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Following a cyberattack on the largest health insurer in the United States last month, health care providers continue to scramble as insurance payments and prescription orders continue to be disrupted and physicians lose an estimated $100 million a day. That estimate was generated by First Health Advisory, a cybersecurity firm that specializes in the health industry, according to the American Medical Association (AMA). “This massive breach and its wide-ranging repercussions have hit physician practices across the country, risking patients’ access to their doctors and straining viability of medical practices themselves,” AMA President Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld said in a news release. “Against the backdrop of persistent Medicare cuts, rising practice costs and spiraling regulatory burdens, this unparalleled cyberattack and disruption threatens the viability of many practices, particularly small practices and those in rural and underserved areas,” he added. “This is an immense crisis demanding immediate attention.” How did the crisis begin? The security breach was first detected on Feb. 21 at Change Healthcare, part of Optum Inc., which is in turn owned by UnitedHealth Group. In a report filed that day with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, UnitedHealth Group told government officials that it had been forced to sever some of Change Healthcare’s vast digital network from its clients. It hasn’t yet been able to restore all of those services. In its latest update on… read on > read on >

Lots of seniors are regularly taking low-dose aspirin in hopes of preventing heart attacks and strokes, even though updated guidelines often advise against it. About one in four older adults take aspirin at least three times a week, according to results from the University of Michigan’s National Poll on Health Aging. However, many seniors who take low-dose aspirin may not need to do this, researchers said. Nearly three in five (57%) of people ages 50 to 80 who take aspirin regularly don’t have a history of heart disease, poll results show. Those folks should talk with a doctor before starting or stopping aspirin use, because current guidelines mostly call for daily aspirin in people who already have heart disease or have survived a stroke or heart attack, experts said. “Aspirin is no longer a one-size-fits-all preventive tool for older adults, which for decades it was touted as,” said Dr. Jordan Schaefer, a hematologist at the University of Michigan School of Medicine. “This poll shows we have a long way to go to make sure aspirin use is consistent with current knowledge.” National guidelines for aspirin use have evolved in recent years because the over-the-counter drug can increase a person’s risk of dangerous bleeding. Experts now weigh the risk of bleeding against the benefits of preventing blood clots that can cause heart attacks and strokes. Because… read on > read on >

For nearly a week, prescription drug orders have been disrupted at thousands of pharmacies as the largest health insurer in the United States tries to fully restore services following a cyberattack. The security breach was first detected last Wednesday at Change Healthcare, a division of UnitedHealth Group, and two senior federal law enforcement officials told the New York Times that the hackers appear to be from another country. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, UnitedHealth Group said it had been forced to disconnect some of Change Healthcare’s vast digital network from its clients, and it hasn’t yet been able to restore all of those services. Change Healthcare handles roughly 15 billion transactions a year, representing nearly one in three U.S. patient records, the Times reported. This latest cyberattack underscores the vulnerability of health care data, particularly the privacy of patients’ personal information. Change Healthcare helps pharmacies verify a patient’s insurance coverage for their prescriptions, and some reports indicate that some people have been forced to pay for their prescriptions in cash, the Times reported. Shortly after UnitedHealth discovered the security breach, the company shut down several services, including those allowing pharmacies to quickly check what a patient owes for a medication, the Times reported While national drug store chains like Walgreens report limited effects, smaller pharmacies tell a different story. “For… read on > read on >

People who’ve suffered a moderate to severe traumatic brain injury have a greatly increased risk of brain cancer, a new study of military service members finds. Brain cancer is relatively uncommon, occurring in fewer than 1% of people in the United States, researchers said. But service members who had a moderate or severe brain injury were at 90% increased risk for developing malignant brain cancer, according to analysis of health data for more than 1.9 million veterans. And penetrating traumatic brain injury — where an object punctures the skull and enters the brain — was associated with a tripled risk of brain cancer, results show. While this was observed only in the military, civilians might be expected to run similar risks from brain injuries, researchers said. “Traumatic brain injury is not only common in the military, but also in the general population as well,” said lead researcher Dr. Ian Stewart, an Air Force colonel and professor of medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. “While these results may not be generalizable to the population at large, given that military cohorts are different from the general population in many ways, it is possible that more severe TBI increases risk in the civilian population as well,” Stewart added in a university news release. However, the study also found that mild traumatic brain injury —… read on > read on >

Driving at night can be risky business, as a dangerous combination of darkness and the glare of bright lights can make it hard to see the road, but one expert offers some safety tips. “If you have to drive in the evening time and you’re not comfortable, try to stick with roads that you know and make sure you know where you’re going so you don’t have to be looking at street signs, which are harder to see at night,” said Dr. Sumitra Khandelwal, a professor of ophthalmology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. If you do have to venture out in your car after dark, check your vehicle first, she stressed. “One of the first things to do for nighttime driving has nothing to do with the eyes; it’s to optimize all aspects of driving with your car that allow for better nighttime vision,” Khandelwal explained. A dirty windshield can make starbursts, halos, glares, smearing and streaking more apparent in the dark, so cleaning it is critical for clear vision. Headlights get dirty just as easily, particularly if it rains and mud or water gets splattered on them, so Khandelwal recommends wiping off any dirt or splash marks before you get behind the wheel. Even after cleaning your windshield and headlights, there are plenty of vision issues that can make it difficult for… read on > read on >

