closer look
Telehealth options flood the market as retailers offer virtual care — self-pay only
Adobe
Startups like Ro, Hims, and Thirty Madison grew rapidly as the pandemic made telehealth more appealing. Giants like Walmart and CVS have also bet on the direct-to-consumer model, building out their health care businesses with a mix of online and brick-and-mortar clinics, some of which accept insurance. Now new telehealth programs launched by large retailers let patients pick their medical concern off a menu, from erectile dysfunction to ear infections. They pay cash — no insurance accepted — to have a text or video visit with a provider.
"For a lot of these companies, all they really are interested in is: Can we offer the kinds of services that are cheap enough to provide that we don't have to worry about going to insurers?" said Alexander Lennox-Miller, lead analyst in healthcare IT at CB Insights. "As a solution to the health care crisis in the U.S., it isn't." STAT's Katie Palmer has more.
children's health
Pediatricians urged to help prevent kids' expulsion from preschool
When you think about it, expelling a child from preschool because of "misbehavior" means removing that child from the place where kids learn how to get along with one another and become ready for school. Children expelled from preschool are 10 times as likely as their peers to drop out of high school and face incarceration. There's also the issue of implicit bias: Children who are Black, male, have developmental delays, or have experienced trauma are at higher risk of being expelled.
In a policy update out today, the American Academy of Pediatrics acknowledges that safety concerns may underlie expulsion, but it also cites research showing preschool teachers may incorrectly assess Black boys to be older and have inappropriate expectations for behavior. As a remedy the academy recommends:
- Pediatrician coordination of behavioral health providers to work with the family,
- Teacher training to manage behavior, recognize implicit bias, and promote social-emotional regulation in preschoolers,
- Lower student-teacher ratios, appropriate compensation, and access to mental health consultation.
practice of medicine
For VA doctors, telework is tied to lower burnout
Like many others in the pandemic's early days, doctors whose specialty allowed it shifted to telework in 2020. A new research letter in JAMA Network Open asked whether telework could mitigate physician burnout, citing small studies hinting that this was the case. The study authors queried doctors in 140 VA health systems about burnout and telework arrangements; more than 44,000 responded.
More than one-third of doctors reported burnout, with the highest levels in primary care and psychiatry. More than half of physicians didn't telework, and the odds of burnout were 57% higher for physicians who didn't have approval to telework compared with those who did and chose to do so full-time, with the exception of those in surgery, anesthesiology, and emergency medicine. "If flexible telework arrangements are associated with lower physician burnout, they have the potential to improve job retention and, in turn, patient care quality," the authors write.
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