People with mental illness or a degenerative mental disease have special protections under the law when entering into contracts or other binding documents.
A hypothetical clinical case discusses patient demand for advanced diagnostics such as MRIs when physicians do not recommend such tests. Better patient education is the suggested approach.
The current Medicare operation—reimbursing medical goods and services to a growing number of people without basing the reimbursement benefit on the actual cost of the services—is unsustainable, but there are some possible remedies.
Physicians are cautioned that the two obstacles to reforming post-marketing clinical trials are the FDA's reluctance to revisit past approvals and its inability to enforce pharmaceutical companies' commitment to conduct Phase IV trials.