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 (@lseegert), is AHCJ’s topic leader on aging. Her work has appeared in NextAvenue.com, Journal of Active Aging, Cancer Today, Kaiser Health News and other outlets. She is a senior fellow at the Center for Health Policy and Media Engagement at George Washington University and co-produces the HealthCetera podcast.

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.