The No Surprises Act: A Conservative Band-Aid to Protect Business as Usual.

Hailed as a major reform, the No Surprises Act (NSA) is a profoundly conservative law that aims neither to reform design of insurance, to regulate fees, nor to limit health care spending. The NSA mitigates a perverse but narrow problem: unpredictable and uncontrollable high out-of-pocket bills for individuals who are unable to receive care within their insurance network. However, the NSA neglects to address the broader high medical costs, limited choice of caregivers, and the resulting insecurity and unfairness that characterize American health care.

Impact of the Early COVID-19 Pandemic on Burn Care: A Multi-National Study.

This qualitative study documents and analyzes COVID-19's impacts on burn care in twelve nations. Burn care saw valuable improvements in surgical techniques, skin grafting, and other acute treatments during the decades before the COVID-19 pandemic which increased severely burned patients' survival rates and quality of life. Detailed interviews, conducted in the 12 nations reveal that the COVID-19 pandemic greatly affected the delivery of acute and rehabilitation services for burn patients.

Physical Rehabilitation and Mental Health Care After Burn Injury: A Multinational Study.

While remarkable improvements have been made to acute hospital burn care in recent decades, it is not matched by improvements in post-acute care, including physical rehabilitation and mental health. Progress in acute hospital treatment of burn survivors now highlights the next important step-addressing care once a patient leaves intensive treatment and is discharged to the community. Long-term physical rehabilitation and mental health services are vital to improving quality of life for burn survivors.

No Equity, No Triple Aim: Strategic Proposals to Advance Health Equity in a Volatile Policy Environment.

Health professionals, including social workers, community health workers, public health workers, and licensed health care providers, share common interests and responsibilities in promoting health equity and improving social determinants of health-the conditions in which people live, work, play, and learn. We summarize the underlying causes of health inequity and comparatively poor health outcomes in the United States. We describe barriers to realizing the hope embedded in the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, that moving away from fee-for-service payments will naturally drive care upstream as providers respond to greater financial risk by undertaking greater prevention efforts for the health of their patients.

A preliminary comparison of primary care use by refugees before and after acupuncture.

Background: Limited research exits on utilization and cost-effectiveness of acupuncture among underserved communities, and virtually no evidence has been published with respect to refugee populations. In this study, we examined the relationship between acupuncture and the total utilization of primary care services in a cohort of refugee patients with chronic pain.

Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 16 refugee patients with chronic pain at Boston Medical Center (BMC).

Immunization registries: costs and savings.

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to quantify the actual costs of developing, maintaining, and operating the Boston Immunization Information System (BIIS), an electronic registry and tracking system, and to compare the registry's costs with those of performing the same functions manually.

Methods: Cost data were obtained from 23 BIIS health care sites, the city health department, and 13 control sites. Actual costs of developing and operating BIIS in 1998 and projected 1999 costs for a hypothetical expanded registry were measured.