Diabetes education is effective, but sure doesn't pay ... at least for providers. Ask Dr. Bernstein (at right), former president of the American Diabetes Association, and director of one of 3 hospital-based diabetes centers in New York City that recently closed.Dr. Jerry Bernstein's diabetes clinic at Manhattan's Beth Israel Medical Center was reporting a 60% success rate for patients controlling their blood glucose - when news came from the hospital's president, "Jerry, ... we're going to have to close your program."
In one of a series of articles the New York Times is running on diabetes, the plight of prevention, and the demise of Dr. Bernstein's clinic, is explored:
"[These clinics] did not shut down because they had failed their patients. They closed because they had failed to make money. They were victims of the byzantine world of American health care, in which the real profit is made not by controlling chronic diseases like diabetes but by treating their many complications."
To drive home the point:
"Not surprising, as the epidemic of Type 2 diabetes has grown, more than 100 dialysis centers have opened in the city."
The article ran in the New York Times yesterday. You can read it at:
In the Treatment of Diabetes, Success Often Does Not Pay
