January 2011 - The Health Care Blog

Dicker With Your Doc? Not So Fast…

By JESSIE GRUMAN, PhD “How to Haggle With Your Doctor” was the title of a recent Business section column in The New York Times. This is one of many similar directives to the public in magazines, TV and Websites urging... Read More...

Published Fri, Jan 21 2011 2:04 PM by The Health Care Blog

Geomancy, Haruspex and Contextual Discovery

By ALEX EPSTEIN What if your internet interface knew what you wanted – before you even knew you wanted anything? Would it help or hurt? Would you wind up doing things you didn’t want to, simply because of suggestion? Would... Read More...

Published Fri, Jan 21 2011 10:33 PM by The Health Care Blog

ACOs and Community Hub of Wellness & Health

By KENT BOTTLES, MD Hospitals are going to change. What worked in the past will not work in the future. The passage of the federal health care reform law and the inevitable transition from fee for service to global payments... Read More...

Published Sun, Jan 23 2011 9:50 AM by The Health Care Blog

The $1000 Coding Error

By MICHAELA DINAN As a graduate student in the health field I often get phone calls from various family members and friends asking what I happen to know about different drugs, procedures, and devices. I was having one such conversation... Read More.....

Published Mon, Jan 24 2011 9:06 AM by The Health Care Blog

The "Unreasonable" Premium Increase Rule

By ROGER COLLIER HHS has now released its final set of draft regulations for provisions of the Affordable Care Act scheduled to go into effect early in 2011. This last regulatory publication—actually a “notice of proposed rulemaking” inviting comments...

Published Mon, Jan 03 2011 7:00 AM by The Health Care Blog

The Worst Health Care System in the World Is…

By EVAN FALCHUK The United States, of course. Oh, no, wait, it’s Canada. Actually, I think it could be Germany. Geez, now I think it might be the UK. You could go on and on like this. But you know... Read More...

Published Tue, Jan 25 2011 4:54 PM by The Health Care Blog

Health 2.0 Spring Conference Update

The Health 2.0 Conference, run by THCB founder Matthew Holt and colleague Indu Subaiya, announced additions to the lineup of its spring conference in San Diego. The Future of Research panel will focus on the emergence of user-generated content and......

Published Tue, Jan 25 2011 5:30 PM by The Health Care Blog

Commerce Clause Challenges to Health Care Reform

By MARK HALL, JD The following article, forthcoming in U. Penn. L. Rev., pinpoints the strongest arguments for and against federal power under the Commerce Clause to mandate the purchase of health insurance: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id...

Published Thu, Jan 27 2011 5:45 AM by The Health Care Blog

Five Things Hospitals and Health Systems Have to Get Good at Fast

By JOE FLOWER There is a way to avoid a collapse of healthcare in this country. It’s getting scary. We are facing, before the end of this decade, a bifurcated future. The way things are going now—with the economy wheezing,... Read More...

Published Fri, Jan 28 2011 6:30 AM by The Health Care Blog

Victims of Health Care Reform

By JOHN GOODMAN, PhD Who will be hurt the most by the health reform legislation Congress passed last year? Answer: The most vulnerable segments of society: the poor, the elderly and the disabled. That's right. Virtually everyone in Congress who.....

Published Mon, Jan 31 2011 5:01 AM by The Health Care Blog

Judge Vinson’s Tea Party Manifesto

By MARK HALL, JD On first read, the most striking aspect of Judge Vinson’s ruling today is not its remedy — striking the Affordable Care Act in its entirety — but the impression one gets that the opinion was written... Read More...

Published Mon, Jan 31 2011 6:17 PM by The Health Care Blog

Definition of HIE: What’s Yours?

By JOHN MOORE Trying something new here – soliciting your collective input, the proverbial wisdom of the crowd. As you may have read in yesterday’s post, Chilmark is quickly approaching publication of the Health Information Exchange (HIE) report. One...

Published Sun, Jan 09 2011 7:53 AM by The Health Care Blog

Early Experiences with Hospital Certification

By JOHN HALAMKA, MD As one of the pilot sites for CCHIT's EHR Alternative Certification for Hospitals (EACH), I promised the industry an overview of my experience. It's going very well. Here's what has happened thus far. 1. Recognizing that...

Published Mon, Jan 10 2011 3:20 AM by The Health Care Blog

Ghosts of Health Reform Past

By DAVID DRANOVE I have not blogged for several weeks, mainly because I have been making sense of the curious events that transpired over the Christmas holiday. If you a regular reader of my blog, you know that I have... Read More...

Published Mon, Jan 10 2011 9:00 AM by The Health Care Blog

Data Mining Case Reaches the Supreme Court

By GLENN LAFFEL, MD, PhD Twenty years ago, IMS Health got the idea to purchase prescription records from pharmacies, license physician information from the AMA’s Physician Masterfile, and link the two databases so as to create something new and different...

Published Wed, Jan 12 2011 12:34 PM by The Health Care Blog