R. Jan Gurley

<p>As patient satisfaction surveys become more important to how doctors get paid, Doc Gurley finds them to be easily gamed and lacking in statistical validity — creating problems for both doctors and their patients.</p>

<p>Who wants to take care of a patient who is statistically likely to rate you poorly when your payment for services is based on that same rating? Doc Gurley examines the role of race and racism in patient satisfaction ratings.</p>

<p>How did we get to the point where we actually pay popular doctors more for our health care? No such system exists in any other professional or non-professional field. You can’t even pay your plumber less if she has a lower customer satisfaction score.</p>

<p>There’s a growing recognition of the role that complex post-traumatic stress disorder plays in trapping people in long-term homelessness. Understanding how PTSD unfolds can help us better understand the homeless and their health issues.</p>

<p>It may be hard to connect well-paid and well-conditioned pro football players with the homeless guy elbow-deep in the trashcan on your sidewalk. But when it comes to brain injuries, they have more in common than you might think.</p>

<p>Most Americans know what's killing us. Stop smoking, eat better, exercise, and wear your seatbelt — just those four simple steps, alone, could save hundreds of thousands of lives every year. Here are 10 ways to help people hear that message.</p>

<p>In one year, 477 people in San Francisco, most of them homeless, used $20 million worth of urgent/emergency services — an average of $42,067 each — and taxpayers paid the bill. Knowing who they are is the first step towards treating their illnesses, injuries, and addictions.</p>

<p>What happens when someone dies who has no assets – or friends or relatives – to pay for his burial? Procedures for pauper's burials vary widely by jurisdiction. It is one of those little-discussed arenas of public health, a topic that often intersects with the deaths of the homeless.</p>

<p>Many professions have their version of a post-event analysis of what went wrong, and how to prevent it. The autopsy report is medicine's. Journalists can find a trove of stories in a review of death certificates.</p>

<p>In today's hyper-evolving social media world, it might seem quaint, if not downright foolish, to believe that old school journalism's low-tech and low-cost approaches — a pen, a pad, and shoe-leather investigation — could result in an article that ignites a global furor.</p><p>&nbsp;</p>