One Medical joins Amazon to make it easier for people to get and stay healthier

For a limited time, One Medical membership is available to new U.S. customers for $144 (28% discount) for the first year—the equivalent of only $12 per month.

Amazon and One Medical announced that Amazon completed its acquisition of One Medical. One Medical’s seamless in-office and 24/7 virtual care services, on-site labs, and programs for preventive care, chronic care management, common illnesses, and mental health concerns have been delighting people for the past 15 years. Together, Amazon and One Medical look to deliver exceptional health care to more people to achieve better health outcomes, better care experiences, and more value, within a better care team environment. For a limited time, One Medical is offering annual memberships at the discounted price of $144 for the first year (regularly $199 per year), the equivalent of $12 per month, to new customers. Redeem the One Medical membership promotion and learn more about what’s included.

“We’re on a mission to make it dramatically easier for people to find, choose, afford, and engage with the services, products, and professionals they need to get and stay healthy, and coming together with One Medical is a big step on that journey,” said Neil Lindsay, senior vice president of Amazon Health Services. “One Medical has set the bar for what a quality, convenient, and affordable primary care experience should be like. We’re inspired by their human-centered, technology-forward approach and excited to help them continue to grow and serve more patients.”

“One Medical has been on a mission to help transform health care through its human-centered and technology-powered model to delight people with better health, better care, and better value, within a better team environment,” said Amir Dan Rubin, CEO of One Medical. “We now set our sights on delivering even further positive impacts for consumers, employers, care teams, and health networks, as we join Amazon with its long-term orientation, history of invention, and passion for reimagining a better future.”

“If you fast forward 10 years from now, people are not going to believe how primary care was administered. For decades, you called your doctor, made an appointment three or four weeks out, drove 15-20 minutes to the doctor, parked your car, signed in and waited several minutes in reception, eventually were placed in an exam room, where you waited another 10-15 minutes before the doctor came in, saw you for five to ten minutes and prescribed medicine, and then you drove 20 minutes to the pharmacy to pick it up—and that’s if you didn’t have to then go see a specialist for additional evaluation, where the process repeated and could take even longer for an appointment,” said Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. “Customers want and deserve better, and that’s what One Medical has been working and innovating on for more than a decade. Together, we believe we can make the health care experience easier, faster, more personal, and more convenient for everyone.”

One Medical sets a high bar for human-centered primary care experiences:

Access to primary care where, when, and

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How to Obtain a USA or Canada Study Visa?

Obtaining a study visa for the USA or Canada can be a complex process, but with the right preparation and attention to detail, it is definitely achievable. One aspect of the application process that often causes confusion is immigration dna testing. This type of testing is sometimes required to prove a biological relationship to family members who are sponsoring the applicant. To make the process as stress-free as possible, it is recommended to use a reputable DNA testing company. You can google “ddc legal dna testing near me” to find the closest laboratories in your area. It is also important to ensure you are eligible for a study visa. You will need to meet certain criteria such as having a valid passport and being accepted into a recognized educational institution. There are several requirements you must meet to be eligible for a study visa in the USA or Canada.

Eligibility requirements for study visas

To be eligible for a study visa in the USA or Canada, you must meet several requirements. Firstly, you must be accepted into a recognized educational institution and have proof of enrolment. This usually involves submitting transcripts, test scores, and a letter of acceptance from the school. Additionally, you must demonstrate that you have sufficient financial resources to support yourself while studying, without relying on employment in the country. This typically requires showing bank statements or a financial sponsor letter. Other factors that can impact eligibility include your current immigration status, criminal record, and health. For example, if you have a communicable disease or a serious medical condition, you may not be eligible for a study visa.

How to prepare for the study visa interview?

The study visa interview is a critical part of the visa application process, and it is important to prepare thoroughly to increase your chances of success. To prepare for the interview, research the country and educational institution, be honest, practice answering common questions, dress professionally, and be confident. Be sure to bring all necessary documents to the interview, such as your passport and financial statements, and present yourself as knowledgeable and enthusiastic about your plans for studying in the USA or Canada. By following these tips, you can make a positive impression on the visa officer and increase your chances of a successful study visa application. You must be very patient and organize everything before applying for a student visa. If you have doubts, it is better to seek the support of a professional advisor than to fail during the student visa application.… Read More...

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DVIDS – News – Military public health experts provide tips for leaders to improve medical readiness


By V. Hauschild, MPH, Defense Centers for Public Health-Aberdeen

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. – For more than a decade, military medical surveillance data analyzed by the Army Public Health Center, now Defense Centers for Public Health–Aberdeen, identified the same two leading reasons for Soldiers’ seeking medical care:

• Outpatient visits for injuries, especially overuse injuries to the bone and soft tissues of the musculoskeletal system, and

• Health encounters for behavioral health conditions that include adjustment disorders, depressive disorders, substance abuse, posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders and sleep disorders.

