Top 1% of Medical Providers Accounted for 14% of Billing, Federal Data Show
A tiny sliver of doctors and other medical providers accounted for an outsize portion of Medicare’s 2012 costs, according to an analysis of federal data that lays out details of physicians’ billings. The top 1% of 825,000 individual medical providers accounted for 14% of the $77 billion in billing recorded in the data.
The long-awaited data reveal for the first time how individual medical providers treat America’s seniors—and, in some cases, may enrich themselves in the process. Still, there are gaps in the records released by the U.S. about physicians’ practice patterns, and doctors’ groups said the release of such data leaves innocent physicians open to unfair criticism.
Medicare paid 344 physicians and other health providers more than $3 million each in 2012. Collectively, the 1,000 highest-paid Medicare doctors received $3.05 billion in payments. (See More Coverage)
From time to time, medical experts reverse course on certain practices and procedures when science dictates a change in the standard of care. One classic example of a “reversal” is when hormone therapy for menopausal women came to a screeching halt when so many women developed blood clots, stroke, and breast and uterine cancers.
I never grow tired of explaining this issue, because people write to me with the assumption that they understand disease diagnosis. And they don’t. They’re not off by a little bit. They’re off by a mile.
Some of America’s best cancer hospitals are off-limits to many of the people now signing up for coverage under the nation’s new health care program.
Eighteen patients in North Carolina may have been exposed to a fatal brain disorder similar to ‘mad cow’ disease after undergoing surgery with instruments that had not been properly sterilised.
Little Hunter Alford needs chemotherapy to treat the rare and deadly cancer he was born with but has lost his health insurance under an administrative blunder seemingly caused by Obamacare.
For nine years, Judith Doetterl kept a secret.
Editor’s Notes: 
Its gradually emerged in recent months that the Food and Drug Administration not only spied on its employees, but did so on a massive scale collecting tens of thousands of employee emails to one another, as well as to journalists, members of Congress and congressional staff workers. The FDA also intercepted draft statements to the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates complaints of whistleblower harassment and reprisal. This monitoring, authorized by the agencys chief counsel, was clearly a deliberate policy of the highest levels of FDA leadership.
March 24, 2009
FAIR USE NOTICE:
People want to trust that their so-called elected government is doing the right thing when it passes regulations to enhance public safety. When the Pure Food and Drug Act was passed in 1906 a new watchdog agency, The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), was born. It would be many years before we as a nation had such luxuries as refrigeration, sanitary food processing standards, and good manufacturing processes (GMP), so in many respects, this law was necessary. So, what exactly does the FDA do?