February 2011 - The Health Care Blog

HIMSS11 Update from the Chairman

By C. MARTIN HARRIS, MD As the Chairman of the board of HIMSS, the Health Information Management Systems Society, which is the largest information technology organization in the world, I’ve been very busy at our annual conference in Orlando, Fla. As I...

Published Mon, Feb 21 2011 1:00 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: HIT, Meaningful Use, Front Page, HIMMS, Martin Harris, HIMMS11

Glen Tullman @ HIMSS11

Glen Tullman, CEO of Allscripts, talked with Matthew about mergers, consolidation and payment changes taking place in the healthcare system. Tweet this Share on Facebook Read More...

Published Mon, Feb 28 2011 2:04 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Tech, HIMSS 2011, Allscripts, Glen Tullman

Radiologist: Commoditize Thyself

By DAVID E. WILLIAMS There is little in the health care world as amusing as watching radiologists work themselves into a froth over some real or perceived threat to their profession. Usually the villain is non-radiologists daring to encroach on... Read...

Published Wed, Feb 02 2011 7:00 AM by The Health Care Blog

NJ ACO: A Sheep in PHYCORE Clothing

By SCOTT SHREEVE, MD I am on an email list of Bill DeMarco’s, a reputable industry insider who has written and consulted extensively in the physician group and medical management space. He recently sent me a note about several physician... Read More....

Published Wed, Feb 02 2011 3:54 PM by The Health Care Blog

Why Aren’t The Uninsured Protesting In The Streets Like The Egyptians?

By MICHAEL MILLENSON Maybe the uninsured could learn something from Egyptians and the Arab street. At a time when landmark health reform granting most of the uninsured access to medical care for the first time in their lives is being... Read More...

Published Thu, Feb 03 2011 1:20 AM by The Health Care Blog

A Patient is Not a Shunt

By EVAN FALCHUK Some people may tell you that health care IT will solve many of the quality and cost problems in health care. I don’t believe them. I know a 70-year old man named Carlos (not his real name)... Read More...

Published Sat, Feb 05 2011 11:29 AM by The Health Care Blog

The Greater Fool

By PAUL LEVY In the last four decades, we have witnessed a series of investment "bubbles" that have all collapsed. It seems that there is no end to the number of people with cash who will be intoxicated by a... Read More...

Published Mon, Feb 07 2011 7:13 AM by The Health Care Blog

Survivor

By MICHAEL TURPIN Survivor 2015 “In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed” Charles Darwin As the legislative reform volcano rumbles and angrily spews magma into...

Published Tue, Feb 22 2011 11:29 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Health Plans, PPACA, Michael Turpin, Obamacare, Affordable Care Act

OCR Imposes $4.3M Penalty for Violation of HIPAA/HITECH Privacy Rule

By BOB COFFIELD UNTIL TODAY, many health care providers questioned whether HHS and the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) would ever issue any significant penalties for violations of the HIPAA Privacy Rule. However, will OCR ever be able to collect the penalties...

Published Wed, Feb 23 2011 8:27 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Front Page, Penalties, HIPAA violations, OCR, Bob Coffield

A Family Physician’s Manifesto

By PAUL FISCHER, MD As a third-year medical student in 1977, I joined the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). In those culturally tumultuous years, it was a way to declare my belief that America needed physicians who cared for the whole person...

Published Thu, Feb 24 2011 7:07 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: primary care, Front Page, RUC, Paul Fischer, AAFP

Regression to the Mean

By JOHN HALAMKA You may have heard about the Sports Illustrated Effect, the notion that people who appear on the cover of the magazine are likely to experience bad luck, failure, or a career spiral. Over the 30 years of my own professional life, I’ve...

Published Fri, Feb 25 2011 5:25 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Front Page

Health Insurance Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Better Health

By JIM MARKS, MD, MPH A new study in the influential policy journal Health Affairs gives added credence to the idea that much of what drives health falls outside of the realm of medical care. In fact, this must-read study points out what so many of us...

Published Sat, Feb 26 2011 2:09 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: public health, Health insurance, Front Page, James Marks, Outcomes

Free Drug Samples and Hospital Hotels: Which is the Greater Evil?

By MICHAEL KIRSCH, MD Many folks criticize pharmaceutical companies for providing physicians’ offices with free drug samples. They claim that this giveaway harms consumers because drug companies must raise their prices to cover the costs of these freebies...

Published Mon, Feb 28 2011 10:00 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Pharma, Hospitals, The Insider's Guide to Health Care, Michael Kirsch, Drug samples

Cruel Shoes

By JOHN HENNING SCHUMANN, MD A thirtysomething friend of mine, let's call her Sally, started running last year in an effort to get in better shape. As often happens in these scenarios, Sally developed some foot pain. So she went... Read More...

Published Wed, Feb 09 2011 12:26 PM by The Health Care Blog

Exploitations of Immortality

By FRANK PASQUALE, JD Rebecca Skloot’s remarkable book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks has quite a following among health lawyers. As an excerpt from the book explains, Henrietta Lacks was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same... Read...

Published Thu, Feb 10 2011 9:15 AM by The Health Care Blog