Within two weeks of its introduction, sildenafil citrate, given the name Viagra by Pfizer, hit 30,000 prescriptions a day threatening to replace world leader Prozac, which held steady at 50,000 a day. Pfizer states Viagra only works if the right stimulus occurs and therefore is safe to take daily. Pfizer might, of course, benefit from […]

A prospective juror in an insurance case was asked if he had ever done business with the insurance company in question, and what he thought of insurance agents. He replied that he placed them “just a notch above lawyers.” We may think of this as just another way ploy to avoid serving on a lengthy […]

In 1853 the City of Sacramento built its first City/County hospital to care for the indigent sick located at 10th and L streets. The hospital served the community for twelve years. A larger hospital replaced the first in 1870, and following its destruction by fire in 1878, a new hospital was constructed, containing 150 beds. […]

As pressure builds for some form of “universal access” under a government system, even by some branches of organized medicine, some reminders of the effects of such a one-tiered system worldwide are timely. Canada: 1997 found 11% more patients waiting for treatment than in 1996. Statistics in Canada found that more than 1 million Canadians […]

Aetna’s CEO & COB (Chairman of the Board) received a 23% raise in cash compensation to $2.6 million. This Hartford, Conn., health-care benefits and insurance company, which last July acquired US Healthcare Inc, also increased the pay of its President by 66%. The CEO also received $3.2 million in bonuses for exceeding company performance goals […]

This was a turbulent period in California medicine as the nation was dealing with abolitionists and slave holders. When the state society met in San Francisco in February, 1858, there was “debt; a lack of harmony,..too many living within their own cosmic bubble refusing to comprehend or see or help remedy a critical situation…” The […]

A Fortune 500 company reports that their health plan documents permit them to accept or reject assignments at their discretion. This simple maneuver has saved them millions of dollars. They report, “There is an abundance of evidence correlating fraud and abuse with assignments. . . We see this most commonly in the areas of chiropractic, […]

The government is now paying some hospitals “not” to train resident physicians. Uncle Sam has the uncanny ability to pay the same amount of money for providing a service as for not providing one. Some time ago a family physician mentioned to me that he always had an internist or surgeon take care of his […]

J Roy Jones, MD, in his History of the Medical Society of the State of California, recorded that on May 2, 1850, the Medico-Chirurgical Association of Sacramento was organized for the purpose of the “cultivation of science; the promotion of honor, dignity and interest of the profession, and the separation of the regular from the […]

What goes on between office visits is the second best deal in health care delivery–it’s free. But isn’t it delusional to believe that someone with any significant disease can receive yearly care in two five-minute office visits plus about 45 minutes of uncompensated time from the physicians between office visits? No wonder for-profit HMO Executive’s […]