[Figure 1]

Army data repeatedly show the number of Soldiers affected by injuries and behavioral health conditions exceeds that for all other groups of medical conditions combined.

“These conditions not only require many clinical visits for treatment but also result in profiles for more days of limited duty than all other medical conditions,” says Dr. Bruce Jones, a medical doctor and retired Army colonel, now the senior injury scientist with the DCPH-A. “The temporary profiles for injuries and behavioral health conditions can affect readiness to deploy.”

Army data show approximately one out of five Soldiers may not be mission ready due to temporary medical profiles resulting from either injuries or behavioral health conditions.

The Army’s 2020 Health of the Force report, also known as the HoF, found musculoskeletal, or MSK, injuries such as overuse injuries resulted in an average of over two months of lost or limited duty time per injury. Behavioral health conditions required an average of almost three months of lost or restricted duty per Soldier receiving care.

“Reducing the severity or impact of overuse injuries and behavioral conditions on Soldiers’ health may enhance a unit’s medical readiness and fighting capability,” says Army Col. Mark Reynolds, director of the DCPH-A Clinical and Epidemiology Directorate.

Reynolds and other CPHE health experts advise commanders and leaders to optimize their unit’s health with the following tips:

TIP 1. Be a More Proactive and Engaged Leader

Leading by example and staying in touch with Soldiers is the first step toward maximizing unit strength.

According to a 2016 APHC study, less than one half of Soldiers surveyed felt leadership prioritized injury prevention and kept them informed of key injuries and risk factors. They felt many leaders were unaware of the magnitude of the adverse impacts of injury to the Army, and/or did not recognize what they as leaders can do to reduce these injuries.

According to one respondent noted in the report, “Changing the mentality of injury is a must within the military. … It starts with the drill sergeants not wanting to look weak in front of their trainees and extends up through the [Chain of Command].”

Another respondent, a medical provider, noted “Leaders … play a direct role in helping the junior Soldiers prevent and recover from injury…For example, I am treating a patient with an ankle fracture. He is in a cast and on crutches yet was made to walk for PT.”

Inconsistent leadership support or awareness

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Medical Conditions & Use of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Introduction

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), which is an alternative to mainstream health care, is widely used worldwide as an integral part of the medical system. It includes treatments from a variety of histories and cultures. According to the WHO, CAM has a long history of use in health maintenance and disease prevention and treatment.1 It represents the sum total of the knowledge, skill, and practices of health maintenance as well as of the prevention, diagnosis, improvement, and treatment of physical and mental illness.2

The prevalence rates of CAM use can be expected to differ between countries because of economic, social, and cultural factors. In the past two decades, the prevalence of CAM used by the general populations was 10.0–48.7% in some European countries,3 while the rate was higher in Asian countries (South Korea: 45.8–69%, Japan: 76%, Lao PDR: 77%, Malaysia: 55.6%).3–5

As one form of CAM, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is one of the popularly used medical/health practices throughout the world.1 TCM is based on unique views on life, on fitness, on diseases, and on the prevention and treatment of diseases that have been formed during its long history of absorption and innovation.6 TCM combines the use of Chinese herbal medicines, acupuncture and moxibustion, massage (tuina), and therapeutic mind/body practices.7 In China, TCM is not considered an alternative form of treatment, as opposed to western medicine, but an integrative complement to western medicine,8 and it is emphasized that equal importance should be placed on both TCM and western medicine in China’s medical system.

In 2020, China counted 4426 TCM hospitals, which amounts to 12.5% of the total number of hospitals, while 86.7% among all types of hospitals in China had dedicated TCM departments. The number of clinical visits to TCM hospitals was approximately 518.5 million in 2020, about 15.6% of the total number of clinical visits to hospitals of all types.9 This proportion shows an upward trend year by year.

In previous studies, more attention has been paid to the application of TCM from the perspective of disease treatment, such as using TCM for cancer treatment10–12 or molecular studies of herbal drugs used to treat a particular disease.13,14 Some studies focused on the attitudes of physicians or medical students toward the TCM.15,16 In particular, there is no data on the opinions of patients with different medical conditions regarding the efficacy of TCM.17

Although TCM plays an important role in China’s medical system, there is a lack of comprehensive understanding of patients’ preferences regarding TCM, especially when it comes to patients with different medical conditions. This study thus aimed to fill this void in the literature.

We therefore mainly focused on the utilization and opinions of TCM in patients, especially regarding the medical conditions of the patients who were willing to use TCM, and assessed via interviews with patients at five different types of hospitals. Additionally, we aimed to reveal the patients’ beliefs

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To prevent medical debt, the U.S. could learn from Germany’s health care system : Shots

Dr. Eckart Rolshoven examines a patient at his clinic in Püttlingen, a small town in Germany’s Saarland region. Although Germany has a largely private health care system, patients pay nothing out-of-pocket when they come to see him.

