April 2010 - The Health Care Blog

(More) Madness in Massachusetts

By Daniel Palestrant, MD Lately I have been watching with complete horror the events playing out in my home state of Massachusetts. A bill currently under review by the state legislature will make participation in the state and federal Medicare/Medicaid...

Published Thu, Apr 22 2010 4:00 PM by The Health Care Blog

To Know and Be Known

By ROB LAMBERTS I was happy when I looked at today’s schedule. Two husband and wife pairs were on my schedule, both of whom have been seeing me for over ten years. Their visits are comfortable for me; we talk... Read More...

Published Fri, Apr 30 2010 6:54 AM by The Health Care Blog

Clinical Groupware: Platforms, Not Software

By David C. Kibbe, MD, MBA and Brian Klepper, PhD Clinical Groupware is rapidly gaining acceptance as a term describing a new class of affordable, ergonomic, and Web-based care management tools. Since David first articulated Clinical Groupware's conceptual...

Published Sat, Apr 24 2010 3:51 AM by The Health Care Blog

Should We Let The Death Issue Die?

By PAUL LEVY Did you read yesterday's New York Times article by Anemona Hartocollis, entitled "Helping Patients Face Death, She Fought to Live"? It was about a palliative care doctor who faced her own end-of-life issues in a very different...

Published Mon, Apr 05 2010 4:53 AM by The Health Care Blog

The New Joint Commission

By BOB WACHTER Until about 8 years ago, inspections by the Joint Commission (TJC) were predictable and fairly silly. Hospitals were given a couple of years' notice of the week that “The Joint” would be visiting. Everybody scurried around preparing...

Published Wed, Apr 28 2010 7:02 AM by The Health Care Blog

Lisa Girion is a hero

By Matthew Holt One reporter changed the behavior of every health plan in California all by herself. Even before Tuesday's announcements, however, health insurers in California had all but stopped the number of policy cancellations, state records...

Published Wed, Apr 28 2010 1:47 PM by The Health Care Blog

ProPublica's Pulitzer piss-take

By Matthew Holt In a decade when there are countless really, really important issues to investigate in health care, ProPublica took more than $400,000 and spent it on a rehash of a well known story. The story was about a... Read More...

Published Fri, Apr 30 2010 1:13 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Policy/Politics, ProPublica

Human

By ROB LAMBERTS If there is a central theme to my work, it is this: medicine is a human thing. On the Facebook page of my podcast, I recently asked for readers to tell me some of the “war stories”... Read More...

Published Fri, Apr 02 2010 5:00 AM by The Health Care Blog

Does Market Power Help Patients?

By PAUL LEVY Rob Weisman and Liz Kowalczyk report in today's Boston Globe that the US Justice Department is investigating possible antitrust violations against Partners Healthcare System, the dominant hospital and physician provider group in Massachusetts...

Published Thu, Apr 29 2010 4:08 AM by The Health Care Blog

Reg strikes back! Apparently Wellcare were a bunch of crooks after all. Maybe

By Matthew Holt Everyone's favorite Harvard Business School professor is back in the news. Those of you with long memories may remember that at THCB I’ve been a tad critical of Regina Herzlinger’s ideas, her presentation of said ideas and—resulting...

Published Wed, Apr 28 2010 8:23 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Matthew Holt, Health Plans

Healthline on a roll: new funding, Yahoo! deal

By Matthew Holt Healthline has been a company that we’ve been looking at since we very first started talking about Health 2.0. Check out the very first podcast about Health 2.0 on THCB with Healthline’s Dean Stephens back in late... Read More...

Published Tue, Apr 27 2010 10:35 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Technology, Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Consumers, Web/Tech

Why We Need Private Primary Care Doctors

By ROB LAMBERTS Things have been busy in my absence. A recent post on Kevin MD by Joseph Biundo, a rheumatologist, challenged my assertion that primary care doctors can save money: (In reference to my claim) That may be true... Read More...

Published Mon, Apr 26 2010 3:34 AM by The Health Care Blog

Well, point-less?

By Matthew Holt OK, so it's a terrible and stolen pun but Wellpoint’s recent history is getting more and more bizarre. First they become the poster child for the recissions scandal (even if not the worst offender)—which eventually helped push... Read...

Published Fri, Apr 23 2010 1:28 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Matthew Holt, Health Plans

The Laboratory of Democracy

By PAUL LEVY People from other states would be wise to watch the sequence of events happening here in Massachusetts with regard to health insurance rates. As I described below: Things are playing out just as one might predict in... Read More...

Published Fri, Apr 09 2010 6:25 AM by The Health Care Blog

Don Berwick: An Activist Takes the Reins at CMS

By BOB WACHTER While the health reform bill will have many effects, one of its most profound will be to unshackle the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Under the legislation, CMS is now far freer to undertake a... Read More...

Published Fri, Apr 02 2010 7:36 AM by The Health Care Blog