Physicians writing on KevinMD about policy as it reaches the exam room: prior authorization and the state and federal rules now written for it, scope of practice laws state by state, the CDC opioid guideline and what forced tapers did to patients, and public health from vaccination to the pandemic. Four maintained records draw on this archive: Prior authorization: what physicians say, in their own words, Scope of practice: what physicians, nurse practitioners, and PAs say, in their own words, Opioids: what physicians and pain patients say, in their own words, and Vaccines: what physicians say, in their own words.

Why I left the clinic to lead health care from the inside

Conditions and Diseases
September 12, 2025

I didn’t leave medicine because I stopped believing in the healing power of the white coat. I left because I realized that healing, in today’s health care system, often requires more than a stethoscope.

My journey began in India, where I earned my medical degree and practiced within a health care system that, like many around the world, faces the dual challenges of limited resources and high patient demand. I saw …

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Why I left the clinic to lead health care from the inside

Why your health care dashboard isn’t working and how to fix it

Health Policy
September 11, 2025

In today’s data-rich but insight-poor health care environments, the ability to measure performance isn’t the problem. The real challenge is turning that measurement into meaningful, actionable insight—and more importantly, sustainable improvement. I’ve seen countless KPI dashboards rolled out with great fanfare, only to become screen clutter that no one trusts, understands, or uses to drive change.

To avoid that fate, you must build dashboards rooted in operational reality, tailored to the …

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Why your health care dashboard isn’t working and how to fix it

How new loan caps could destroy diversity in medical education

Health Policy
September 10, 2025

You, there beyond the words of this page. Oh, how I wish I could step beyond this limited medium and have a one-on-one conversation with you, as this matter is of the utmost importance to me. Unfortunately, I can do no such thing. As a result, I must lay out the groundwork by which this spewing of feelings will work henceforth. We medical students are fond of only wasting our …

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How new loan caps could destroy diversity in medical education

The ethical crossroads of medicine and legislation

Conditions and Diseases
September 8, 2025

Previously, I wrote about politicians regulating medical practice. I support regulations that protect individual or public health. However, when these laws are not evidence-based, misguided or frivolous, and potentially harmful, as occurred when 16 state legislatures permitted over-the-counter sale of ivermectin, they are unacceptable.

There have been instances when pregnant women, who, because of circumstances, were unable to adhere to physician advice for increased bed rest to avoid premature labor, were …

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The ethical crossroads of medicine and legislation

When doctors breathe the same air: How medical professionals become environmental activists

Conditions and Diseases
September 8, 2025

In the heart of major cities—from New York to Nairobi, Mumbai to Mexico City—medical professionals are confronting more than fevers, injuries, or chronic illness. Increasingly, they face diseases rooted in environmental exposure. From asthma linked to air pollution to cancers tied to industrial toxins, physicians are witnessing firsthand the impact of environmental degradation on human health. For many, this reality transforms them from caregivers into advocates—environmental activists in white coats.

Doctors …

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When doctors breathe the same air: How medical professionals become environmental activists

Ideology, not evidence, fuels the anti-trans agenda

Health Policy
September 7, 2025

Recently, The Hill published an op-ed purporting to be a measured critique of gender-affirming care for youth. In reality, it was a dangerous and misinformed piece of ideological propaganda cloaked in the language of academic concern and propped up by debunked claims and bad faith arguments.

Riffer, who has studied censorship, gender regulation, and the legislative targeting of LGBTQIA+ communities across the U.S., will say …

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Ideology, not evidence, fuels the anti-trans agenda

How Japan and the U.S. can learn from each other to strengthen health care [PODCAST]

Podcast
September 5, 2025
YouTube video

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

Neurologist Vikram Madireddy discusses his article “How Japan and the U.S. can collaborate for better health care,” examining the parallels and contrasts between two of the world’s most influential health systems. Vikram …

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How Japan and the U.S. can learn from each other to strengthen health care [PODCAST]

Health equity in Inland Southern California requires urgent action

Health Policy
September 5, 2025

Inland Southern California stands as one of the most diverse and rapidly growing regions in the United States. With a rich mix of cultures, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds, it also faces significant health disparities. From disproportionate rates of chronic diseases like diabetes and hypertension to barriers in accessing essential care, marginalized communities in the region continue to suffer the consequences of a health care system that often leaves them behind. …

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Health equity in Inland Southern California requires urgent action

How racism and policy failures shape reproductive health in America

Medical Education
September 4, 2025

Historical, cultural, social, and political factors contribute to the disparities in reproductive health, making it a multifaceted and deeply rooted issue in the fabric of the United States. Historically, the legacy of slavery and the American eugenics movements established race-based medicine, systems, and stereotypes that continue to influence provider bias and patient mistrust, contributing to the ongoing inequities in reproductive health. Culturally, persistent stereotypes, particularly toward Black women, have led …

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How racism and policy failures shape reproductive health in America

How American medicine profits from despair

Health Policy
September 1, 2025

American medicine has mastered a perverse art: paying more to achieve less.