Pasquale D’Angiolillo for KHN


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Pasquale D’Angiolillo for KHN


Dr. Eckart Rolshoven examines a patient at his clinic in Püttlingen, a small town in Germany’s Saarland region. Although Germany has a largely private health care system, patients pay nothing out-of-pocket when they come to see him.

Pasquale D’Angiolillo for KHN

PÜTTLINGEN, Germany — Almost every day, Dr. Eckart Rolshoven sees the long shadow of coal mining in his clinic near the big brownstone church that dominates this small town in Germany’s Saarland.

The region’s last-operating coal shaft, just a few miles away, closed a decade ago, ending centuries of mining in the Saarland, a mostly rural state tucked between the Rhine River and the French border. But the mines left a difficult legacy, as they have in coal regions in the United States, including West Virginia.

Many of Rolshoven’s patients battle lung diseases and chronic pain from years of work underground. “We had an industry with a lot of illnesses,” said Rolshoven, a genial primary care physician who at 71 is nearing the end of a long career.

The Saarland’s residents are sicker than elsewhere in Germany. And like West Virginia, the region faces economic hurdles. For decades, German politicians, business leaders and unions have labored to adjust to the mining industry’s slow demise.

But this is a healthier place than West Virginia in many respects. The region’s residents are less likely to die prematurely, data shows. And on average, they live four years longer than West Virginians.

There is another important difference between this former coal territory and its Appalachian counterpart: West Virginia’s economic struggles have been compounded by medical debt, a burden that affects about 100 million people in the U.S. — in no state more than West Virginia.

In the Saarland, medical debt is practically nonexistent. It’s so rare in Germany that the federal government’s statistical office doesn’t even track it.

The reason isn’t government health care. Germany, like the U.S., has a largely private health care system that relies on private doctors and private insurers. Like Americans, many Germans enroll in a health plan through work, splitting the cost with their employer.

But Germany has long done something the U.S. does not: It strictly limits how much patients have to pay out of their own pockets for a trip to the doctor, the hospital or the pharmacy.

Rolshoven’s patients pay nothing when they see him. That not only bolsters their health, he said. It helps maintain what Rolshoven called social peace. “It’s really important not to have to worry about these problems,” he said.

German health officials, business leaders and economists say the access to affordable health care has also helped the Saarland get back on its feet economically, bolstered by the assurance that workers

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Racist Medical doctors and Organ Burglars: Why So Lots of Black People today Distrust the Well being Care Procedure

Discrimination, absence of accessibility, mistrust and mistreatment are not one of a kind to Black Us citizens Latinos and other minority teams practical experience it, far too. Inadequate men and women often hold out more time for worse treatment in underfunded, understaffed — and normally de facto racially segregated — public hospitals and clinics than richer, superior-insured men and women. And they know it.

Increasing up in Detroit, Michael Winans, now in his early 40s, was “too active obtaining by” to spend consideration to a syphilis experiment that finished right before he was born. But distrust of the professional medical establishment flowed in his spouse and children. His grandmother survived a stroke but died in the course of program observe-ups the loved ones suspected sub-par treatment. Later, his mother hesitated when she necessary fibroid surgery. When she last but not least went in, she ended up with an unforeseen hysterectomy. Winans appreciates that from time to time takes place, that the considerably less invasive procedure is not always more than enough. But was it required for his mom? He miracles.

“When you expand up in a predominantly Black town like Detroit, you can go significantly of your lifestyle without seriously interacting with somebody of yet another race,” he says. “If the initially time is when you have a well being concern … you request your self, ‘Does this man or woman care for me? Or see me as a variety?’ It is another level of prospective trepidation or worry.”

The Black American working experience is acquiring distinct scrutiny correct now, together with hopes for improve. Some of the folks interviewed for this story have been additional optimistic than other individuals about development. But none saw the wellness program as colour-blind.

“People see that I’m Black before they recognize — if they ever get to the place that they notice — that I have a PhD.,” claims Cara James, who ran the Office environment of Minority Wellness at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Companies throughout the Obama administration. James, who also formerly led operate on racial disparities at the Kaiser Loved ones Basis, is now the president and CEO of Grantmakers in Wellbeing, which operates with foundations and philanthropies to enhance well being care.

Points may have gotten better since the days when James would thoroughly pick which go well with to use as she accompanied her grandmother, an agricultural employee in the South with tiny formal training, to health-related appointments. But they have not enhanced plenty of.

“We are human,” she says, “We have perceptions and biases about others.”

All those biases can be refined — or not.

When Matthew Thompson, a economic officer at a reproductive wellbeing business in Texas, fell ill shortly immediately after relocating to Austin a couple yrs again, he did not however have a regular health practitioner but managed to get an appointment with a person. That health care provider, who was white, took a person appear at Thompson, a 40-some thing Black male,

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