April 2004
Experts, including many health plan medical directors, agree: We have a long way to go.
HMOs are developing programs that encourage patients to question their physicians about their treatment options. Doctors are wary.
Many things that were supposed to happen — like electronic medical records — didn't, this health care futurist reminds us. Tomorrow needs to be shaped.
As large companies become more demanding of health plans, clinical executives are increasingly being relied on to provide advice and expertise.
Statin selection has just become more complicated. Will physicians be diverted from interventions that may be less costly and just as effective?
Departments
Legislation & Regulation
The Medicare amendment adopted late last year contains a provision that could help P&T committees, not to mention consumers, evaluate competing drugs.
John Carroll
Compensation Monitor
Ethics
Discussing differing viewpoints brings a rich complexity to a rational exchange about whether it's ever right to deny life-saving treatment against someone's will.
Michael S. Victoroff, MD
Tomorrow's Medicine
After modest beginnings, transdermal patches are now taking advantage of nanotechnology and other novel techniques to improve drug delivery.
Thomas Morrow, MD
Managed Care Outlook