https://www.overlawyered.com/2014/10/medical-roundup-27/ Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Thu, 16 Oct 2014 19:16:49 +0000 hourly 1 https://www.overlawyered.com/2014/10/medical-roundup-27/comment-page-1/#comment-308372 Thu, 16 Oct 2014 19:16:49 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=48733#comment-308372 I wonder if the CDC folks have ever heard of factorization? There’s no need to have codes that combine every event with every cause. Instead of separate codes for “doctor visit due to being sucked into jet engine”, “x-ray due to being sucked into jet engine”, “doctor visit due to being struck by lightning”, etc. you have a set of event coes “doctor visit”, “x-ray”, etc. and a set of cause codes “sucked into jet engine”, “struck by lightning” etc., which are combined as necessary. If the number of causes is about the same as the number of events, 140,000 codes can be replaced by about 750. If one uses more than two factors, the savings are even greater.

]]> https://www.overlawyered.com/2014/10/medical-roundup-27/comment-page-1/#comment-308338 Thu, 16 Oct 2014 16:34:52 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=48733#comment-308338 It’s a good thing people are figuring out how to 3d-print prosthetic hands, because pretty soon that’s the only way you’ll be able to get them!

]]> https://www.overlawyered.com/2014/10/medical-roundup-27/comment-page-1/#comment-308314 Thu, 16 Oct 2014 13:45:45 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=48733#comment-308314 Blaming Ebola on budget cuts is dumb, but not as dumb as blaming it on the NRA. I wish I were joking, but I’m not creative enough to make up something that dumb.

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