Free Republic

With the current third-party payment structure, you doctor does not practice as much medicine on you as insurance executives and federal bureaucrats do. Americans, who practices medicine on you? The answer may seem self-evident, but it is not. In our current health-care system, millions of nameless, faceless government or private insurance bureaucrats practice medicine on you without a license for medicine.You may think your life is in your doctor’s hands, but it is not. The bureaucrats, not you or your doctor, make your medical and financial decisions. Consider these health-care decisions: DiagnosisTreatment: what, when, where, by whomMedicationsPaying for care Your...

PharmedOut is a Georgetown University Medical Center project that advances evidence-based prescribing, and educates healthcare professionals about pharmaceutical marketing practices. Founded in January, 2007, it is an Internet-based alternative for doctors seeking Continuing Medical Education (CME) courses, not sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry. Inasmuch as the industry derives its greatest profits from new proprietary drugs, it has a built-in tendency to tout them, even though newer is not always better. One example, cited at the time of PharmedOut’s founding, came from Georgetown Ob-Gyn doctor Anthony Scialli: “Take oral contraceptives. Over the years they have increased in number, but there haven’t...

A friend of mine is becoming crazier and crazier, it's almost impossible to talk with her anymore. Today I asked and she freely gave me a list of her medications. I am very scared for her. Here's what she is being prescribed: Latuda 80 mg Paroxetine (Paxil) 40 mg Lamotrigine 200 mg Topiramate 200 mg 2x/day Her doctor is not a psychiatrist, just a general practitioner. She says she speaks with him once a week over the telephone, and then comes to his office to pick up her prescriptions which are held for her at the desk. What do I...