Physician-researcher studying medical decisions, ethics, and health policy.
Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Peter Ubel
The Next Big Health Crisis May Be Hiding In Your Liver Original
Anterior View Of The Liver. (Photo By Encyclopaedia Britannica/UIG Via Getty Images) Universal Images Group via Getty Images I’m going to tell you about a deadly and common liver disease. The disease affects one in three American adults. It is the leading cause of cirrhosis (a term for a family of end-stage liver diseases). It is also the #1 reason people need lifesaving liver transplants. The disease is not alcoholic liver disease. Nor is it liver cancer, or any kind of viral hepatitis.
Online Crowdfunding Campaigns for People Living With ALS Demonstrate Financial Burden and Unmet Needs
1 Introduction As physical function for people living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS; pALS) declines and they lose the capacity to work, their needs for medical care, caregiving assistance, and adaptive equipment increase [1].
How Self-Dealing Is Bankrupting Hospitals And Nursing Homes Original
Building with large H sign for hospital getty There are lots of reasons many community hospitals and nursing homes are at risk of bankruptcy. Thanks to healthcare cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill, many of these institutions are caring for an increasing number of people who no longer have adequate insurance. In addition, unless the institutions are part of a large multi-hospital company, they have difficulty negotiating generous reimbursement from insurers. Oh, and one more thing.
Reducing Medicaid Funding Is About To Increase Cancer Deaths Original
Woman receiving mammogram getty The Big Beautiful Budget significantly reduced funding for Medicaid. It is natural to think about these budget cuts in the abstract: this many dollars saved; this many people without health insurance. But it is critical to think about this more concretely. Due to these cuts, thousands of people will live with undetected cancers, these growths no longer discovered by routine screening tests.
Getting Surgery? Here’s A Question To Ask The Hospital Original
Surgical procedure underway Getty Images Recently, I discussed an important question to ask your surgeon before agreeing to undergo a procedure. There’s another question you should ask, and it relates to the hospital where the surgery will be performed. You need to ask whether a private equity firm owns the hospital. Here’s why. Private equity firms have been acquiring hospitals and clinical practices for a decade now, transforming the practices in ways that will maximize profits.
Before Getting An Operation, Ask Your Surgeon This Question Original
Surgeon putting on mask in preparation for a surgery getty I have had a dozen surgical procedures in my life. Some have gone well. Some I prefer not to talk about. I did some smart things before each procedure: I pursued every viable nonoperative treatment; I got opinions from multiple physicians about whether I am likely to benefit from the procedure; and I sought out surgeons at elite institutions.
Some Private Equity Firms Would Rather Let People Go Blind Than Reduce Their Profits Original
The patient noted tiny gray flecks drifting across his field of vision a week ago. He’d try to look at them, and they seemed to scatter like a cockroach after you turn on the kitchen light. Weird; annoying even – but the floaters did not seem urgent. That soon changed. Seven days later, he started losing his vision; it felt like a curtain was coming down over his left eye. He was within hours of permanently losing sight in that eye, his retina detaching from the back of his eyeball.
コーヒーは体に悪くない──そう言える理由がまた1つ 最新研究 | Forbes JAPAN 公式サイト（フォーブス ジャパン）
コーヒーは、数々の健康問題の原因だと濡れ衣を着せられてきた。専門家のなかには、コーヒーは脱水を招くと語ってきた者もいる。確かにカフェインには軽い利尿作用があり、尿意を促す。しかし、その結果として増える排尿量は、1杯のコーヒーとともに体内に取り込まれる水分によって十分に補われる。 コーヒーが心臓発作や脳卒中を引き起こすとも言われてきたが、そのような関連はないと示す研究が明らかになっている。 なかには、コーヒーが身長の伸びを止めると誤って主張した専門家さえいる。「コーヒーが子どもの発育を妨げる」という俗説を過度に心配する必要はない。毎日のコーヒーが将来の可能性を狭めることはないのだ。 しかし、コーヒーに関する潜在的なリスクとして、より現実味をもって長らく専門家を悩ませてきたものがある。心房細動のような異常なリズムを介して、心拍が速くなりすぎるのではないかという懸念だ。 ところが最近の研究によれば、この懸念さえも大幅に誇張されていたようだ。...
