"When many cures are offered for a disease, it means the disease is not curable" -Anton Chekhov
''Once you tell people there's a cure for something, the more likely they are to pressure doctors to prescribe it.'' -Robert Ehrlich, drug advertising executive.
"Opinions are like sphincters, everyone has one." - Chris Rangel
By Any Other Name: One of my patients called today requesting a referral to a dermatologist to have her wrinkles ironed out. She wanted me to "phrase the diagnosis in a medical way" so her insurance would cover it. I demurred and told her that we doctors call "wrinkles" by the same name as everyone else. Later, I remembered Dr. Alice and her paean to the diagnosis code book. So, I took down the book and looked up "wrinkles." Sure enough, there's a fancy medical term for it - cutis laxa senilis. Loosely translated, that's old, loose, skin. Gotta love that ICD-9 book. posted by Sydney on
3/18/2003 09:50:00 PM
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