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Many patients face lingering pain and disappointment after undergoing knee replacement surgery, which costs an average $31,000. And doctors are increasingly concerned that the procedure is overused and that its benefits have been oversold.
Physicians estimate that 21 percent of medical care is unnecessary — a problem that costs the health care system at least $210 billion a year. KHN hosted a forum on how too much medicine can cause harm.
A new study of 6,000 older patients shows little gain from surgeries for breast cancer.
The doctor most responsible for turning the sunshine supplement into a billion-dollar juggernaut has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the vitamin D industry, according to government records and interviews.
From A to zinc and all the dietary supplements in between, KHN senior correspondent Liz Szabo gives you the dope on whether popping vitamins does you any good.
Sixty-eight percent of those 65 and older take vitamin supplements. Much of what we once believed about the benefits is wrong.
Nearly 1 in 3 Medicare patients undergo an operation in their final year of life.
Patients are often aggressively screened for cancer, even if they won’t live long enough to benefit.
Overtreatment of breast cancer and other diseases is pervasive, burdening patients and the health care system with enormous costs and needless suffering.
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