If I could make one medical technology vastly cheaper:
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Malaria treatments (Score:5, Insightful)
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iirc I read that they have a vaccine on trial for malaria, just this summer. that would be great.
they have malaria "prevention" medicine right now(which as far as I can tell is antibiotics) but its both a) expensive b) unpractical to eat for prolonged periods of time as many people get bad stomach or other problems from eating it(this actually is cause for 'travel stomach' for some people and not the gasoline graded hot food or poor quality food in some places). in addition you would need to eat it two days
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OTOH, I read an economic analysis a few years ago and their results were that spending on AIDS had the largest ROI
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The attack on Rachel Carson over the DDT ban is bullshit. Excessive use, mostly agricultural had started to cause mosquito resistance years before ANY ban and countries with severe malarial problems kept on using DDT and do to this day.
Not on List (Score:4, Insightful)
Diabetic test strips. They range from 40 cents to over $1 USD apiece. Doctors recommend you test at least 4 times a day. Even if you have a continuous glucose monitor, you still need 'em to calibrate the monitor.
http://www.diabetesforecast.or... [diabetesforecast.org]
Re:Not on List - DNA Sequencing (Score:3)
How is DNA Sequencing not on this list? Get this down to $100 so we can get enough data for truly personalized medicine.
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Your information is old. 23andme.com is only $99 now. I'm not sure how much of a profit they're turning; I'm pretty sure it's backed by some Google billionaires, probably as part of their Methuselah program. But still, it's easy and cheap.
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It's right on their front page:
"Find out what your DNA says about you and your family.
Learn what percent of your DNA is from populations around the world
Contact your DNA relatives across continents or across the street
Build your family tree and enhance your experience with relatives
$99"
Then if you click on the "Buy" tab, this $99 kit is the only option. It's not like this is a stripped-down version and they want more money for a more complete analysis, this is literally the only thi
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Right, and that "only thing they sell" is NOT whole genome SEQUENCING. What 23andme sells is SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) analysis. This data is genuinely useful to a given individual for geneology/ancestory type questions. It has virtually NO medical value.
Re:Not on List - DNA Sequencing (Score:4, Insightful)
They used to sell tests for disease-causing alleles until the FDA shut that down. Now the results list only genealogical markers, and I'm not sure that's the whole genome.
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It's not the whole genome, but it never was. It's always been what shows up on them cheap little gene chips- that's how they can do it for so cheap. It's still a ton of data, and it's the same test as it always was (better, actually, because their supplier makes better chips now).
Here's what you don't get- any correlation with medical stuff. Of course, your raw data is there for you, if you want to browse it. Or you can head over to promethease and pay them 5 bucks (or free if you are willing to wait)
Re:Not on List (Score:5, Insightful)
How about pharmaceuticals in general? There are people dying or suffering all over the world because they can't afford the ridiculously-priced pills that pharmaceutical companies patent, produce, and price however they want. How about cheap malaria drugs and birth control pills or penicillin that people in rural Africa or India can afford without a problem?
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Here, the companies that make the meters give them away to the health service for free, because they know they'll get the prescriptions for the test strips. It's a bit like inkjet printers.. the printer is really cheap, the ink is really expensive.
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Diabetic test strips. They range from 40 cents to over $1 USD apiece. Doctors recommend you test at least 4 times a day. Even if you have a continuous glucose monitor, you still need 'em to calibrate the monitor.
http://www.diabetesforecast.or... [diabetesforecast.org]
Some people in my family have diabetes, and my wife had gestational diabetes. Many makers of glucose monitoring appliances offer a card which brings the cost of the test strips down a lot. Without insurance or this rebate card, my wife's supply would have been over $200 / month. After insurance and the rebate card it turned into a more manageable $25 / month.
I do think you have the right idea, though. Medicines and disposable supplies which are used on a daily basis for an extended period need to be made le
Low-carb reducing diet reverses type 2 DM (Score:4, Informative)
Type 1 or 2? I've read type 2 can be reversed by sticking to a low-calorie, low-carbohydrate diet for long enough. Losing 10% of your body weight and exercising for a half hour a day takes type 2 diabetes back to prediabetes in a year [webmd.com].
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Doesn't always work. I dropped about 20% over the course of a year and it had virtually no impact on my Type 2 - exercise was at least half an hour a day too.