Many studies have found that getting high on weed and then getting behind the wheel is dangerous for young drivers, and now new research finds it’s no different for seniors. In a driving-simulator experiment, seniors who were long-term marijuana smokers were weaving in and out of their lanes 30 minutes after getting high, Canadian researchers report. The effect was not seen when the same drivers were tested again three hours after smoking weed. However, the seniors themselves still rated their ability to drive as “impaired.” There was one silver lining: Senior tokers tended to slow their driving speed once high, perhaps because they knew they were intoxicated, said a team led by Patricia Di Ciano, a scientist at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. Di Ciano’s team noted that the percentage of aging Boomers who regularly use marijuana continues to rise. They believe that “older adults may be particularly affected by cannabis, given age-related changes in cognition,” they added. Many seniors are also prescribed medications, and the combination of those meds with marijuana could also be problematic. While there’s been lots of study on the effect of marijuana on younger drivers, the effects of cannabis on driving among seniors “remain unknown,” according to the Toronto team. To help answer the question, they recruited 31 seniors, averaging about 69 years of age, to… read on > read on >

Do you drive with the window open? Sip coffee behind the wheel? Blast the car radio and sing along? Fidget and fuss in the driver’s seat? These sorts of driving habits could be a sign that you’re getting poor sleep because you suffer from sleep apnea, a new study suggests. Folks with sleep apnea frequently employ more than three of these strategies while driving, in an attempt to remain awake and alert, British researchers found. “Our research suggests that untreated OSA [obstructive sleep apnea] patients often use coping strategies that could be surrogate markers of sleepiness,” said researcher Dr. Akshay Dwarakanath, a consultant in respiratory medicine at the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust. People with sleep apnea have breathing that stops and starts during the night, often causing them to repeatedly wake up. They also tend to snore loudly. “Up to one fifth of collisions on the road may be caused by fatigue or sleepiness,” Dwarakanath said. “Many OSA patients drive either for personal or for professional reasons, and there is good evidence to suggest that some patients are at increased risk of collisions on the road.” For this study, researchers compared 119 people with sleep apnea with 105 people without the sleep disorder. All participants answered questions about their sleepiness in general, sleepiness while driving, strategies they use to stay alert and their history… read on > read on >

Up to 9% of American teens say they’ve engaged in what’s known as “digital self-harm” — anonymously posting negative comments about themselves on social media. As is the case with acts of physical self-harm such as cutting, this “virtual” self-harm is associated with a higher risk for thinking about or attempting suicide, according to a startling new study. It found that teens who engaged in digital self-harm were up to seven times more likely to have considered suicide and as much as 15 times more likely to have made an attempt. “We can’t say that one causes the other, but we do know they are connected in some way,” said lead author Justin Patchin. He’s co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. But why would anyone want to virtually trash themselves to begin with? Patchin said that his own research has identified multiple motivations. Self-hatred is one, he noted, as is attention-seeking. In other cases, it can be depression, an attempt to be funny, or simply boredom. Some teens admit that it’s just their way to suss out how others might react to examples of bullying, in order to “know if they were talking about me behind my back.” To gain more insight, Patchin’s team took a deep dive into survey responses offered up by nearly 5,000 middle and high… read on > read on >

Migraines are not only extremely painful, but they also appear to pose a driving risk for seniors, a new study warns. Older adult drivers recently diagnosed with migraines are three times more likely to be involved in a car crash, researchers reported recently in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. “Migraine headaches affect more than 7% of U.S. adults over the age of 60,” noted lead researcher Dr. Carolyn DiGuiseppi, a professor with the University of Colorado School of Public Health. “The U.S. population is aging, which means increasing numbers of older adult drivers could see their driving abilities affected by migraine symptoms previously not experienced,” DiGuiseppi added in a university news release. “These symptoms include sleepiness, decreased concentration, dizziness, debilitating head pain and more.” For the study, researchers tracked more than 2,500 drivers ages 65 to 79 in five sites across the United States. A previous diagnosis of migraine did not appear to influence a driver’s crash risk, results show. But a new migraine diagnosis brought with it a threefold increase in the risk of a wreck within a year, researchers found. Medications commonly prescribed for migraines did not appear to influence either crash risk or driving habits, the researchers noted. “These results have potential implications for the safety of older patients that should be addressed,” DiGuiseppi said. “Patients with a new migraine… read on > read on >

The Vietnam war was a traumatic event in American history, most especially for those who served. However, there’s a glimmer of good news from recent research: Suicide rates for Vietnam veterans over the past four decades were no higher than that of the general population. Still, between 1979 and 2019 — the period covered by the new study — almost 100,000 Vietnam War vets did lose their lives to suicide, the researchers noted. Those tragedies “merit the ongoing attention of health policymakers and mental health professionals,” they said. Suicide has long been a concern among U.S. veterans generally. According to background information in the study, Veterans Administration data for 2022 shows that “although veterans composed only 7.6% of the U.S. population, they accounted for almost 14% of US suicides.” In 2021, VA data showed that suicide accounted for about 32 deaths out of every 100,000 veterans — double the rate of suicide seen among civilians. Did the trauma faced by soldiers in the Vietnam conflict lead to even higher rates of suicide? To find out, Tim Bullman and colleagues at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, D.C., analyzed health data for over 9.5 million Vietnam veterans. Almost all were men, and close to 2.5 million served directly (were deployed) in Vietnam during the conflict. Tracking rates of suicide between 1979 and 2019, Pullman’s team… read on > read on >