Chattanooga Spine and Body

07/18/2022

The new website for the office is up. There is more information about the office. It can be found in the link below.

08/30/2021

If you are eligible and on the fence about getting vaccinated for Covid-19, this is worth watching.

Paul, 37, had elderly parents, an ER nurse wife, and young children, and he had good questions about COVID vaccines. Then everything changed.Your support kee...

10/16/2019

This is a short article talking about concussions in high school sports. Keep in mind that “concussions” are a considered a type of traumatic brain injury and should be taken seriously. For boys, football had the highest rate of concussions. For girls, soccer had the highest rate of concussions.

The rates of football practice concussions and recurrent concussions across all sports have gone down in recent years, according to a new study published in the journal Pediatrics. The bad news: concussion rates increased in high school football games.

11/16/2018

A man in Oklahoma sued Aetna health insurance after his wife died after being denied a cancer treatment that Aetna deemed to be "investigational and experimental". In short, Aetna did not want to pay $90k for a cancer treatment. In addition Aetna's medical directors, who had never seen the patient, claimed the proton beam treatment wasn't "medically necessary", even though the treating physician felt it was. In the end, the husband was awarded $25.5 million in his lawsuit against the insurance company after his wife died, without receiving the proton beam cancer treatment. I hope this sends a message to insurance companies to put patients before profits.

An Oklahoma jury has awarded $25.5 million to the family of a cancer patient denied coverage by Aetna, with jurors saying that the insurer acted "recklessly" and that the verdict was meant as a message for Aetna to change its ways.

06/12/2018

This article brings up some issues that are created when dealing with prior authorizations required by insurance companies. In this situation, the insurance company was paying for a needed seizure medication for a number of months, and then suddenly decided that they would no longer pay for that medication without a "prior authorization". The "prior authorization" led to a delay in the patient getting their needed medication and unfortunately led to the patient's death. The Massachusetts Supreme Court is allowing the family of the patient to sue Walgreen for not doing enough to get the prior authorization for the patient.

This article illustrates a big problem with healthcare. The family is holding the pharmacy responsible for not doing enough to get the "prior authorization" filled out in a timely fashion, when they should hold the insurance company responsible. After paying for the medication for a number of months, there was no medical reason to suddenly require a "prior authorization" for the medication. "Prior authorizations" really act as a technique to save the insurance company money by creating more paperwork in an attempt to avoid paying for healthcare. In this situation, the patient was forced to go without their medication, and unfortunately, this led to their death. Excessive insurance paperwork can lead to delays in patient getting the healthcare they need, and sometimes, these delays have serious consequences.

Does a pharmacy have an obligation to help a patient be sure that insurance will cover a prescription? That's the question at the heart of a landmark case that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled on Thursday.

06/09/2017

This is an article that illustrates a key problem that health insurance companies create in healthcare. Keep in mind that insurance companies do not provide health care to patients. Physicians and other health care providers are the ones that actually provide health care to patients, not the insurance companies. The catch is that ultimately, the health insurance companies decide what they will pay for and and how much that are willing to pay for anything. Most people do not understand how much control insurance companies have over healthcare decisions because of this.

In this situation, Aetna had their own physician sign off on their denial for treatment that the patient had already been receiving for months. This "in-house" Aetna physician decided that the medication the patient had been receiving was not medically necessary, based on guidelines and medical records that were provided by Aetna. Subsequent to this denial, the patient ended up needing to be hospitalized after being off of his medications. The patient has since filed a lawsuit against his insurance company for breach of contract. If this patient wins his lawsuit, it may help hold insurance companies accountable for policies that seem to be set up to protect their own financial interests, rather than the interests of patients.

Patients dependent on medications to treat primary immunodeficiency diseases have faced increasing difficulty getting their insurers to approve treatments, according to advocates.

02/08/2017

This is a TED talk about body posture and back pain. The talk focuses on how to move, as opposed to thinking about specific muscles. It is important to recognize the importance of correct biomechanics and posture and how it can help prevent and reduce musculoskeletal problems. Too often, modern medicines uses drugs to treat something that is really a choice in lifestyle or habit. Move well, live well.

https://youtu.be/jOJLx4Du3vU

Fitness expert and male model, Roger Frampton, discusses how chairs are your enemy, how attitudes towards exercise are flawed and suggests an alternative way...

09/23/2016

This article has some statistics that people should take note of. The short, take home message is that drugs are now killing more people than automobile accidents and guns in the US. This includes prescription medications as well as illegal drugs. The graphs and charts in the article help visualize the problem.

Drug deaths over the past 15 years have been rising so rapidly that experts say they've rarely, if ever, seen anything like it.

08/30/2016

Even a not-so-pricey drug can add up to a nightmare expense when it needs to be refilled every month.

06/07/2016

I wanted to clarify a few things that have come up in the local news. At the end of last month, the DEA raided the office of Tennessee Pain Institute, which is a suspected "pill mill" in Hixson, TN. As far as I know, the DEA's investigation is still ongoing and no formal charges have been made. This is not the office that I work at part time. I do work part time at Tennessee Valley Pain Management, which is not the same office. The Tennessee Valley Pain Management office in Hixson happens to be next door to TN Pain Institute, but it is not the same office, clinic, or owner. I know some people had questions and may have been confused by what they may have seen or heard on the news and the internet.

04/11/2016

This is an article that outlines some data that highlight one the main problems in healthcare today. Many people assume that physicians are the ones making most of the money in healthcare. This is actually not the case. Those that are involved in the corporate side of medicine are the ones making most of the high end salaries. It may be surprising to find out that the CEO's of many of the healthcare related companies are the ones making multi-million dollar salaries. It is also a bit insulting when one realizes that most of the money used to pay these CEO salaries comes from Medicare (taxpayer $), Medicaid (also taxpayer $), and the money paid in premiums every month to health insurance companies.

http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20150425/MAGAZINE/304259980

Total compensation for some of the highest-paid CEOs in the healthcare industry increased faster than their companies' profits last year, a Modern Healthcare analysis of the first firms to report executive pay found.

03/09/2016