Of course, that just means that it's not the percentage, proximity to ideal weight per person that probably makes more difference as I'm still up around 300. Vastly better than I was, but plenty of room to improve still.
New drug development. (Score:2)
Prosthetic limbs (Score:3)
They allow a person to be functional again.
Medicine is both a blessing and a curse. While it tremendously improved mankind's life, it also comes with the curse of propagating genetic anomalies across generations.
Monogenic disorders are arguably more prevalent nowadays than they were in the past, mainly because back then a lot of people affected by such disorders didn't get to live long enough or weren't desirable enough to have offspring.
"There are more than 6,000 known single-gene (or monogenic) disorders, which occur in about 1 out of every 200 births." (source. https://www.genecards.org/cgi-... [genecards.org])
It would be interesting to see whether the occurrence was higher or lower in the past. My educated guess is that it was lower, but I'm not informed enough to be sure.
Disclaimer. my firstborn suffered from a kidney problem since birth, which would have been fatal if not for medicine (he's okay now), so subjectively speaking I'm all for medicine curing literally everyone. Objectively speaking, though, I can't help but wonder whether a few centuries from now we'd mostly be a sickly species.
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Objectively speaking, though, I can't help but wonder whether a few centuries from now we'd mostly be a sickly species.
Before Hitler started killing everyone, almost all the first world countries had some type of eugenics program. Now, it's a taboo to even talk about. People are somewhat smart though and if they know they have a genetic defect that can be be passed on, many of them adopt, use egg donors, etc... so that their child doesn't have the same defect. I think most genetic diseases take care of them self so I'm not too worried about them. I worry more about the collective IQ. Most smart people I know have very
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The robots can then go on to put down any stupid people uprising silly. What do ya think military drones are for?
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Well, I'm not talking about eugenics, not at all. I'm merely noticing a trend. Medicine cheats nature, and while some part of it is "good" cheating (e.g. cure for common/spanish flu), other parts are likely to have a negative impact on human genetics in the long term.
Re:Prosthetic limbs (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Prosthetic limbs (Score:4, Interesting)
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But then eeeeeveryone starts obsessing over the "ethics" of modifying DNA and we never get anywhere whilst everybody pontificates about the wrongness of playing god.
Hearing aids (Score:5, Interesting)
For something that is starting to border on consumer electronics, the hearing aid industry is very frustrating for a young person with hearing loss. Not just the $7000/pair cost every few years, but the closed system of hearing aid companies and resellers/servicers. Having to schedule an appointment in a week, because this week's tweak made certain frequencies sound terrible, and the bluetooth dongles for adjusting settings are only available to authorized resellers or occasionally on the grey market. If it wouldn't completely disrupt the audiology business, there would have been phone apps with the same functionality years ago. I don't see that changing any time soon, since it's an industry built completely around servicing the elderly who are much less likely to engage with such technology.
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the hearing aid industry is very frustrating for a young person with hearing loss. Not just the $7000/pair cost every few years,
What?? Here in the Netherlands, hearing aids are available starting from EUR 450, up to EUR 1300 [beterhoren.nl], including fitting, and of that price, usually 75% is paid by your insurance. I think I've even seen hearing aids in a household store (without fitting or frequency response adjustment) for well under EUR 100.
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Seriously, you need Costco. $2000 per pair.
Re:Hearing aids vs. Moore's Law (Score:4, Interesting)
Hearing aids cost more than they did 10 years ago, instead of 2**5 times less. While the electronics components are governed by Moore's Law, the US medical regulation industry isn't. (There are $500 hearing aids on the US market; I haven't tried them.)
I recently saw a Kickstarter for in-ear audio equalizers for about $200, targeted at audiophiles and similar people. They're doing digital signal processing, and let you pick the equalization curves yourself, either from standard values or your own. I probably should have just bought them. I checked with the makers about whether they could be used as hearing aids, and not only got a firm "No, they're not intended as medical devices!" back, but more importantly, they didn't crank quite enough decibels at the high-frequency end, which as an Old Guy, I'm starting to need. But it wouldn't be that hard to modify that kind of design to do that (not sure if it's a hardware power limitation or a software parameter setting, but if it's hardware power, that just means $20 more in components and a bit shorter battery life). The other difference between these and the $7000-a-pair hearing aids is coordination between the two earpieces; the cheap ones don't do it, and the $7000-a-pair version do, though when I test-drove a pair of those, either it wasn't turned on or wasn't set right or just doesn't work; it was like I was getting bad echoes in my head all the time. (The cheap ones may have also had rechargeable batteries, which would be a huge win.)