Another Way Coffee Won’t Kill You Original
Latte or a health food drink? Gado via Getty Images Coffee has been falsely accused of causing a host of health problems. Experts have said coffee will lead to dehydration; and while caffeine is a mild diuretic – it makes you pee – that increased urination is more than made up for by the water taken in with each cup of Java. They have said coffee will cause heart attacks and strokes, only for studies to show no such link. Some experts have even falsely claimed that coffee will stunt your growth.
Medicare Can Save $4 Billion On Four Cancer Drugs – Can You Guess Which Ones? Original
Medicare and the cost of cancer drugs getty For most of our nations’ history, Medicare was not allowed to negotiate the price of drugs. That meant pharmaceutical companies could bring drugs to market at any price without worrying that Medicare would refuse to pay for their products. Then came the Inflation Reduction Act, a big (I won’t say whether it’s beautiful or not) piece of legislation passed in 2022 by the Democrats, without a single Republican vote.
Upset About The High Price Of Your Hospital Stay? Medicaid Cuts Might Be To Blame Original
Under the Big Beautiful Bill, the federal government is making steep cuts to Medicaid funding. Many people, including some prominent Republicans, find these cuts morally disturbing, believing that basic healthcare coverage should be treated as a right in a country as wealthy as ours. But suppose you are not disturbed by Medicaid cuts. Here’s another thing to consider. Those cuts could increase the price you pay for medical care. Here’s why. Medicaid funding cuts lead to hospital closures.
Are Nursing Homes Lying About Their Patients To Increase Profits? You Decide Original
A Nursing Home resident using a walker Getty Images Hospitals are expensive places. But healthcare spending doesn’t end at discharge. Many hospitalized patients are discharged to treatment sites like skilled nursing facilities (called SNFs or “sniffs” by policy wonks). Medicare alone spends more than $50 billion per year on such care. Medicare administrators long wondered whether some SNFs were offering unnecessary therapies to increase their revenue.
A Doctor Clears Up 5 Life-Threatening Misconceptions About Blood Pressure
Blood pressure being measured Getty Images I remeasured his blood pressure. It was still 150/90. I asked if he had taken his blood pressure medicines that morning: “No, doc,” he replied. “I only take it on days I’m feeling pressured.” I clearly hadn’t done a good job of helping my patient understand his high blood pressure.
Thinking About IV Hydration At A Nearby Medical Spa? Think Again
On a hot summer day in Texas two years ago, Jenifer Cleveland visited a medical spa to receive IV hydration. Her primary care physician had not diagnosed her with dehydration, and probably wasn’t even aware she was about to receive the “treatment.” Entering one of the therapy suites, she laid down while a mixture of vitamins and electrolytes began pouring into her 47-year-old veins. Before the infusion was complete, she died of sudden cardiac arrest.
This Online Program Could Be The Solution To Your Chronic Pain
Patient receiving online therapy getty About one in five Americans suffer from high impact chronic pain – enough pain to interfere with at least one major life activity. A lot of these Americans live in rural areas, where access to high-quality pain treatment can be limited. Fortunately, there is a treatment option that can significantly reduce chronic pain, and it is only a laptop away.
The Most Important Thing You Need To Know About End Of Life Planning
Do you need a living will or something else? getty I don’t like thinking about my inevitable death, much less spending time planning for it. But if I am not careful, when the time comes, I will receive burdensome medical care that I would have hoped to avoid: last ditch surgery, a frantic transfer to the ICU, maybe a feeding tube that only prolongs my suffering. How do I avoid that fate? How should I plan for the end of my life?
Hopping Mad Over Drug Company Product Hopping
The medicines on these shelves might result from product hopping Getty Images Corrected, Jan. 15, 2026: This story originally stated that the state of California had sued Gilead. It has been updated to note that many individual plaintiffs sued the company.
Hopping Mad Over Drug Company Product Hopping
The medicines on these shelves might result from product hopping Getty Images The state of California is suing Gilead Sciences over its delay of an HIV drug, a move that critics of the pharmaceutical industry call “product hopping.” Regardless of how the lawsuit comes out, the company’s actions strike me as deeply immoral and ought to leave all of us hopping mad. Here’s what we know. In the late 1990s, Gilead was investigating two HIV drugs each with the same active ingredient: tenofovir.