We call it “cost-cutting,” but it is a system of engineered backwardness. We underfund clinical staff, then spend fortunes on lawyers to defend the inevitable errors. We employ armies to process bills while insurers employ armies to deny them. We treat the eyes, the teeth, and the mind as optional accessories, as if they could be unbolted from the …

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How American medicine profits from despair

What I learned about health care by watching who gets left behind

Health Policy
September 1, 2025

Before I started medical school, I used to pass the same government hospital every day on my way to school. It was one of those places that offered “free treatment,” but even as a teenager, I could sense that the care was often just for the name. I remember going to school the next day at around 6:30 a.m., I saw a man sitting outside the hospital, the same man …

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What I learned about health care by watching who gets left behind

How the One Big Beautiful Bill could reshape your medical career

Health Policy
August 23, 2025

The so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” was passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law by the president on July 4, 2025. This bill will have a sweeping impact on the already declining health care landscape in America.

If you’ve been feeling a mix of confusion and frustration, you’re not alone. This isn’t just policy. This is your career, your practice, and your patients.

This bill brings the largest cuts …

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How the One Big Beautiful Bill could reshape your medical career

Why the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is essential to saving lives

Health Policy
August 18, 2025

You may have noticed the Supreme Court announced several crucial rulings on controversial topics. Buried in most coverage was a note that the Court upheld the legality of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF).

Most folks have no clue what the USPSTF is or does. To people like me, it is crucial to advancing the early detection and prevention of cancer in the United States. For now, we can be …

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Why the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is essential to saving lives

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Brooklyn hepatitis C cluster reveals hidden dangers in outpatient clinics

Health Policy
August 17, 2025

An excerpt from Disease Detectives: True Stories of NYC Outbreaks.

Dr. Westyn Branch-Elliman contributed to this chapter.

There exist within NYC, communities that feel more like a small town than a perspiring slab of metropolis. People know and speak to their neighbors, greet each other warmly on the street, and watch over each other’s children. Single- and two-family brick homes with small, manicured lawns line quiet streets. There is usually one …

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Brooklyn hepatitis C cluster reveals hidden dangers in outpatient clinics

Breaking the martyrdom trap in medicine

Physician
August 15, 2025

In medicine, self-sacrifice is praised. We call it dedication. We call it loyalty. However, sometimes it is just exhaustion wearing a badge of honor, and it keeps us complicit in systems that harm us and our patients.

Burnout does not kick the door in. It just shows up quietly. One day you notice you have not called a friend back in weeks. Lunch, if you can call it that, is an …

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Breaking the martyrdom trap in medicine

Public health under fire: Vaccine battle hits federal court

Physician
August 14, 2025

Well, that didn’t take long, did it?

Today’s “controversy du jour” is prevention in health care. More specifically, vaccines and their role in preventing disease, disability, and death while promoting health and lifespan.

Prevention is the mother’s milk of health care. It is core to reducing illness and disease. Sadly, the udders producing that milk are drying up quicker than you can shake a fist at what is happening before our very …

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Public health under fire: Vaccine battle hits federal court

Why nearly 800 U.S. hospitals are at risk of shutting down

Health Policy
August 13, 2025

Over the past several years, each time a periodic U.S. hospital closures report is released, the number failing financial stress tests and at extreme risk of closing rises. The number now approaches 800 nationwide.

Meanwhile, many project that the just-passed One Big Beautiful Bill will rapidly increase these closures and further degrade health care access for American citizens.

Touted reasons for accelerating hospital closures, especially impacting …

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Why nearly 800 U.S. hospitals are at risk of shutting down

When the clinic becomes the battlefield: Defending rural health care in the age of AI-driven attacks

Physician
August 10, 2025

The message came through before dawn: “Our EHR is down. No access to patient charts.”

In a rural clinic, that is not just a technical inconvenience. It is the mother who drove forty miles before sunrise to get her child’s asthma medication, the farmer who left the fields to review his lab results, the elderly patient who cannot make another trip for months. When systems go dark, there is no backup …

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When the clinic becomes the battlefield: Defending rural health care in the age of AI-driven attacks

Why smartwatches won’t save American health care

Physician
August 7, 2025

History has a habit of repeating itself.

Just prior to the 1929 crash, ads supporting the presidential candidacy of Herbert Hoover promoted a tag line promoting prosperity that has lived in infamy: “A chicken for every pot and a car in every garage.”

Now we have Robert Kennedy—our Secretary of Health and Human Services, the cheerleader for the “Make America Healthy Again” movement—promoting another grand idea to solve our nation’s …

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Why smartwatches won’t save American health care

AI can help heal the fragmented U.S. health care system

Health Technology
August 6, 2025

The U.S. health care system is a paradox. It’s the most expensive in the world—costing over $4.5 trillion annually—yet produces some of the worst health outcomes among developed nations. Fragmentation is at the core of this crisis. Patients bounce between primary care doctors, specialists, emergency rooms, and insurers, often with no single point of coordination. The result? Redundant tests, misdiagnoses, delayed care, and frustrated clinicians.

Enter artificial intelligence—not as a silver …

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AI can help heal the fragmented U.S. health care system

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