December 2018 - The Health Care Blog

MedPAC’s Proposed “Reforms” Should Be Tested Before They’re Implemented: CMS’s Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program Is Exhibit A

By KIP SULLIVAN, JD Egged on by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), Congress has imposed multiple pay-for-performance (P4P) schemes on the fee-for-service Medicare program. MedPAC recommended most of these schemes between 2003 and 2008...

Published Thu, Dec 06 2018 6:35 AM by THCB

Filed under: Congress, Medicare, CMS, Politics, ACA, Affordable Care Act, MACRA, Kip Sullivan, MedPAC, P4P, Pay for Performance, CHIP, hospital readmissions

Is CareMore Health’s Population Health Management Model Disruptive?

By REBECCA FOGG Fueled by Americans’ urgent need for better chronic disease care and insurers’ march from fee-for-service to value-based payments, innovation in population health management is accelerating across the health care industry. But it’s hardly...

Published Thu, Dec 27 2018 8:01 AM by THCB

Filed under: Medicare, Patients, Medicaid, Population Health, disruptive innovation, Healthcare innovation, Rebecca Fogg, CareMore Health

Creating an Infrastructure of Health Data to Support Amazon’s Leap into Healthcare

By CLAUDIA WILLIAMS Amazon has transformed the way we read books, shop online, host websites, do cloud computing, and watch TV. Can they apply their successes in all these other areas to healthcare? Just last week, Amazon announced Comprehend Medical...

Published Mon, Dec 31 2018 7:35 AM by THCB

Filed under: EHR, Tech, Amazon, value-based care, Health Data, Amazon Comprehend Medical, personalized healthcare, Claudia Williams, health informatics, Manifest MedEx

The Disruptive Potential of Employer-Centered Care

By LAWRENCE LEISURE When it comes to health care prices, the burden piled on payers can seem almost cartoonishly heavy. News stories on the state of the industry read as though some satirist decided to exaggerate real systemic flaws into cost-prohibitive...

Published Tue, Dec 11 2018 7:00 AM by THCB

Filed under: Patients, Health insurance, Kaiser Permanente, direct primary care, Castlight Health, Lawrence Leisure, workforce, Employer-based insurance, employer-centered care

Win, Lose, or Draw: Not all ACA Enrollees Gain from Increased Competition

By KATHERINE HEMPSTEAD PhD The 2019 ACA plan year is notable for the increase in insurer participation in the marketplace. Expansion and entry have been substantial, and the percent of counties with one insurer has declined from more than 50 percent to...

Published Thu, Dec 13 2018 6:16 AM by THCB

Filed under: Politics, ACA, Health insurance, Health policy, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, ACA Marketplace, health economics, Finance

Where is Relationship, Authority, and Trust in Health Care Today?

By HANS DUVEFELT MD Healthcare is on a different trajectory from most other businesses today. It’s a little hard to understand why. In business, mass market products and services have always competed on price or perceived quality. Think Walmart or Mercedes...

Published Fri, Dec 28 2018 8:03 AM by THCB

Filed under: Physicians, Patients, primary care, ACOs, Healthcare costs, Hans Duvefelt, doctor/ patient relationship, healthcare quality

Hotlines Aren’t Enough to Help People at Risk of Suicide

By CARA ANGELOTTA MD Contrary to popular belief, the risk of suicide does not increase around the holidays. But, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, annual suicide rates in the U.S. have risen nearly 30 percent since 1999. Much...

Published Fri, Dec 14 2018 8:01 AM by THCB

Filed under: Patients, public health, Health policy, Cara Angelotta, suicide epidemic, suicide prevention, suicide hotlines

CMS Should Boost the Signal on Social Determinants of Health

By HERB KUHN Historically, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) stance on the influence that social determinants of health (SDOH) have on health outcomes has been equal parts signal and noise. In April 2016, the agency announced it...

