Healthpoints

Post COVID Stress Disorder

Jan 25, 2021

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) defines Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a disorder that "may result when an individual lives through or witnesses an event in which he or she believes that there is a threat to life or physical integrity and safety and experiences fear, terror, or helplessness".  The question we ask ourselves in this era of the COVID-19 pandemic is if we all, to a lesser or greater extent, are victims of PTSD? Taking these clinical diagnoses and applying them to the lives we have lived over the last year, we could make a layman's clinical diagnosis that American...

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Filed Under: changes in healthcare, covid-19, Mental Health, mental telehealth, PCSD, post-COVID, telehealth

COVID-19 Risk Calculator

Jan 14, 2021

With the release of vaccines in the U.S., many are asking who gets them and when. One of the factors included by policymakers on who needs the decision first is a mortality risk calculator developed by researchers at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. It measures the mortality of an individual, in the event of infection.Your own risk is good information to have, as it gives a good indication of personal risk you take when choosing to interact with the outside world.  In this article, we have provided for you, a link to the the Johns Hopkins The Mortality Risk Calculator that calculates risk of...

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Filed Under: covid-19, interactive features, post-COVID, public health

Physician Shortages – the hidden casualties of COVID-19

Dec 11, 2020

Every day, we hear in the media about the significant shortages of healthcare workers during this startling increase in COVID-19 cases. Currently retired physicians and other retired healthcare front-line workers are being asked to return to the hospitals they previously worked at to provide additional skilled care. This pandemic is exacerbating a growing problem in healthcare - the increasing number of physicians retiring early because of the stress of their profession.In an article on MedPage Today, COVID-19 Is Making The Physician Shortage Worse, Groups Say, Joyce Frieden notes, “The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) publishes an annual report on the physician...

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Filed Under: benefit advisors, changes in healthcare, Corporate Benefits, covid-19, hospitals, post-COVID, telehealth

The Quandary of Adherence to Medical Advice

Nov 19, 2020

The well-known phrase, "God helps those who help themselves," is commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin but dates back to ancient Greece. In healthcare this idiom should be highlighted by every provider. I was recently in a discussion with a chief medical officer of a major healthcare system. One of his comments as we were concluding the meeting was, "If we can keep our congestive heart patients from opening a bag of potato chips when they get discharged from the hospital we will substantially reduce our readmission rate." Our tendency to revert to prior behaviors is probably the most significant barrier...

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Filed Under: benefit advisors, changes in healthcare, Corporate Benefits, covid-19, hospitals, post-COVID, telehealth

Benefit Advisors Dealing with Post-COVID Syndrome

Oct 2, 2020

nsurance advisors have become the go-to consultant for executives and HR departments throughout the benefits industry when it comes to the type of healthcare coverage they should provide for their employees. Normally, advisors can rely upon historical and actuarial tables for the normal range of healthcare in American society. We can all agree that these are extraordinary times and the usual calculations are unreliable. Trusted advisors are navigating for their clients in a world of unknowns as businesses reopen amid a pandemic that has, to a lesser or greater extent, been faced by more than 7 million Americans to date....

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Filed Under: benefit advisors, changes in healthcare, Corporate Benefits, covid-19, hospitals, post-COVID, telehealth