Try To Guess Which Chemotherapy Saves The Most Lives
You have metastatic cancer and must make a life or death decision—deciding upon a chemotherapy. Here are your options, drawn from real clinical trial data. Chemo 1: Will increase your life expectancy from 12 to 15 months. Chemo 2: Increases your chance of being alive at one year by 12%. In other words, one out of every eight patients receiving the chemotherapy survive for one year who would have otherwise died by that time. Does that chemotherapy sound better? How about another drug – Chemo3.
Hope For People With Chronic Pain
A breathing technique to relieve stress and pain getty Chronic pain often depends as much or more on the brain's response to pain signals as it does on any bodily damage responsible for those signals. Thus, effective pain treatment could hinge on helping people develop ways to cope with their pain. Consider a treatment program called Pain Skills Coping Training, henceforth PCST. The training is centered largely on talk therapy, in individual or group settings.
Your Doctor Recommends Robotic Surgery - You Should Be Skeptical
Robotic arms controlled by a doctor Getty Images Your physician assures you that you should have robotic surgery. Less pain, less blood loss, and faster recovery. The decision seems like a no-brainer. But is your surgeon enthusiastic about the robot for the wrong reasons? As way of background, robotic surgery does not involve a robot autonomously performing procedures.
A Suffocating Truth - Ban Research On Ethnic Bias In Healthcare And People Will Die
Person holding a pulse oximeter © 2024 Bloomberg Finance LP Deprive your body of oxygen and you are minutes away from death. Cut your oxygen level from its normal range, 95 to 100% saturated, to just below 90% and, while you are not necessarily minutes away from death, your body will soon experience permanent damage as its tissues suffocate for lack of this precious chemical.
When The Doctor Is A Sieve, It Strains All Our Resources
Some ER physicians are thought of as "sieves" getty In residency, we had a term for ER docs who always seemed to find an excuse to admit patients to the hospital. We called them sieves.
Four Steps To Saving Money On Hospital Care
Don't wait for the bill to find out what the hospital costs getty My older brother recently had knee replacement surgery. He tried to get information from his orthopedic team about what it would cost. You see, he was about to sign up for Medicare (I told you: older brother) and wanted to know his out-of-pocket costs under different insurance plans. No one on the healthcare team could help him.
How health care branding can unintentionally stigmatize patients
I first grasped the disconnect between health care professionals and the public while designing a brochure for a cornea donation campaign. My original concept featured a young boy smiling, wearing an eye shield—an approachable image meant to encourage public participation. But the overseeing specialist rejected it. He insisted instead on a clinical close-up of a post-surgical eye, sutures and all. To him, it represented medical success. To potential donors, it was unsettling.
Meeting transgender patients where they are: a health care imperative
An excerpt from Pandemics, Poverty, and Politics: Decoding the Social and Political Drivers of Pandemics from Plague to COVID-19. Many transgender (TG) people live with the constant threat of violence. International research documented a total of over 2,000 murders of TG humans between January 2008 and April 2016.43 (These findings are likely greatly underreported.) Even more widespread is nonlethal violence against TG communities.
The Most Expensive Medical Condition Is Not What You Think
What health condition/problem costs the most money, overall, across all patients? getty In a minute, I'm going to ask you what the most expensive medical condition is in the American healthcare system. Before you guess, however, I'm going to explain what I mean by "most expensive." I'm not talking about cost per patient. Some people with cancer receive hundreds of thousands of dollars of chemotherapy per year, as do some children with rare genetic disorders.
My Kidney Cancer Taught Me That Patients Aren’t Consumers
concept - kidney tumor. getty Most normal people, when told they have kidney cancer, worry about what that means for their long-term health. I’m not normal. When I discovered I had a 1cm tumor growing on my left kidney, I wondered: “How much is this going to cost me?” My lack of normality results in part from my profession – I’m a physician and behavioral scientist who believes that every experience is an excuse to conduct research.
Time To Abolish High-Deductible Health Plans
A draft copy of the form proposed for use to apply for low-cost insurance from Medicaid Tuesday Mar. ... More 12, 2013. (AP Photo/J. David Ake) Copyright 2013 AP. All rights reserved. Over the past decade and a half, the American healthcare system has undergone a silent revolution.
