According to the World Health Organization, cancer is the second leading cause of death globally. It was responsible for approximately 9.6 million deaths in 2018. That means 1 in 6 deaths is a result of cancer. When you are diagnosed with a serious medical illness,...
Learning your diagnosis is a serious medical condition can be life-changing. Here are some steps you can take to maintain your sense of well-being. Step 1 – Ask for the facts Be sure to ask for the medical facts and expert evaluations related to your diagnosis, that you...
When a partner, family member or friend has been diagnosed with a serious medical illness, they may feel uncertain about what to do next. They may feel discouraged, anxious even, fearful. Naturally you want to help. But how? Sometimes, the best support isn’t obvious. One...
A medical second opinion from a team of experts tends to yield the most accurate insights The rise of chronic illnesses like cancer and heart disease, along with an aging population, has led to a situation where doctors must manage patients suffering from multiple health problems. As...
Here’s how WorldCare's Medical Second Opinion service works, and all it takes is a phone call or email to begin. When you’ve been diagnosed with a serious medical condition, it’s only natural to want to make sure the diagnosis is correct. But where to begin? The thought of...
Put your mind at ease with the power of knowledge and understanding in order to live your best when on life's sick list. Living with a serious medical condition means sweeping changes in your daily routine, your relationships, and your outlook. From family life and...
Sometimes you need more experts to break a tie. When you, or someone you love, faces a serious or life-threatening medical condition, a medical second opinion can guide crucial treatment decisions you and your doctor make. But what happens when your first and second opinions clash? What you need to...
Checking up on a diagnosis or treatment plan via a medical second opinion is good medicine. Taking a deep breath and telling your physician that you’ve decided to seek a medical second opinion is an important moment along the way to better health. Yes, it’s natural to feel...
Roughly 600,000 people across the United States and Canada suffer from Parkinson’s disease and researchers have long been aware of the increased risk that comes with age. Men and postmenopausal women have a higher risk of developing Parkinson’s than premenopausal women do, which lead researchers to examine the link...
Leukemia treatment often proves to be more complicated in comparison to treatment for other types of cancer. For leukemia patients, researchers at Northwestern Medicine believe multiple overactive protein complexes may be to blame. Thus, by moving away from the idea that one particular protein complex,...
From successfully achieving the first remission of a pediatric cancer case in 1948, to creating the most revolutionary medical achievements WorldCare Consortium® medical second opinion (MSO) providers, Dana-Farber and Massachusetts General Hospital have successfully created a molecular tool that helps study the accumulation of...
It is safe to say that many of us fear hearing the word ‘cancer.’ But, with the continued evolution of cancer research, we have begun to see many breakthroughs in cancer treatment and detection methods. One such example is Dr. David Wong's, Associate Dean of...
Finally, mental health illnesses have gained a huge spotlight over the last few years. At WorldCare, we have recognized the need for more services to address the rising occurrence of mental health illnesses and we developed a new, laser-focused mental health medical second opinion (MSO)...
Researchers and doctors alike recognize the importance of preventing or reversing cancer before patients are in the position of having to treat more advanced cases. Michael Goldberg, Ph.D., of Dana-Farber has contributed to a collaborative group effort into research that demonstrates how particular cancer cases...
Groundbreaking research into amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) from a research team at WorldCare Consortium™ member Mayo Clinic discovered the genetic repeat mutation known as c9orf72 in 2011 could potentially hold insight on how to cure or possibly even prevent ALS in patients. This mutation occurs...
Ben Smith, a 25-year-old resident of New South Wales, Australia, was concerned about a hard lump on his left testicle in December of 2017, when his general practitioner told him that the swelling and pain was probably just hormonal and that the lump did not...
Researchers at WorldCare Consortium® member Mayo Clinic have discovered that genetically engineered bacteria show promise as a new treatment for constipation, after a study in mice was conducted at the Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine and published in Cell Host & Microbe. The gut microbiome,...
A study led by doctors at WorldCare Consortium® member Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has found that a test analyzing free-floating DNA in the blood may be able to detect early-stage lung cancer. A preliminary report from the on-going Circulating Cell-Free Genome Atlas (CCGA) study, which is...
Louise Gleadell, a 38-year-old mother of three from Leicester, United Kingdom, was pregnant with her son Jude in late 2015 when she first presented with serious health concerns that were repeatedly dismissed by her doctors. She had a “strange dizziness” and an aching pelvis, which...
In November 2016, Jacqueline Dibb and her husband Rob were told by consultants at Hull Royal Infirmary in the United Kingdom that Jacqueline had frontotemporal dementia, a neurodegenerative disease classified as the “worst” type of dementia that “makes you violent” and “lose recognition of the...
Fibromyalgia is a complex chronic pain disorder that affects an estimated 10 million people in the U.S. and an estimated three to six percent of the world population. The disorder causes widespread pain and tenderness to touch that can occur body-wide or migrate over the body....
A benign brain tumor begins as a growth that arises from normal cells, but the growth of these cells is not rapid enough to qualify the tumor as malignant. The most common kind of these tumors is known as a meningioma, a tumor that arises...
A study published earlier this year from WorldCare Consortium® member Mayo Clinic found that more than 20 percent of patients who sought a second opinion had initially been misdiagnosed by their primary care providers. The study found that only 12 percent of patients who asked specialists...
At WorldCare, we are sometimes asked if medical second opinion (MSO) services as part of an employee benefit plan are subject to ERISA. MSOs may or may not fall within ERISA's reach - this is complicated stuff and the rules are not all that clear...
Medical second opinions have the capacity to save lives. By utilizing the expertise of a multi-disciplinary team of medical specialists and sub-specialists, misdiagnosis can be prevented and the optimal treatment plan can be identified and implemented. However, not all medical second opinion providers are the...
Receiving an unanticipated diagnosis can be overwhelming for patients and their families. These three benefits show the importance of always getting a second opinion. 1. Avoiding Misdiagnosis Being misdiagnosed is not an uncommon occurrence. Many illnesses start with similar symptoms and traits. Unfortunately, being treated for the...
When symptoms lead to a medical diagnosis that is serious, rare, or complex, one of the first things patients often do is wonder whether the diagnosis is accurate. A second opinion provides an opportunity to have a specialist or a team of specialists review your...
Let’s say an employee at your company is diagnosed with a serious illness or complex disease. Both the employer and employee want to ensure that the best possible care is being provided. But with medical errors now accounting for the third leading cause of death...