If you wanted to make a less convenient but much cheaper hearing aid, all you need is a pair of wired earpieces with speaker and microphone in each and a way to connect them to the $100 supercomputer in your pocket. I haven't seen a mobile phone that can handle stereo microphones and a headset at the same time, and Bluetooth has way too much latency to do the job, but maybe you can do some trick with a Y-cable or small separate frob. You could easily do a mono version with just the phone's built-in mike, and if all you want is unidirectional sound, for instance for speaking to one person, that's trivial, or if you want to amplify the higher frequencies in mono and let the user's ears handle the lower frequencies in stereo, that may be good enough.
Medical Transportation (Score:2, Insightful)
Ambulance rides.
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Good one. Former SO needed to go from urgent care to ER. If you walk out the door of the urgent care, you can actually see the hospital about 1-2 miles away. I said I'd take her, the doc said "oh, no, you should take the ambulance!", and she went along with it. $900. They should serve caviar.
It's really a shame that you can't trust medical advice, at least to the extent that many of them don't factor in one bit the cost of service. Of course an ambulance offers a higher standard of care than I do in t
Re:Medical Transportation (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm very sure I want them to factor cost effectiveness in. Absolutely sure. Some already do, this was just a glaring exception. Pharmacies already do. "We fill your prescription with an equivalent generic unless directed otherwise." As they should, if they're acting in the patient's interest, which they SHOULD be since we're paying them.
What my insurance covers is irrelevant. It actually did cover that $900 ambulance ride. How is it better that the insurance company was ripped off $900? How is it better for me or you, since that money ultimately comes out of our premiums?
Many patients take medical advice as gold. I don't know how we can ever rein this in if we don't get and fact insist that our doctors don't sell us a $2000 treatment when a $20 one will do just as much good. Don't you insist on the same in nearly every other level of service you use?
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What my insurance covers is irrelevant. It actually did cover that $900 ambulance ride. How is it better that the insurance company was ripped off $900? How is it better for me or you, since that money ultimately comes out of our premiums?
This is actually relevant. If you took your SO to the hospital yourself you would have been triaged in emergency; the fact (s)he rode there in an ambulance means being seen straight away. Here in Queensland, Australia, all ambulance rides are free, thanks to a small levy charged on our electricity accounts of all things. We also have a functional public hospital service, too, despite the current government's efforts to dismantle it, making this poll relatively meaningless for us.
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We also have a functional public hospital service, too, despite the current government's efforts to dismantle it, making this poll relatively meaningless for us.
Just because you pay for it in a different way doesn't mean that costs don't matter. Granted, the US system necessarily means higher cost (because you need to pay for the care AND a profit for any company involved in the transaction) but with a socialized system you still have to pay for people, equipment and pharmaceuticals. Being cheaper does not make it free.
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Just because you pay for it in a different way doesn't mean that costs don't matter. Granted, the US system necessarily means higher cost (because you need to pay for the care AND a profit for any company involved in the transaction) but with a socialized system you still have to pay for people, equipment and pharmaceuticals. Being cheaper does not make it free.
Agreed; however in an Australian context this poll is essentially meaningless, in that most people do not know or care what the cost of the various procedures are, because they simply do not see them.
If, on the other hand, the poll were "If I could reduce the waiting time on one medical..." then it might be a different matter.
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Irrelevant. You're talking about who pays (or more precisely, when they pay: a big bill from a provider or through insurance premiums every month), not how much they pay. If it's expensive, then it's expensive.
Back to the specific example, the reason the doctor chose the most expensive option, is because we all pretend that life has infinite value to us and therefore taking even the smallest risks for pragmatic payoffs, can never be justified.
Whenever it's your c
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One of the big issues (and why it now cost so much) was the wholesale abuse of ambulance services.
At the county hospital my mom worked, an ER wait could be 1-2 hours but if you came in via ambulance, it was immediate.
Hearing Aids (Score:4)
prosthetics (Score:5, Interesting)
as an above knee amputee i would say without a doubt prosthetics.
$35k just to be able to walk, $50k if you want to run and the foot pads wear out in weeks. theres another $250 gone every time you have have those changed out.
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as an above knee amputee i would say without a doubt prosthetics.
