October 2010 - The Health Care Blog

Seeds of Destruction

By JONATHAN BUSH I never used to talk much with hospital CEOs. After all, if you’re running a hospital, improving the revenues of the physician practice by 6%, when the physician revenues only make up 10% of your overall revenues,... Read More...

Published Mon, Oct 04 2010 7:35 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Hospitals, Jonathan Bush

What is a Patient?

By ROB LAMBERTS, MD What is a patient? What do they do? What’s their role in the doctor’s office? Are they chassis on a conveyor belt? Are they puzzles for doctors to solve? Are they diseases? Are they demographics? Are... Read More...

Published Tue, Oct 05 2010 4:19 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Patients, Rob Lamberts

The Madison Avenue Approach to Health Policy

By JOHN GOODMAN Can you sell health reform the way you sell toothpaste? Can you stop health reform the way you sell soap? A lot of people apparently believe so. I would guess that in the 10 months leading up... Read More...

Published Thu, Oct 07 2010 9:18 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Policy/Politics, health care reform, John Goodman

Health 2.0 Conference 2010: Day 2

By HENRY LI Day 2 of the fourth annual Health 2.0 Conference started bright and early with three conversations with CEOs: John de Souza of MedHelp, Giovanni Collella of Castlight, and Jeff Arnold of Sharecare (which we saw demoed yesterday).... Read More...

Published Fri, Oct 08 2010 7:33 PM by The Health Care Blog

Letting the Data Flow, Part One

By JOHN MOORE Making clinical data liquid permeated a series of events I attended last week during Health Innovation Week in San Francisco. Monday and Tuesday found me at the HIE/REC conference. Wednesday was HealthCamp at Kaiser-Permanente’s Garfield...

Published Mon, Oct 11 2010 6:00 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: John Moore, REC, HIEs

ACOs and the Looming Antitrust Crisis

By DAVID DRANOVE The Federal Trade Commission recently held a day-long workshop focusing on Accountable Care Organizations. ACOs will vertically integrate hospitals and doctors and, in the process, achieve what previous incarnations of vertical integration...

Published Thu, Oct 14 2010 9:20 AM by The Health Care Blog

Hospitalists as Extensivists

By PAUL LEVY I had heard something about this, but couldn't find it. A colleague here finally tracked it down. The story is about Caremore, a California based organization. Hospitalists generally are internal medicine doctors based in the hospital;...

Published Fri, Oct 15 2010 4:30 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Paul Levy, Hospitalists

San Francisco 2010: iWantGreatCare Demonstration

By Bianca Grogan Neil Bacon, Managing Director of iWantGreatCare, gave a brief demonstration at the Health 2.0 Fall Conference in San Francisco, CA on October 7-8, 2010. iWantGreatCare is an independent organization that allows patients to rate their...

Published Sun, Oct 17 2010 10:11 AM by The Health Care Blog

Doctors, Hospitals and the Yankees

By ROB LAMBERTS Joe Boyd hated the Yankees. “Those damn Yankees. Why can’t we beat ‘em?” Then he got the opportunity to save his beloved Washington Senators by making a deal with the devil – giving up his soul in... Read More...

Published Tue, Oct 19 2010 7:45 AM by The Health Care Blog

How Reform Law Funds Itself, Strengthens Medicare, and Cuts the Deficit: Part 1

By MAGGIE MAHAR The Mainstream Media Rarely Tries to Explain the Congressional Budget Office’s nearly unbelievable claims that the Patient Protect and Affordable Care Act can: 1) Pay for itself 2) Provide coverage for 32 million uninsured Americans 3...

Published Fri, Oct 22 2010 9:15 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Medicare, Policy/Politics, Maggie Mahar, health care reform

Fred Goes to Washington

By ROB LAMBERTS, MD Everyone must have sore butts from sitting on the edge of their seats while reading my previous episodes of “The Doctor is (Not Totally) In.” I am sorry if you are one of the sore butted... Read More...

Published Mon, Oct 25 2010 11:36 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Meaningful Use, Rob Lamberts

The Shame of Malpractice Lawsuits

By PAUL LEVY This posting is not about tort reform. It is not about defensive medicine (e.g., MDs taking too many tests to avoid the chance of lawsuit.) It is not about controlling costs or improving the quality of care.... Read More...

Published Wed, Oct 27 2010 4:10 PM by The Health Care Blog

HIT Trends Summary for September 2010

By MICHAEL LAKE This is a summary of the HIT Trends Report for September 2010. You can get the current issue or subscribe here. Look beyond the EHR to healthcare transformation. A big idea that continues to emerge this month... Read More...

Published Fri, Oct 01 2010 9:11 AM by The Health Care Blog

Confessions of a Health Literacy Expert

By HILARY SELIGMAN, MD I have a patient who I will call Antonia. Antonia is in her early 70’s. She came to the United States from Guatemala many years ago, but never learned to speak much English. This doesn’t cause... Read More...

Published Thu, Oct 28 2010 9:06 AM by The Health Care Blog

Losing Patients With Insurers

By ROB LAMBERTS, MD We are losing patients. Certain insurance companies are trying to “play hardball” with doctors, unwilling to negotiate with us over their outlandishly low rates. We have lost patience. So the signs went up in the exam... Read More...

Published Fri, Oct 29 2010 8:48 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Rob Lamberts, Insurers