A
year ago my mother (Julia E. Ecleo) was supposed to undergo a surgical operation. Preventing her from the scheduled operation
as she grabbed the opportunity while it’s free provided by my younger sister’s
Healthcard, I asked my sister-in-law to encourage her to seek for a second
opinion hoping that she would listen to her, and for a reversed findings
looking forward that it could be cured by medications.
I
was grateful that she heeded my sister-in-law’s advice. The second opinion was medication than
operation.
Likewise,
More or less a year ago, our father (Ely T. Ecleo) was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer
which prescribed a surgical operation.
Given his age at 78, the siblings decided to skip the operation and
tried a medication from a networking product. It’s interesting to note that in
the United States, the Preventative Services Task Force has recommended Prostate-Specific
Antigen( PSA)- (the test that measures the level of PSA in man’s blood; the
blood level of is often elevated in men with prostate cancer)[1]
that this screening shouldn't be done at all, while Cochrane (a non-profit,
non-governmental organization in London, United Kingdom formed to organize
medical research findings) found that there is no overall benefit from PSA
screening.
Lo
and behold, both of them remain healthy without undergoing that surgical
operation.
On
the other hand, my cousin (Joseph Villamin) who’s a Seafarer and currently processing his medical
requirements for him to go back to his work, was also diagnosed for an
operation of his gallstones. Otherwise,
he will not be deployed. Presently, he
tries a medication sold by a networking business than goes through an
operation, hoping that it could be melted which is not only costly but of fear
on its side effects to health on the later part.
I'm
not a medical practitioner but I’m more concern on preserving a normal physical
condition than witnessing an individual who suffers from different ailments
brought by surgical operation’s side effects. Since information relative to medical facts is
accessible globally with the advent of technology, somehow we could encounter
disclosures that make us to be cautious.
Basically,
medical examination is taken as an employment requirement to identify whether
the employee is fit to work or for individuals who annually make it to allow
the doctor to give recommendations on disease prevention, identify potential
health issues from getting worse - maintaining a good health that is.
Medical
screening always sounds good especially when it’s free being provided by the
employer– catch disease early, while it can still be treated – but the reality
is more complex and screening has side effects.[2]
According
to the disclosure, doctors and researchers have known about these drawbacks of screening
for decades, but the awareness hasn't got through to patients.
Major issue in most screening schemes
Overdiagnosis
has been pointed as the problem in here– picking up "diseases" that
are never going to cause any problem.
For
example, in the case of breast cancer screening, the mammograms will find
lesions of inexact significance – cancers that do not behave aggressively.
Since we do not basically have the skill to figure out which of these cancers will
spread and cause death, women are offered treatment, which can include
mastectomy and radiation therapy. These treatments can do harm.[3]
Say,
radiotherapy slightly raises the risk of later heart disease and surgery comes
with the usual risks from the anaesthetic and the potential for infection.
These risks may well be worth taking if the breast disease threatens one’s
life, but it is far less clear what to do when the screening has picked up a
potentially harmless lesion, according to the article.
Medical screening does not extend
life
For
example, two men with prostate cancer that began in 2011. One is picked up in
2011 through PSA (prostate-specific antigen) screening, and the other is picked
up in 2013, because symptoms have developed. Both die in 2015. It appears as
though the man discovered by screening lived for longer after his diagnosis
versus with the other who was picked up by symptoms. The screening didn't
actually lengthen life, but if we just count the years of survival after
diagnosis it will look as though screening did. Analysis of screening commonly
falls into this trick, making it look far better than it is.
Most
common types of fraud committed by dishonest providers
According
to National Health Care Ant-Fraud (NHCAA), Washington DC, the most common types
of fraud (if this crime is escalating in this developed country, what more in
the third world country like the Philippines) committed by dishonest providers[4]
borne either by the insurers or the employees include:
- Billing for services never rendered through identity theft
- Billing for more expensive services or procedures than actually provided or performed
- Falsely billing for a higher-priced treatment than actually provided.
- Performing medically unnecessary services merely for the purpose of generating insurance payments - seen regularly in nerve-conduction and other diagnostic-testing schemes.
- Misrepresenting non-covered treatments as medically essential covered treatments for purposes of acquiring insurance payments - usually noticed in cosmetic-surgery schemes, in which non-covered cosmetic procedures like "nose jobs" are billed to patients' insurers as deviated-septum (may include frequent nosebleeds and facial pain) repairs.
- Falsifying a patient's diagnosis to justify tests, surgeries or other procedures that aren't medically necessary.
- Unbundling - billing each step of a procedure as if it were a separate procedure.
- Billing a patient more than the co-pay amount for services that were prepaid or paid in full by the benefit plan under the terms of a managed care contract.
- Accepting kickbacks for patient referrals.
- Waiving patient co-pays or deductibles for medical or dental care and over-billing the insurance carrier or benefit plan (insurers often set the policy with regard to the waiver of co-pays through its provider contracting process; while, under Medicare, routinely waiving co-pays is prohibited and may only be waived due to "financial hardship").
CONCLUSION:
Anyone
may have provided the finest Healthcard as
premium-payers, or acquired through your employer, insurers , which covers free
huge medical expenses, which is tempting to use especially in times that an
individual needs it most when diagnosed for a surgical operation, which could
not be afforded by personal savings. The
latter is equally significant when there’s no more other option but before
jumping into the first diagnosis, ask first other specialist’s opinion.
One
may have enjoyed free services, but the enjoyment would only be temporary when
side effects manifest, which multiply
not only physical pain but emotional pain when one could no longer enjoy a
normal life because of the divided time on dos and donts caused by surgical
operation and daily family and personal routines.
Free
Healthcards are good but be wary on its provider because like anyone else
they’re also subject to temptation. Some
of them may have the heart and sincerity who are concerned of your health but
not all of them (as even in the developed country health care fraud is a
serious crime) out of strategy to cover their daily enormous expenses like employees’
remuneration, utilities, loan, they may strategize to overdiagnosis, aside from
false-positives by the dishonest health care providers that they may come up,
or some of them preserve not a normal healthy condition but multi-million
revenue.
The
Catholic Catechism is clear on applied research which says, “Basic scientific
research, as well as applied research, is a significant expression of man's
dominion over creation. Science and technology
are precious resources when placed at the service of man and promote his
integral development for the benefit of all…..(Catechism of the Catholic
Church No. 2293)[5]
References:
[1] Prostate-Specific Anitigen (PSA) Test, National Cancer Institute, USA, https://www.cancer.gov/types/prostate/psa-fact-sheet
[1] Prostate-Specific Anitigen (PSA) Test, National Cancer Institute, USA, https://www.cancer.gov/types/prostate/psa-fact-sheet
[2] Margaret McCartney, Patients deserve the truth: health
screening can do more harm than good, Fri 3 Jan 2014 12.19 GMTFirst published
on Fri 3 Jan 2014 12.19 GMTg,,nb, https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2014/jan/03/patients-truth-health-screening-harm-good
[3] Sarah C. Ph.d, Candace correa, MD, ET. al., Risk of ischemic heart disease in women after radiotheraphy for breast cancer, http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1209825,
[4] The challenge of Healthcare fraud, National Health Care
Anti-Fraud Association, Washington DC, https://www.nhcaa.org/resources/health-care-anti-fraud-resources/the-challenge-of-health-care-fraud.aspx
[5] Respect for the person and scientific research, Catechism of the Catholic Church CCC2293
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a5.htm#2293
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment