Tag Archives: undertreatment

‘Conservative diagnosis’ means judicious testing to avoid potential harm

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Photo: Daniel Foster via Flickr

Balancing the challenges of underdiagnosis (missing or delaying important diagnoses) and overdiagnosis (labeling patients with diseases that may never cause suffering or death) can feel like walking across a canyon on a tightrope. Diagnostic errors occur in an estimated 10 percent to 20 percent of cases and will affect most Americans at least once in their lifetime. They are the leading cause of medical malpractice claims, harming more than 4 million people at a cost of more than $100 billion.  Continue reading →

Liz Seegert is an independent health journalist and AHCJ’s topic leader on aging. She covers older adults, baby boomers, health policy, and social determinants of health, as well as many other health issues. Her bylines include stories for PBS/NextAvenue.org. the American Journal of Nursing, TIME Health, Medscape, Consumer Reports, and Medical Economics, as well as dozens of other trade and mainstream media. Her articles have been syndicated in Forbes.com, the Los Angeles Times, the Hartford Courant, the Saturday Evening Post and other major outlets.

Coming soon: Three new films about health care

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We know of at least three new movies coming out on health care – overtreatment, undertreatment, cost, quality, the uninsured, the underinsured, the safety nets.  We haven’t seen them all so we can’t vouch for them but they all sound promising. We’ve interviewed the people who made one of the films and will post that soon. In the meantime, these links take you to pages that tell you a bit about each film and where you can see it in your community or on one of your many “devices.” Continue reading →

Contributing editor to Politico Magazine and former health care editor-at-large, Politico, Commonwealth Fund journalist in residence and assistant lecturer at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.