[re-post from correntewire 6-14-10]
More shocking news from the basement of corporate evil.
A few months ago I was multi-tasking at home with NPR on in the background and I heard a story about back surgeries. I was sorry not to have grabbed a pen at that point and jotted down the details since not only was I infuriated by the time the interview concluded, but later when googling I was not able to track down the story.
The essence of the analysis was that there has been a marked increase in serious back surgeries (the kind that go on for maybe 6-12 hours) despite the fact that articles in present medical journals are strongly advising that such surgeries are not worth the risk.
The interviewee said that there were three reasons for the prevalence of high risk back surgeries. (1) The doctors really believed they were best for their patients despite the negative findings. (2) The doctors received substantially more in payment for the longer surgeries. (3) Something I would not have regarded as a serious factor but apparently was the major factor, according to this expert, there is strong, seductive lobbying of back surgeons by the medical industry that makes the mechanical gizmos, screws, devices, etc. that get implanted in one's back during such surgeries.
Wow. So a spiked increase in high-risk back surgeries despite general medical acknowledgement that these surgeries are not worth the risk. Corruption and cronyism, at a really slimy level, exist not just in our banking and finance professions, do they? And financiers don't take the Hippocratic oath, either.
Yesterday I read an articleby David Armstrong of Bloomberg about the sad and outrageous tale of Mark Hirschbeck who was considered one of the best umpires in professional baseball. It would seem Mr. Hirschbeck's hip has been irreparably damaged by one of these lobby, corporate, kickback, whore doctors.
Mark Hirschbeck, back in 2003 at the age of 42, was calling a pro baseball game and felt a stabbing pain in his hip. Not wanting to quit his $350,000 a year, highly satisfying job of umpiring, he trusted a Dr. John Keggie who assured him he could replace his hip and would have Hirschbeck fully functional again within the year.
The ceramic joint made by Wright Medical Group Inc. that was inserted into Hirshbeck's hip shattered. This led to an infection which led to four more surgeries. Hirshbeck's career is over.
Hirshbeck eventually learned that Wright had donated thousands of dollars to a foundation Keggie helps run. Wright treated Dr. Keggie and his wife to a conference in the Bahamas. Hirschbeck also learned that Dr. Keggie recommended Wright's ceramic device over the kinds of devices that are used in 97% of hip replacement cases. 97%!!!
Hirschbeck is suing. Dr. Keggie and Wright have denied the allegations.
In June 2009, Chris Christie, former U.S. attorney from NJ and now governor, testified in Congress that the government has had to crack down on the "kickback" relationship between surgeons and the biggest makers of knees and hips. A spine surgeon in Irvine, California, Charles D. Rosen, president of Association for Medical Ethics, believes the government posturing will not produce results until someone actually goes to jail.
Doctor compensation from these companies in 2008 rose to about $300 million according to Bloomberg data compiled from device maker's websites. David Armstrong reports:
The financial ties between device makers and surgeons help explain why health-care costs in the U.S. rose at 2.5 times the rate of inflation in the past 10 years and account for a sixth of the economy. The $300 million works out to $300 for each of the 1 million hips and knees implanted in Americans in 2008.
The payments show how hard it is for government to hold down costs in a system where pricing is opaque and largely unregulated. In the $14 billion-a-year orthopedic device business, payments to doctors squelch competition, says Chad Rodine, a partner in Castle Rock, Colorado-based Echelon Consulting LLC, which advises hospitals on implant costs.
Hip and knee list prices have increased 5.6 percent so far this year, on top of a 130 percent increase in the average selling price of a hip between 1996 and 2008, according to Orthopedic Network News, a trade journal that tracks costs.
In the U.S. in 2010, the average price of a primary artificial hip was $7,200, more than four times the $1,600 in Germany, says Melissa Hussey, a senior analyst on the orthopedic team at Millennium Research Group, based in Toronto. In Germany and other countries, she says, sales representatives have restricted access to surgeons.