$35k just to be able to walk, $50k if you want to run and the foot pads wear out in weeks. theres another $250 gone every time you have have those changed out.
This.
We all ooh and ahh over the latest news stories about amazing prosthetics, but on the ground in the real world they may as well be unicorns.
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I am not justifying the cost of these items, but more goes into the creation of a new product than just parts.
The more we restrict profit (and return) for investments, the smaller R&D departments will get.
Eyeglasses (Score:3)
Hearing aids are a racket, as discussed above, and I don't know the prosthetics market. But eyeglasses? Most of that money's for designer frames (unless you're getting into progressive lenses.) I'm in the category of using reading glasses but not needing distance glasses, and generic ones cost about $5 at the drug store. If I want prescription glasses (which have correct astigmatism settings for each eye, and slightly different magnifications), I can go to Lenscrafters, and the basic lenses are about $5
PET, CAT and MRIs Are Cheap. We Overpay in the US (Score:5, Informative)
A $1500 MRI in the United States is about $150 elsewhere. Same machine, same cost of living. The excess costs are come from time the machine isn't in use, how much we pay specialists to review the scans and how the machines are generally used as a profit center for providers.
Want to pay less, have a single price list for fees set by the gov't. That's what other countries do, even the ones with private health insurance.
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A $1500 MRI in the United States is about $150 elsewhere. Same machine, same cost of living. The excess costs are come from time the machine isn't in use, how much we pay specialists to review the scans and how the machines are generally used as a profit center for providers.
I once talked to a PhD student in medicine who worked on MRI or CT (don't remember), who had plenty of machine time outside office hours. She said that most of the cost and waiting list is because of the medical specialist who needs to interpret the images. The machine cost/depreciation is relatively small, apparently. If the facility (room plus machine) costs 1.5M EUR and lasts for 15 years, 2500 scans per year, then the depreciation cost would be EUR 40 per use.
Re:PET, CAT and MRIs Are Cheap. We Overpay in the (Score:4, Interesting)
Typically in Europe the MRI/CT imaging machine run 2-3 times as long daily. The capital cost of the machine can be spread much further. It's not uncommon in the USA to see the machines run from 7am to 1pm. The same thing applies to Operating Theaters US vs Europe too.
While I can understand this in more rural areas of the United States it holds true in dense urban areas as well.
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Fostering competition and establishing price transparency are the obvious ways to reduce costs for medical services, but: "fees set by the gov't"?
Seriously? Government price controls have never done anything but create artificial scarcity and it's the massive government healthcare programs that cause these inflated prices. It's not the idle time of the machine that drives up prices. It's the fact that government pays a set amount for all of the Medicare/Medicaid patients. The REAL cost of those service
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That's a nice opinion, but the facts are there are plenty of first world countries that have private health insurance that delivery the same quality of care for a fraction of the price. The commonality is price controls. When someone needs urgent medical attention they are in no position to shop prices.
I've consulted for many health insurance companies. I've worked specifically around cost of care and price transparency. Let's look at this statement:
"Your $1500 MRI is not a fair market price. That price c
Amortization, Medical Interpetation, Bistromathics (Score:3)
The cost of MRI and similar hardware has come down a lot as a result of computers becoming cheaper, but the more important aspects are how much the machine is used and how long it takes to amortize the initial capital cost. For the most part, that should be long ago taken care of for most US hospitals, even though they may have bought more machines than they really need. Once you've done 1000 of them, that $250K piece of hardware is down to $250 a picture, and you've probably fully depreciated it. The co
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The machines are ridiculously expensive. They are also depleting our reserves of helium to the point that there isn't much any more, and we may need to start making it via nuclear reaction.
High temperature superconductors, so that the coils in an MRI can run at liquid nitrogen temps instead of liquid helium temps would fix most of those problems. Room temperature superconductors would be nearly as good as having fusion power (please take note of the "nearly" ... fusion power would solve a lot of the Earth
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$7000 per MRI in a major US hospital if uninsured.
What a scam. I went in a few years ago for a nerve issue w/o insurance. I got an MRI, some water, a saline drip, a few interns poking and pulling at my fingers and toes, a crappy dinner, and barely slept the night. I received no medicine or in any way had a procedure performed.
My bill for 1 dinner, 1 night in bed, 1 cup of water, and 1 MRI? $13,500.
This is one reason why Obamacare passed.
It may be one reason why Obamacare was passed, but it isn't something Obamacare fixes.
Now your bill would be $13,500, plus the IRS fine (tax?) for not having insurance.
Missing an option. (Score:5, Insightful)
Where's the "Stop fucking about with the polls location" option?
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Where's the "Stop fucking about with the polls location" option?
Missing choice:
Selective blindness to Slashdot polls.
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I don't mind. I've seen the poll in the feed and it was an interesting or important story.
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If I had to choose, I'd say keep it in the sidebar. We all know it's there and for those new to the site it's pretty self explanatory as to what's going on.
But whatever, just pick one or the other. Stop fucking about with the site IN GENERAL!
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They moved it this morning. It's over to the left of the articles now.
MRI (Score:3)
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This makes as much sense as saying we should never cut people who have been injured. Surgery is sometimes called for, and so is radiotherapy and medical imaging.
When something better comes along, should we use it? Of course we should.
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As a Canadian (Score:2)
I don't actually end up seeing the cost of any of these items. My government-supplied health care pays for all of them. Except, I suppose, the dental x-rays, but those are covered by my workplace dental plan.
*shrugs*
I suppose if we're talking about making medical technologies less expensive, I'd lobby for adding prescription medication to the government-funded health care plans. Prevention is much less expensive, and currently, low-income people can go see a doctor for free, but they cannot afford the me
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Eh, I don't pay for dental X-rays. Also it's push-button easy, high res and students seem to read it fine from a Windows 7 PC. I go to what's like a "dentistry school" full of students, few question asked. Everything seems amazingly clean and modern (except the building itself, a 150-year-old one next to a 900-year-old one) but I don't go to hospitals often at all, yet.
There's also another nearby hospital that does dental care for the destitute (homeless who lost their papers etc.) but it's seemingly not ad
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I don't actually end up seeing the cost of any of these items. My government-supplied health care pays for all of them.
As an American, my private health insurance pays for most of these as well.
That is why the cost is so high. There is no reason for companies to drop prices because we never really care about what is being charged so we don't actually shop around or do any research.
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I'd choose billing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Or more precisely, whatever layer is in between the actual cost and the patient, and contains the outrageous markup therein.
Case in point, I had a CT once. The hospital sent me a bill for $3,000+, marked down per agreement with my insurer to about $300-400. Whatever TF makes them think it's reasonable to charge 10x what they're actually willing to do the service for is the layer that needs to be cut.
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Well, you can blame a subsidiary of United Healthcare, Ingenix, for that. They're the ones that publish the average charge fee schedule books that clinical providers rely upon to set charges that are (relatively) consistent within the industry. Yep, the same hand that pays out the $300 also wrote that it was OK to charge $3,000 for that, even though they claim to be at arms length. And every year the charge rates go up because inflation does, but the reimbursements the insurance companies will pay (by a
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The problem of billing is multi-factorial.
1 - The hospital has to spread out the cost of the device, upkeep, and personnel over all patients that use the device.
2 - The hospital negotiates a payment with insurance companies. This has to be lower or the same as for uninsured patients. If the hospital low-balls what they charge uninsured patients, all insurance companies will get the lower rate.
3 - The hospital negotiates with the insurance companies every year or so. If they don't come up with an agreemen
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Yeah, that's pretty appalling. I normally have a strong preference for free market solutions, but when an industry is so comprehensively abusive to their customers, I have less objection when they're spanked by the state.
I'd argue that because they all behave this way, it's a matter of tacit collusion.
Gah. Can you imagine taking your car in for service, telling them you don't have car repair insurance, and they tell you they charge $850/hour?
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Proton or anti-proton accelerator (Score:2)
What's more geeky that a frigging high velocity particle beam? I don't know if I'll get cancer or not but if I do I'd like such a much better therapy, the radiation therapy as currently practised sounds like some soviet experiment to me. Please cook the tumor only thanks.
Perhaps some linear accelerator with mass produced parts would do it but I guess it would still be prohibitive.. Surely, high temperature superconductive magnets would be very useful, by that I mean cooled by liquid nitrogen.
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Last year, I had my first recurrence of an atypical meningioma. That's a growth between the skull and the brain. Not something to play around with.
The hospital "tumor board" recommended one of two treatment options: (1) The proton accelerator. (2) An older technique. I found out how extraordinarily expensive the proton accelerator was, and just couldn't stomach consuming that much health care. I chose (2).