The man in seat 11A survived, but why don’t our patients?
On June 12, 2025, Air India flight crashed minutes after takeoff from Ahmedabad in India. Among the 242 people on board, only one survived: a man seated in 11A. That image has stayed with me—not just because of the miraculous survival, but because of what it reveals about systems. Seat 11A was located near the plane’s wing box, the structurally strongest part of the aircraft, and beside an emergency exit. Experts say this rare combination gave him a chance. Everyone else perished.
A Better Way Of Managing Chronic Pain-Courtesy Of Pavlov
Ivan Pavlov and his staff demonstrating condition reflex phenomenon with a dog. Bettmann Archive Pain and I have a long history. I have experienced it firsthand, basically every day since high school. I’ve dealt with it second hand, too—in the two-plus decades I practiced as a primary care physician, pain was the most common problem I addressed with my patients. For all those decades, I held on to a flawed and unrealistic goal of finding pills or procedures that would abolish pain.
Insurance Is So Complicated, Even Doctors Don’t Know What You’ll Have To Pay
Imagine your physician prescribed an expensive new drug for you, hopeful it will control a serious chronic illness. Concerned about its price, you ask what your out-of-pocket costs will be. To help your physician, you even pull out details of your insurance coverage. But even with this information in mind, don’t expect your physician to be able to estimate your costs. The complexity of American health insurance coverage has many physicians bamboozled.
Making Mammograms Automatic - Unintended Consequences Of A Behavioral Economic Intervention
The experiment was simple. A group of behaviorally-minded researchers tested whether patients are more likely to receive mammograms when those tests are automatically scheduled (meaning they can opt out if they want) versus when they have to opt in for the tests. The researchers predicted that people who have to opt out of the test will be much more likely to receive it. Lots of research shows that when you turn a behavior into a default, things are more likely to happen.
Expert Q&A: Dr. Jared Pelo, ambient clinical pioneer, explains how Dragon Copilot helps clinicians deliver better care
This article is sponsored by Microsoft Dragon Copilot. Microsoft Dragon Copilot, part of Microsoft Cloud for Health Care, provides an AI assistant for clinical workflow. It combines ambient conversation capture, natural language understanding, and advanced generative AI to streamline documentation, surface information, and automate tasks.
Why It’s Difficult For People With Chronic Pain To Gain Their Doctor’s Trust
Many people with chronic pain find themselves interacting with clinicians who do not seem to trust them. Why is it hard to establish a trusting relationship with your doctor? And what can you do about it? I have been on both sides of the exam table – as a physician caring for people with chronic pain and as a patient slowly coming to realize he is struggling with chronic pain. I would like to share a story I hope will help you understand why it can be difficult to gain the trust of your physicians.
To Uphold Campaign Promise, Dr. Oz Needs To Fix Medicare Drug Prices
During his campaign, President Trump promised to “end inflation and make America affordable again, to bring down the prices of all goods.” In honor of that promise, Dr. Mehmet Oz, head of the Medicare program, should address the enormous increase in what Medicare patients are being asked to pay for drugs. Medicare drug coverage is provided by private insurers. In the last few years, these companies have shifted a substantial portion of the cost of high-priced drugs onto patients.
How Earth Day can inspire better health for doctors and patients
When I was a kid, my dad and I used to go on regular weekend hikes up to Henninger Flats at the Eaton Canyon Natural Area in Altadena, California. When we made it to the top, we would sit at one of the wooden benches overlooking the San Gabriel Valley, enjoying our midhike snack, usually a fruit of some sort and a handful of trail mix. On a clear day, we would try to identify neighborhood landmarks from where we sat. Lake Avenue. Altadena Country Club. Victory Park.
$10 Short? No Health Insurance For You
Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, millions of people receive generous subsidies to cover the cost of health insurance. Some people, in fact, receive coverage for free, their monthly premiums paid in full by the federal government. Unfortunately, even a small change in price can cause people to lose their coverage. That’s important because of plans by Republicans to reduce or eliminate subsidies. How small of a price change matters?
