Surgery Sticker Shock; Games Drugmakers Play; Psychedelic Science

Bill Of The Month: $15,076 For 4 Tiny Screws

How To Raise A Human The next story in our parenting series looks at the surprising benefit of singing and dancing with your kids. A researcher found that babies who were bounced in sync with a dance partner were more likely to volunteer to help than babies who were bounced out of sync. Read the story here.    Stay tuned next week for our story on babies and sleep — you won't want to miss it!   Eleven days after surgery, Sherry Young of Lawton, Okla., got a letter from her insurer saying it hadn't approved her hospital stay. Nick Oxford for Kaiser Health News   Sticker Shock Jolts Oklahoma Patient: $15,076 For 4 Tiny Screws Sherry Young’s surgeon had a plan to relieve the pain in her left foot. He would rework a few bones and then use four tiny screws to put things back together. She got a bill for $115,527 for a three-day hospital stay for the foot procedure and the surgical repair of a painful shoulder she had done at the same time. Afterward, her insurer rejected the hospital stay as medically unnecessary. In a panic, Young asked for an itemized accounting of the charges. That’s when she learned that the four tiny screws came to $15,076. “Unless the metal the screws are made of was mined on an asteroid, I don’t why tiny pieces of equipment should cost over $3,000 each,” Young said. Young shared her bill and her story with Kaiser Health News’ Liz Szabo and NPR. It’s the latest in our monthly series investigating real-life medical bills. If you’d like to tell us about your experience, you can do it here.   Katherine Streeter for NPR   How Celgene Gamed The System To Keep Generics At Bay When Celgene Corp. first started marketing the drug Revlimid to treat multiple myeloma in 2006, the price was $6,195 for 21 capsules, a month's supply. By the time David Mitchell started taking Revlimid in November 2010, Celgene had bumped the price up to about $8,000 a month. When he took his last month's worth of pills in April 2016, the sticker price had reached $10,691. By March 2017, the list price had reached $16,691.   NPR’s Alison Kodjak takes a look at how Celgene raised prices while using a variety of patents and regulatory maneuvers to keep generic competitors at bay.   Now, the Trump administration is calling out some of the tactics that Celgene and other drugmakers have used to protect their products from pricing pressure.   Images Etc Ltd/Getty Images   A 'Reluctant Psychonaut' Embraces The 'New Science' Of Psychedelics Author Michael Pollan had always been curious about psychoactive plants, but his interest skyrocketed when he heard about a research study in which people with terminal cancer were given the active ingredient in "magic mushrooms" to help them deal with their distress. "This seemed like such a crazy idea that I began looking into it," Pollan told Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air. Before long, he decided to try various psychedelic drugs himself. Pollan describes the experiences and the research into psychedelics in his new book, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence. Your Shots editor, Scott Hensley You received this message because you're subscribed to our Health emails. |  Unsubscribe  |  Privacy Policy | NPR 1111 N. CAPITOL ST. NE WASHINGTON DC 20002