This week we respond to questions about prostate enlargement and stretching. Dear HOUSE Calls, How can you treat an enlarged prostate without drugs? This is a common question. Many patients want to avoid ‘medicines’. Yet symptoms of an enlarged prostate (waking at night to urinate, weak stream, dribbling) can be a real nuisance. Just because […]
Posted inFeatured, Health Insurance, Healthcare Workers
NC Docs Hurting Over Computer Glitch
Updated on March 2 with new information. By Rose Hoban Changes in processing billing claims required by the federal government at the start of this year have caused cash-flow problems for some doctors around North Carolina. “We realized we weren’t getting payments,” said Beth Goldstein, a dermatologist who’s part of a large practice in Chapel […]
Posted inInfectious Disease
Just How Many Norovirus Cases Are There In NC? We’ll Never Know.
Typically associated with cruise ships whose passengers are almost certain to have their vacation ruined by vomiting and diarrhea once this bug hits a luxury liner, norovirus has been reported in 8 NC counties (see map). Multiple outbreaks of the gastrointestinal illness lead the DHHS this week to issue an alert that norovirus is on […]
Posted inConsumer News, Featured, Public Health, State Health Policy, Uncategorized
Lyme Disease Not As Likely in NC, But Caution Should Prevail
By Rose Hoban Ticks carrying Lyme Disease are not that big a deal in North Carolina… yet. A study published today by Yale entomology researcher Maria Duik-Wasser generated a map of tick populations along the Eastern seaboard. She aggregated the efforts of dozens of entomologists in 37 states who wander through fields dragging pieces of […]
Posted inFeatured, Medicaid, Public Health, State Health Policy
Interview With Outgoing NC DHHS Secretary Lanier Cansler
Yesterday was the last day of work for outgoing North Carolina Secretary of Health and Human Services, Lanier Cansler. The 58 year-old Cansler has been involved in state government for most of the past two decades, first as a legislator from Asheville, then as Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services, lobbyist and as the […]
Posted inFeatured, Health Reform, Healthcare Workers, Profiles, Public Health
Interview With US Surgeon General Regina Benjamin
Answers have been edited for brevity NCHN: Why did you visit North Carolina? Dr. Benjamin: Prevention is the basis of my work as the Surgeon General and the Affordable Care Act established the National Prevention Council which I chair. We released our first ever national prevention strategy, so now we’re trying to implement that strategy. […]