Published Fri, Dec 21 2018 8:17 AM by THCB

Filed under: Hospitals, CMS, Health policy, Social Determinants of Health, HRRP, Herb Kuhn

THCB Spotlight: Jesse Ehrenfeld, AMA

Today, we are featuring Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld from the American Medical Association (AMA) on THCB Spotlight. Matthew Holt interviews Dr. Ehrenfeld, Chair-elect of the AMA Board of Trustees and an anesthesiologist with the Vanderbilt University School of...

Published Tue, Dec 11 2018 6:48 AM by THCB

Filed under: Physicians, AMA, Tech, Artificial intelligence, digital health, American Medical Association, AI, CVS-Aetna, THCB Spotlights, health innovation, Jesse Ehrenfeld

Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 63 Walgreens & Fedex partnership, Verily’s adherence program, & more!

Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess and I get festive for the holidays. In this episode, Jess asks me about Walgreens and its new partnership with FedEx for next day prescription delivery and with Verily to help patients with prescription adherence. She...

Published Fri, Dec 21 2018 9:11 AM by THCB

Filed under: Matthew Holt, FDA, Glen Tullman, Walgreens, Cerner, Health in 2 Point 00, Jessica DaMassa, Flatiron Health, Livongo, Verily, Zane Burke, Amy Abernethy, Pokitdoc, Jennifer Schneider, Atrium Health, Change Healthcare, FedEx

MedPAC’s Proposed “Reforms” Should Be Tested Before They’re Implemented: CMS’s Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program Is Exhibit A | Part II

By KIP SULLIVAN JD The Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP), one of numerous pay-for-performance (P4P) schemes authorized by the Affordable Care Act, was sprung on the Medicare fee-for-service population on October 1, 2012 without being pre...

Published Fri, Dec 07 2018 6:45 AM by THCB

Filed under: Congress, Medicare, CMS, Politics, Kip Sullivan, HRRP, MedPAC, P4P, Pay for Performance, hospital readmissions

The Importance of Patient Engagement in Post-Acute Care

By BRIAN HOLZER MD, MBA Leaders in hospitals and health systems as well as post-acute care providers such as skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) and Home Health Care (HHC) agencies operate in a complex environment. Currently, the health care reimbursement...

Published Wed, Dec 19 2018 6:28 AM by THCB

Filed under: Medicare, CMS, ACOs, Health policy, patient engagement, value-based care, health innovation, Brian Holzer, post-acute care

Last Month in Oncology with Dr. Bishal Gyawali: November 2018

By BISHAL GYAWALI MD Keynote speech There was a very sobering piece in NEJM by the FDA last month in which the authors try to explore what went wrong with the Keynote-183, Keynote-185 and checkmate 602 trials testing PD-1 inhibitors combinations with...

Published Mon, Dec 17 2018 6:49 AM by THCB

Filed under: Physicians, pharmaceuticals, FDA, Clinical Trials, Oncology, Bishal Gyawali, Cancer drugs, PD-1 inhibitors, cancer immunotherapy

What Does Congressional Gridlock Mean for the Rest of the Country?

By AMY LONG and JOE MOLLOY Often, a Congressional gridlock is essentially good. This is because the executive arm of government is forced to consider a bipartisan approach to issues if it’s to secure the approval of both Democrats and Republicans in Congress...

Published Tue, Dec 18 2018 10:13 AM by THCB

Filed under: Congress, Politics, Obamacare, Affordable Care Act, Health policy, Trump, Midterm Elections, Amy Long, Joe Molloy, Congressional gridlock

Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 60

Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess and I report from a hedgehog cafe in Tokyo. In this episode, Jess asks me about Bright Health’s $200 million raise and the significance of Amazon’s new EMR product. We also talk about Health 2.0 Asia-Japan, which is...

Published Tue, Dec 04 2018 8:49 AM by THCB

Filed under: Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Wellness, Personalized Medicine, Amazon, Health in 2 Point 00, Jessica DaMassa, Blockchain, Bright Health