The doctors said negotiated rates and malpractice suits were their top two reasons for doing something different.

The docs didn’t say what they’d rather do – but that might something to spark a conversation next time you’re visiting yours.

The Lawrence Journal World quotes hospital officials about all the reasons for the switch, including the ease of storing square cartons.

The only downside I can think of: They’ll never fit in car or gym cup holders.

It was a well-done piece. A significant amount of the story focused on Tillie’s Flower Shop.

From owner Ken Denton:

For us, for example, the people that had the insurance here are people that really need it. And it’s the older group and it’s a group that utilizes it more than anyone else. And it drives the cost up. And the young people, who don’t necessarily need it, drop out.

If you missed the program, you can view it on the PBS Web site. Here’s a link to the video.

The next big marketing move was offering 90-day supplies for $10.

Now comes Giant Food. Through March 21, it’s offering 14-day supplies of the most commonly prescribed generic antibiotics for free. “With cold and flu season in full-swing, we want to do what we can to help keep you and your family feeling your best during the winter months,” the company says.

And to keep you coming back.

In February, the hospital made news by announcing it would offer heart bypass surgery for a flat fee of $10,000, undercutting other hospitals’ charges by more than $20,000. And in April it treated its first out-of-country patient: a Canadian willing to pay cash for a hip replacement he would have waited months or years for back home.

Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine noted those trends in its January issue on saving money. ” Forget traveling abroad to save on medical procedures. A trip to America’s heartland can be just as healthy for your wallet,” the article begins.

Nice to see us getting the attention.

The site also has a word cloud, which searches for the most commonly used words mentioned in the discussion and arranges them by size according to their frequency. The biggest word on there: “insurance,” which is just a smidge bigger than “health.”

People who attend religious services regularly — and denomination didn’t matter — have a 20 percent overall lower risk of death than those who don’t, according to a new study by researchers from Yeshiva University, in the Bronx, and its medical school, Albert Einstein College of Medicine. The results are an outgrowth of the Women’s Health Initiative, a long-term study following more than 90,000 women.

They had to vote on that?

“Texting while driving takes the driver’s attention away from the road, which can lead to accidents,” physician Peter Carmel, a AMA board member, said in a news release. “A recent study found that text messaging while driving causes a 400 percent increase in time spent with eyes off the road. No one should have to worry that other drivers are focused on texting instead of traffic. This is about keeping people safe on our roads.”

The Miami Herald points out that the news is even more stressful for small employers.

Meanwhile, a growing number of workers at smaller firms are getting less coverage for their money as health plans with high deductibles and fewer benefits become more prevalent.

The portion of workers with single coverage who pay a deductible of at least $1,000 has jumped from 10 percent to 18 percent in the past two years. Among smaller firms with three to 199 employees, the rate has more than doubled from 16 percent to 35 percent.

Anticoagulants have been identified as one of the top five drug types associated with patient safety incidents in the United States, the commission says.

Among the causes for adverse events is incorrect dosages, food and drug interactions, and poor labeling that lends to confusion and error.

Says the commission:

Anticoagulant medication errors are such a serious patient safety issue that The Joint Commission addresses these types of errors in the 2008 National Patient Safety Goals, with full implementation of the requirements expected by January 1, 2009, for hospitals, outpatient clinics, home care and long term care organizations across the United States.