Apparently the lobbying starts early. Armstrong explains that the device makers form their bonds often while the future doctors are in med school. The companies underwrite residency programs. They buy books and sponsor fellowships. Later on, the industry pays them as consultants, speakers and instructors. As replacement surgery proliferated, the industry often called in these crony doctors for advice on innovations.
Hirschbeck says that in June 2003 a Wright salesman was actually in his operating theater when the ceramic hip was initially installed in Waterbury Hospital in Connecticut.
Hirschbeck picked Dr. Keggie as his orthopedic surgeon because he had heard he was the best in the state and it meant he could recuperate close to his home in Shelton, Connecticut. Keggie convinced him the ceramic hip replacement would return him to his beloved umpiring much faster than the metal implants.
Less than two months after surgery, Hirschbeck heard a pop while sitting on his couch watching TV. He felt intense pain. The porcelain device had shattered. Dr. Keggie had to remove the splintered pieces and installed another one. Within the month, Hirschbeck was back for another surgery.
A specialist later told Hirschbeck his hip was infected and before installing another hip replacement, he would have to go through a stage of enduring a "temporary spacer" loaded with antibiotics until the infection was cleared. Armstrong reveals that Hirschbeck's total medical bill was $344,813.
Hirschbeck spent two months in 2004 in a hospital bed and was driven in a van finally to New York to receive another hip device, this time not by Wright but from Zimmer and Waldemar Link GmbH & Co. In 16 months it was his fifth operation. It was successful.
Wright Medical Group Inc. is the sixth-largest hip and knee maker with revenue of $487.5 million last year. Armstrong reveals there is a strong chance of a settlement in this particular case of about $8 million.
Incidentally, Armstrong also discloses that Dr. John Keggie has subsequently switched from the Wright ceramic hip to a joint made by Smith & Nephew. Last year they paid Keggie $25,000-$50,000 for consulting work. They also reimbursed him for $7,061 in travel and meal expenses. Clearly Mr. Hirschbeck's crisis has not seriously altered Dr. Keggie's opportunistic M.O.
As for Mr. Hirschbeck, according to Armstrong, he lives alone, his marriage having eventually ended in divorce. Hirschbeck partially attributes that to the stress of the multiple surgeries. He collects his disability from the league, 40% now. He understandably rues the day he let Dr. Keggie talk him into the "special" porcelain hip.
How many Dr. Keggies are out there right now working it I wonder? Where have all the ethics gone? Profits over people? You betcha!
[re-post from correntewire 6-14-10]
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WTF?!!!!
Gosh libby, this headline was awfully inaccurate and misleading. Does it serve any good purpose to use yellow journalism when the real story is quite bad enough without it?
This seriously compromises your integrity, don’t you think?
;-(
.
Gosh libby, this headline was awfully inaccurate and misleading. Does it serve any good purpose to use yellow journalism when the real story is quite bad enough without it?
This seriously compromises your integrity, don’t you think?
;-(
.
"Collective" we. An angry headline for a little known, the extent of it, anyway, unbelievably exploitive and dangerous phenomenon.
How pervasive the corporate lobbying of doctors has become.
Compromises my integrity? That is really harsh. I'm sorry you feel that way but so be it.
libby
How pervasive the corporate lobbying of doctors has become.
Compromises my integrity? That is really harsh. I'm sorry you feel that way but so be it.
libby
I have no doubt about the fact that if we had an educational program which could be done relatively inexpensively that informed the public about good exercise programs that could be done without buying stuff you don't need then back problems would be dramatically lower.
The problem is that if the corporations can't make a profit out of anything and everything then it doesn't get done. As you indicated if it is worse for the customer but the corporations make a profit this is considered good business.
The problem is that if the corporations can't make a profit out of anything and everything then it doesn't get done. As you indicated if it is worse for the customer but the corporations make a profit this is considered good business.
Just a quick chiming in while I was on my way elsewhere as to the OS community [namely, about to write a "pm" to lib ;-)]. Wanted you all to know I'm "listening", and will follow this discussion with ... if I might say (in more ways than one) "pained" interest.
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