Contraceptives. (Score:2)
Contraceptives that are effective for at least 10 years.
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Already exists, Sousaphone and Funyuns addiction
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The children of others can also work - some days in the supermarket can inoculate for a while.
Hospital Aspirin (Score:3)
Figure out how to get hospitals to charge less than $40 a dose for over the counter medicines, and you will be well on your way to fixing the massive disfunction that is our hospital system.
MRI, PET, CT (Score:2)
Definitely the scanning (Score:2)
I voted for the MRI/PET, etc. scans because they're necessary for diagnosing and treating so many different health problems. Everything from broken toes to brain tumors are examined with some sort of body imaging technology.
Massively parallel tests (Score:2)
Something that take a drop of every fluid you can produce, skin sample, breath sample and spits out several hundred thousands of data points, analyses them in an expert system, and produces the most likely diseases you are suffering from without knowing it.
Because almost everything the ails you produces the same stupid symptoms and doctors so often misdiagnose and mistreat, and prevention in early stages could stave off a lot of other costs down the line.
VirScan is a good example of progress. If it meets i
Breast implants for men. (Score:3)
This would solve the only thing MGTOWs miss.
Tricorder (Score:2)
Depends. What offers the most benefit? (Score:3)
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That's why I picked "MRI, PET, CAT or similar scanners"
Dental X-rays are barely a nuisance compared to the dentist's pay, never needed a pacemaker, prosthetic limb or dialysis machine while imaging systems are used in a wide variety of conditions. And some of them are quite expensive too.
DNA sequencers (Score:3)
Really, I think most diagnostic medical equipment should be cheap enough that people just own it themselves. This is assuming that the tech can be made VERY cheap which I think it can be. Also, the items should be sized to take the application into consideration. You're never going to own a full body scanner. It would take up too much space. But a bunch of hand scanners? Sure.
One thing I'd like to see more of is digital blood analyzers. Something that can do a full blood work up. Now someone is going to say "you need certain chemicals to do certain tests"... fine... none of them are expensive though. So why not just issue a packet of consumables with the unit and when people run out of them they can order more.
the point is that most of the tests done at a hospital don't need a doctor to do the test. It might take a doctor to analyize and interpret the tests but the collection of data would be something a good machine, simple instructions, and a quasi intelligent person should be able to handle.
And as to the analysis... from what I've seen most doctors are really only comparing a few variables on the chart. Its typically not that complicated. If your age and sex is X and Y and your test came back with a result lower than M which is influenced by X and Y, then you're fine.That appears to be how it works usually.
I'm not arguing against doctors. I'm just saying that most of what happens in a routine check up is that they check some variables, and compare that to an ideal chart of what they should be. Okay... we don't need a doctor for that. We need the equipment that can do the test + a lookup table that does some repetitive calculations and compares variables to a chart and then issues recommendations based on the output.
And keep in mind... a reasonable output could be "we think you might have a problem, see a doctor".
That would mean the hospitals would be dealing with less bullshit.
Here someone will say "what about stupid people that can't follow simple instructions?"... they can see a doctor... ideally one that pats them on the head and gives them pudding after they got their check up.
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As to it requiring people with training to do the DNA thing... there have been some DNA scanners that were proposed for about 1000 dollars that were designed for home use. So. I can't speak to your experience, but I would point out that at one time it took a lot of training to use a computer. Where as today your grandmother is doing it well enough to send emails, do taxes, manage spreadsheets, and play solitaire. So, I think the divide here is that you're assuming that the machines you used in context 1A wi
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I literally cited a company selling such a product. This is why I hate talking to ACs... you all blur into a murky cloud of Never-Going-To-Or-Understand-A-Post-Then-Makes-Dumb-Comments-Anyway-And-Every-Dumb-Comment-Blurs-into-Every-Other-Dumb-Comment... to me, that's what ACs are... and frankly by commenting and saying something can't exist when I literally cited a company selling the thing you say can't exist... well... it validates my opinion, doesn't it?
Re: (Score:2)
Yes... let the butt hurt flow... :-D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
here's another video from the same company:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
How about you just reduce my fucking copays? (Score:5, Interesting)
Thanks a lot insurance industry, may all you overpaid bastards burn in hell.
DNA Testing (Score:2)
next revolution is health monitoring instruments (Score:2)
All of the Above (Score:2)
Except maybe the McGregor thing.
More doctors (Score:2)
No amount of quality can make up for having to wait months for an appointment.
Get rid of Conservative politicians. (Score:2)
OK, in the UK we do not have it as bad as the USA (yet) but our politicians see healthcare as a potential profit centre for their friends and future employers.
We spend about 1/3 per head of what the US does on healthcare and have pretty similar average lifespans. The main difference if the payment model. If everyone rejected everything but single payer, Universal health care, we would all have the choice between spending less money or getting more stuff - or probably a bit of both. Without suit wearers
You guys pay for MRI, PET, CAT? (Score:2)
Weight loss therapy that works and lasts (Score:2)
Effective and persistent weight loss therapy does exist. But it's very hard to implement and usually fails because the process is compound and complex, requiring multiple agents to coordinate and remain diligent, and the process ends only when the patient dies.
But the benefits of long term weight loss outweigh all other medical procedures. Combined.
Re: (Score:3)
In terms of saving money, dialysis is wide open for it. Treatments list IIRC for $1500/per (at 3x per week) plus medications (EPO is about $1k per treatment as well, and it's only one of several drugs required) I got a 1-month bill for it once that was over $50k.
There already exists a cheaper alternative to dialysis called "peritoneal dialysis". It can be done at home or even improvised in the field. Basically, you pump glucose/saline water into the abdomen while the person sleeps. According to wikipedia "It has comparable risks but is significantly less costly". One of the main cost savings is that it can be done at home versus at a hospital. According to wikipedia, 75% of dialysis patients in Mexico use this cheaper method and several other countries like t
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PT is not an option for most, is not as effective, and is more prone to infection. Also a functional pain as most users have to infuse dialysate, hold for a couple hours, drain it and infuse the next batch, etc, all day long day after day.
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Sorry, PD.
Re:Dialysis == $$$ (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, peritoneal dialysis (PD) is definitely a cost-saver. And it can be a time-saver, as well, because you can schedule your PD runs around your work and social routines. If you can use an automated PD machine (AKA "cycler") while you sleep, then your entire day is freed up. Also, perhaps the number one advantage is that no needles are necessary.
Finally, it's much easier on the kidneys because it's a continuous therapy (multiple daily runs or an extended nightly run) compared to haemodialysis/hemodialysis (AKA "HD"; two to four runs per week; these short, high-volume runs are very tiring).
Having said that, there are disadvantages, as well. The most commonly-occurring one is that not every renal patient qualifies for PD because of a pre-existing medical condition. Patients with implanted devices (e.g. pacemaker, defibrillator, shunt, etc.) are often disqualified. Many patients who have had previous abdominal surgery may not be able to tolerate a catheter implantation because of built-up scar tissue or other internal issues.
After the catheter is placed, a whole new host of problems begins, The biggest problem is the constant danger of infection at the point where the catheter exits the body (mostly because it's hard to keep everything sterile down there). Peritonitis is a common occurrence due to the presence of the catheter, as well as the infusion of 2+ litres (more than half a gallon) of dialysate per run. Some patients have to perform as many as four runs per day. The potential for contamination is pretty high.
Other complaints that we heard were more about the practicality of PD, such as having to buy new clothes (unsurprisingly, the infusion of 2+ litres of fluid causes your waistline to expand quite a bit!) and having to store pallets of supplies (primarily dialysate) at one's residence.
Overall, though, PD does seem like the easier method and the patients seem happier to be on it than HD. Unfortunately, we noticed that a large portion of those who started on PD usually end up on HD after a few months due to the aforementioned infections and/or their kidneys need more intensive filtration than PD can provide. This probably explains why 89% of all dialysis patients around the world areon HD (see halfway down the page below Table 3): http://ndt.oxfordjournals.org/content/20/12/2587.long [oxfordjournals.org]) (Yeah, it's a ten-year old paper. I couldn't find a newer source that was fully available on the web. However, the numbers are holding steady, according to the renal unit stats in my region.)
Frankly, I don't know why some countries (e.g. Mexico) have such high PD numbers. Without eventual haemofiltration, I suspect that their patients' life expectancy is shortened. Tragically, it probably has to do with cost.
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Euthanasia Device wold be very useful in many places. Especially in Brazilian parliament. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
While there is a great debate about impeaching Dilma, I highly doubt anyone in the Brazilian government would voluntarily off themselves. As a side note, who do think is / was worse: Dilma or Lula?