Complaining Of Chronic Pain Doesn’t Make You A Complainer
We all know what “a complainer” is: it’s a person who finds the dark side of everything, who turns a casual conversation starter—“How are you doing?”—into a somber soliloquy about all the (usually minor) problems making their life unbearable. Too often, people with chronic pain are viewed as complainers by friends, family, and even their clinicians. That view misunderstands the neuroscience of most chronic pain.
Work Requirements For Safety Net Programs - They’re Not Working
Anyone who has raised kids knows what happens when you give them a monthly allowance without requiring any work in return: they plop in front of their new videogame consoles while their dirty dishes collect in the sink. That’s the logic behind Republican plans to establish work requirements for people who receive safety net benefits—if you give them money with no strings attached, they won’t have an incentive to work.
How to combat the rise of health care ransomware [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes! Health care executive Cecil Pineda discusses his article, “Under siege: the escalating ransomware crisis in health care,” examining the alarming rise in cyberattacks on hospitals and health systems. Cecil highlights the growing frequency and financial toll of ransomware attacks, with major incidents affecting patient care, disrupting operations, and costing billions.
Artificial intelligence in health care: What your patients want to know Original
Most patients feel it is important to be informed when artificial intelligence (AI) will play a role in their care. Although most anticipate that AI will make health care at least somewhat better in the next five years, many express concerns about misdiagnosis, privacy breaches, unintended consequences of AI, and increased costs. These mixed feelings highlight the importance of addressing patient concerns and providing clear, accessible information.
People With Chronic Pain Deserve Better Than “There’s Nothing Wrong”
I stood in the back of the conference hall panicked that was going blind. I had been having sensitivity to bright light for several weeks. Then, the night before the conference, my symptoms got much worse; the hotel room didn’t have a lamp dim enough to soothe my suffering orbs.
Medicare Drug Coverage Is Often Inadequate-Here’s Why
Your father’s rheumatoid arthritis medicine was working well, fighting off that otherwise debilitating illness. Then he found out that Medicare would no longer pay for the drug. Your aunt’s multiple sclerosis was flaring and her neurologist recommended a promising new treatment. But she learned that she would have to try, and “fail,” on two other drugs before Medicare would cover the new one.
Paying Too Much For Healthcare? Your Boss Might Be To Blame
After months of stomach pain and bottles of ulcer medicine, you are scheduled for an endoscopy. A gastroenterologist will gently slide a camera down your esophagus into your stomach, maybe even into the beginning of your small intestine, to see what is causing your symptoms. How much will that procedure cost? It could be expensive – say, $1200. Or could be very expensive – as much as $5000.
Losing control of how the health care system treats patients
Particularly over the last 10 to 20 years, medical care has been vertically integrated so that many of us—most of us—are now working for larger health conglomerates. As part of this transition, more and more of our management is professional, with MBAs or their health care equivalent, running our working environments and collecting our billings from which they generate our salaries.
Getting A Colonoscopy? Ask Your Doctor About Using An AI Copilot
Colon cancer is often preventable with timely screening. One way to be screened is through a procedure called colonoscopy, where a physician examines your colon with a camera to look for precancerous polyps. Unfortunately, some physicians are not as thorough as they should be and overlook growths they should be removing. It might be time to ask whether your doctor is ready to get help from AI.
Warning To RFK Jr: Mess With Medicare Payment And Physicians Will Fight Back
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) says he wants to reform the way Medicare pays physicians. In part, these reforms would address chronic underpayment of primary care physicians, relative to their specialist peers. The starting salary of an orthopedic surgeon in the United States is $565,000.
How a setback fueled a lifelong dedication to patients [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes! We sit down with family medicine physician Jennifer Tillman to explore the transformative journey from early academic struggles to a fulfilling medical career. Jennifer shares her personal story of overcoming a pivotal setback in organic chemistry and defying discouragement to achieve her dream of becoming a doctor.
Positive Attitudes Protect People From The Common Cold, Unless They Are Black
Do you know what causes the common cold? If you thought: “a virus” – you are partially correct. A variety of viruses are responsible for those sneezy, achy, scratchy-throated illnesses–critters like rhinoviruses (I imagine them with large horns), coronaviruses, RSV, and adenoviruses. But a virus, alone, will not cause you to experience cold symptoms, especially if your immune system can thwack it into submission before it gains a foothold in your nose, throat, or other susceptible tissues.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Peter
Contact Peter, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack