer progression and overall survival. The results will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (http://www.hematology.org/) in New Orleans. "These are some of the strongest findings yet between vitamin D and cancer outcome," says the study's lead investigator, Matthew Drake, M.D., Ph.D., (http://www.mayoclinic.org/bio/13726218.html) an endocrinologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. "While these findings are very provocative, they are preliminary and need to be validated in other studies....

Based on this detailed, comprehensive Mayo Clinic definition, one that I believe perfectly describes Obama, it's obvious he needs prescription medicine and extended psychotherapy. Our country is in tremendous danger with a person suffering from this complex mental illness in our White House.

The renowned Mayo Clinic is no longer accepting some Medicare and Medicaid patients, raising new questions about whether it is too selective to serve as a model for health-care reform. The White House has repeatedly held up for praise Mayo and other medical centers, many of which are in the Upper Midwest, that perform well in Dartmouth College rankings showing wide disparities in how much hospitals spend on Medicare patients. The model centers have capitalized on their status to insert into health-care legislation provisions that would result in higher Medicare payments for hospitals that do well on the Dartmouth rankings...

Politics: The administration stages a photo-op with handpicked doctors who support its health care reform. Fortunately, most doctors still believe that the first rule of medicine is to do no harm. It would seem some doctors still make house calls. Some 150 of them made one at the White House Monday in an attempt to give a booster shot to the administration's chaotic and stalled health care reform drive. Rather than a grass-roots uprising of physicians, this was a classic case of AstroTurfing. Attendance was by invitation only, and 40 of the 150 were said to be members of Doctors...

The Anchorage Daily News has a very interesting editorial that reveals that the celebrated Mayo Clinic has lost millions because of Medicare over the last year. In its editorial the ADN is warning that the public option is "as unhealthy as Medicare" because of the artificially low payments the government remits to healthcare providers, doctors and hospitals. President Obama and the left love to point to the Mayo Clinic as one of America's premier medical institutions and rightfully so. But the ADN reveals that the clinic lost $840 million on it's $1.7 billion worth of Medicare work. ADN notes that...

Specifically, Mayo reiterated its view against what's been called the "public option" and emphasized the importance of end of life discussions with a patient's physician. "We do not support the creation of another government-run, government price-controlled, Medicare-like insurance plan," Mayo says in a document. On Tuesday, Mayo released two documents, "A perspective on current health reform issues from Mayo Clinic" and "A foundation for health care reform legislation." One of the perspectives is co-authored by Mayo CEO Dr. Denis Cortese. The purpose of the documents is to refocus Mayo's message on health care reform, outline processes legislators can follow in...

Reading the transcripts of President Obama's "town hall meetings" this month on heath care reform is painful. He's preaching the right gospel, but the parishioners are getting restless. The harder he tries to sell his program, the louder and angrier the debate gets — and the more the general public tunes out the politicians. It reminds me of the polarizing Iraq debate of several years ago. Forgive the analogy between war and health care, but maybe Obama needs the medical equivalent of a Gen. David Petraeus — that is, a professional who can break through the political chaff and describe...

The Mayo Clinic continues to adjust to changing economic times, but leaders not only want Mayo Clinic to be a destination medical center, they want Rochester to be a destination medical community. "Here we come, so get ready." Mayo Clinic CEO Doctor Glenn Forbes says Mayo Clinic's financial numbers are better than expected, largely because they're becoming more efficient, but he says their work is just beginning. "The future is still filled with many uncertainties particularly in the area of health care. We're committed to continuing to build the models that are going to be successful in the future." That...

Obama Loves Mayo, But Mayo Does Not Love Him (Update: Gibbs Responds, Badly) Throughout his push for health-care reform, President Obama has held up the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota as an example of great medicine at lower prices—something that could and should be emulated all over the country with guidance from his health care overhaul: Obama, June 11: "And so what you’ve got is a situation where, for example, the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, is famous for some of the best quality and some of the lowest cost. People are healthier coming out of there, they do great." Obama,...

A world-renowned clinic that President Obama held up as an example of good medicine said Monday that the American people would be "losers" under the House's health care proposal, joining the growing chorus of critics the Obama administration is trying to fend off as the debate intensifies from Capitol Hill to Main Street. Minnesota's not-for-profit Mayo Clinic, which Mr. Obama has repeatedly hailed as offering top quality care at affordable costs, blasted the House Democrats' version of the health care plan as lawmakers continue to grapple with several bills from each chamber and multiple committees. The Mayo Clinic said there...