The Paradocs Podcast with Eric Larson

Surprise billing is a nationwide problem and Michigan is not immune. Surprise billing refers to the instance where patients are expecting their insurance company to pick up the entire tab of a medical bill but they instead find a huge bill for the amount 'left over.' The worst instances of this occurring is when the patient unknowingly encounters someone who is 'out of network' with their insuranc...

Direct primary care is just starting to really accelerate within the primary care world. And Josh Umbehr, MD has been at the forefront with his practice and line of products to service DPC doctors at Atlas MD. In this episode, we discuss the state of DPC, how commercially there are more people looking to get involved in selling ancillary services, and the battle he and other DPC docs are having wi...

Dr. Kris Held is the president of the AAPS and is an ophthalmologist in private practice in San Antonio, TX. She is suing the state of Texas to have the right to dispense drugs to her patients in her office. This would improve patient safety, reduce costs by over 50%, and is already being done in 44 states and the District of Columbia. We discuss her lawsuit, how she practices as a surgical specia...

My discussion with Jennifer Zeng, a Chinese woman who was persecuted by the communist government for her beliefs. She is an author and activist working to bring to light the actions of China on its own people and those in Hong Kong. We discuss growing up in China, who China tortures, their process of murdering political prisoners to sell organs for transplant, and what the struggle in Hong Kong is...

What's the deal with nurse practitioners (NPs)? Why is there so much anger from physicians and NPs when it comes to how patients are treated? Every day on my twitter feed I hear about how nurse practitioners are "acting like doctors without the necessary training" and are "dangerous because they know nothing." Meanwhile my friends who are NPs and PAs cite studies that claim they provide better car...

Today's discussion is about hospitals. Namely, what does it mean to be nonprofit? Over half of all hospitals in the United States are not for profit entities - but do they really look differently than for profit institutions? That is the question that few politicians or those debating health care speak about. In many instances, one would be hard pressed to know whether hospitals are for profit by...

I haven't spoken to a lot of ancillary medical professionals in the show and explored ways that they are changing the way we deliver medical care. Today I spoke to a physical therapist who chose to run his practice unlike traditional practices. He doesn't structure therapy based on what maximizes revenue from insurers but instead on treating the patient and their injury. Learn more about your ad c...

Serving the poor in health care is a mission that many enter medicine to do. Whether that is through medical missions, working free clinics, or in some other way - doctors are doing what they can to help the poor receive care. Some choose to work in underserved regions of the country both urban and rural that are paid in part by the federal government. These clinics are called federally qualified...

Irish doctor Clodagh Ryan worked in the UK's NHS and US as a family doctor. She says the NHS has some advantages but they come at a cost to patient care. Among those are excessive wait times, reduced innovation, and poorer outcomes in certain treatments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Direct care is a newer way of providing care to patients. It is a cash system without insurance. Direct care is now becoming more common for specialists. My guest is an allergist who has adopted this model and practices medicine the way she wants that isn't rushed or filled with bureaucratic paperwork. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Self Care is the term used to describe how patients can take care of themselves and use techniques to improve their health and healing. Utilizing self care is a component of integrative health where traditional medical services are combined with other strategies to help patients recover from illness or deal with chronic conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

February marks the month designated by the American Heart Association as its "Go Red for Women" campaign to raise awareness of the real risk of heart disease in women. Too often, men are seen as the victims of heart attacks and people forget that women can suffer from heart disease as well. In fact, women die more from heart disease than men, right? Well, not exactly. And that's what we discuss in...

Everyone needs health insurance, right? Health insurance keeps you from going bankrupt, right? But what if it ends up costing you more for basic expenses? In this episode, I recount my experience getting a 2000% markup on a laboratory test. I explain how this is a perfect example of so much that is wrong with our health care market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Zombies aren't real, but sometimes they sure seem like it. Especially when it involves medicine and the law. Health Diagnostics Laboratories (HDL) went into bankruptcy after being discovered it was ripping off patients by overcharging them and providing kickbacks to doctors and health organizations for using their services. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The topic of abortion seems to have gained more momentum in the news cycle of late with states passing laws relaxing or loosening restrictions on the practice. It feels like the 1973 ruling of Roe v. Wade might actually come before the US Supreme Court.   As a physician and hospital, the social and ethical questions that surround abortion are both personal and professional. What is the obligation...

National health care policy is always at the forefront of the political discussion in the US. Democratic candidates are offering their visions of what the US system should look like and point to other countries in the world. One held up is the United Kingdom and its National Health Service (NHS). But is it better than what we have here?   My guest today is Philip Booth. He has written on the healt...

Physician wellness has come to the forefront today as health systems deal with ever increasing numbers of physicians dealing with mental illness and even suicide. There is no shortage of explanations nor ways the health systems are trying to fix these docs. Dr. Sanchez Wohlever has personally dealt with burnout and offers her own prescription for solving the problem. Its systematic approach is bot...

One of the most important things a young student can do to help their future is to pay attention to finances when he or she is young. This means to focus on minimizing debt, living lean after you get a paying job, and investing a sizable amount of your take home pay to achieve financial independence.   Dr. James Turner, aka the Physician Philosopher, is an anesthesiologist and hosts a very popular...

Physician burnout and mental health problems have been well documented as has the physician suicide epidemic. Health systems implement wellness programs and have mental health awareness initiatives. However, the wellness programs do a poor job addressing the root causes of burnout and physicians have a hard time getting mental health help because of the professional stigma and inability to be sure...

There has been no shortage of ink spilled arguing how we fix our broken US health care system so today I will use the spoken word instead. Fundamentally, we all want the same things from the system: Quality care, Affordable care, and Access to care. The real question is how do we move from here to there? Are there people who have fixed these problems even on a small scale that we can use as guides...

This podcast has been dedicated to bringing you disruptors to the health care market and today's show features a discussion about health sharing ministries. The ministries work as a substitute to carrying health insurance allowing for people to use the service to pay their medical bills. Individuals pay a "sharing amount" each month which is then aggregated by the ministry amongst its members and...

Today, we continue our journey discussing physicians who are using direct patient care through a membership model as disruptors in the health care field. Direct primary care is one of the most disruptive and innovative models to emerge in recent years and more and more specialties are looking for ways to adopt the insurance-free notion of providing care to patients. Now we can add an OB/GYN to the...

For women, a very scary and anxious time of their life is pregnancy. C/sections are a very common procedure in the US for women constituting 33% of all live births. However, my guest Dr. John LaGrand's practice, in which he works collaboratively with four certified nurse midwives (CNMs), he believes is a different way to practice obstetrics and has led to a c/section rate of only 5%. Learn more ab...

One of the great challenges to those paying for our health care today is determining who is high quality, who is truly expensive , and who is doing the right thing. Unfortunately, the payers in medicine are not the patients but third parties like Medicare. Since the person receiving the care is not directly paying for the service, administrators in an office have to make the determination of how t...

Physicians today need to be more than healers. They need to also be leaders for their patients and partner with the patients throughout all aspects of care.  Until we as physicians take an active role in finding solutions to every problem encountered by our patients, we aren't doing our job. This includes being mindful of the cost of tests, procedures, and pharmaceuticals and doing something to lo...