The Health Care Blog

Wal-Mart drops drug prices, shakes up market -- again

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn

Wal-Mart continued its first-mover tactics in health by dropping the price of prescriptions again. This time, the target is maintenance meds, which Wal-Mart will price at $10 for a 90-days supply.

This move puts Wal-Mart squarely in the pharmacy benefits management (PBM) segment vis-à-vis ExpressScripts, Medco, and the big PBM players. The three-month mail order med business is the lucrative turf of PBMs. Wal-Mart's first move into this space was in 2006 when the company priced many 30-day prescriptions at $4, shaking up the industry. I wrote about that market disruption here in January 2008.

Wal-Mart will also offer over 1,000 over-the-counter (OTC) meds for $4 and under. These will all be Wal-Mart's private labels for popular OTC brands.

As the company with the red bulls-eye did the last time Wal-Mart dropped the price of meds, Target responded as a fast follower by saying they, too, will match the Wal-Mart prices for a 90-day supply of drugs. Target's program will expand the assortment of $4 Rx drugs and the 90-day supply of these medications for $10 and private-label OTC medications for $4 or less.

Continue reading "Wal-Mart drops drug prices, shakes up market -- again "

Healthy Americans Act could be the place of compromise for health reform in 2008

  By Robert Laszewski

Health care reform will be hard to do after the November election. I've even called it a long-shot.

Polls clearly show the voters split evenly between the Democratic and Republican approach to health care reform. I can't tell you who will win the presidency, but I am willing to make the bold statement that it will be a close election and neither very different approach to health care reform will enjoy any kind of mandate.

So finding common ground between these very different approaches will be more than tricky.

But we may already have an outline.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT) have crafted a health care reform plan that gives both sides the most important things each are looking for.

Continue reading "Healthy Americans Act could be the place of compromise for health reform in 2008"

THCB welcomes our latest sponsor ...

Indian docs endorse O.J. and oatmeal

By Sarah Arnquist

PepsiCo maneuvered marketing genius this week by convincing the Indian Medical Association to endorse the health benefits of Tropicana fruit juice and Quaker Oats for three years.

Now, when Indians reach for these products, they'll see a stamp of approval from the IMA. In turn, Pepsi will sponsor IMA events and forums. This so-called noncommercial deal is the first of its kind globally.

The Indian Medical Association, an organization with 1.75 million members, is India's equivalent to the American Medical Association. It has received harsh criticism for the deal. The Times of India ran opposing viewpoints Thursday on the endorsement.

"The IMA cannot be seen to be favouring any one corporation over its rivals when it comes to benefits that flow from a healthy diet," the opposing editorial states.

In the IMA's defense, a columnist wrote, "Brand promotions of healthy products of a corporation like PepsiCO -- that's more of a cola company -- will help it diversify its operations in holistic areas that enhance, rather than compromise, public health."

Did Pepsi ghostwrite that?

Ten years ago, the American Medical Association had to backtrack on an agreement to endorse Sunbeam medical supplies after its members responded with fury. The AMA's violation of an unwritten 40-year-old rule against product endorsements caused four top officials to resign.

Continue reading "Indian docs endorse O.J. and oatmeal"

The Innovation xChange

THCB is proud to welcome our latest sponsor: Humana and ChangeNow4Health.com. This site would not be possible without the generous backing of corporate sponsors like Humana. So we'd like to thank them - as well as all of our other wonderful sponsors - for their very kind support.

When you have a moment pop over to Change Now 4 Health and have a look at the very clever innovation contest they've organized. You can send in your brilliant ideas in one of the following four areas: (1). Helping Consumers Make Smarter Health Care Decisions, (2) Simplifying the Business of Health Care, (3.) Preventing Sickness and Maintaining Health, (4.) General Innovations in Health Care. 

You'll also be able to read other people's entries and comment on them. User-Generated Content at its finest! Top finalists will be eligible for three $10,000 prizes and possible additional support from the Humana Innovation Center. The official contest lingo:

Do you want to improve the U.S. health care system? Or at least be part of the much-needed dialogue? If you have ideas or solutions to improve the system, submit your ideas through ChangeNow4Health  Innovation xChange and you can win up to $10,000 or have your ideas published in the e-book, Tomorrow’s Health Care. 

The Innovation xChange is looking for practical ideas and suggestions for improving the health care system. All participants in the system, from providers and health plans to consumers and government, are encouraged to join in the discussion.

All entries submitted on ChangeNow4Health will be open to comments and voting by the coalition’s communities. The top 20 entries will be published in ChangeNow4Health’s e-book, Tomorrow’s Health Care, and up to three finalists will be awarded  $10,000 each.

In addition, Humana Inc., a founding member of the coalition, will consider the top         award-winners for a joint venture with the company’s Innovation Center, to incubate the winning idea and bring it to reality.  Winners will be announced by August 31, 2008.

For more info: ChangeNow4Health.com

Interview with CEO of Limeade, Henry Albrecht

By Jen McCabe Gorman

Henry Albrecht, CEO of Limeade online employee wellness firm, was nice enough to talk with me on his cell phone in the evening (after 5 p.m. West Coast, 2 a.m. Amsterdam time).

Both of us were banging pots and pans, cooking dinner (him), making coffee (me).There's something comforting about speaking with a high-tech health care executive in such an old-fashioned, "conversational" way.

Thanks again Henry – pleasure to meet you and Limeade.

Continue reading "Interview with CEO of Limeade, Henry Albrecht"

THCB is proudly sponsored by CDW Healthcare

 

Health 2.0 Consciousness Dawns - Even In Jacksonville, FL!

by BRIAN KLEPPER

Next Thursday, Matthew, Michael Millenson and I are converging at a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation conference on public reporting of health care pricing/performance information in Amelia Island, FL, three short barrier islands north of my home in Atlantic Beach. (Always helpful, Michael suggested to the conference organizers that I should be required to walk or take public transportation, to compensate for the fact that everyone else has to come in by airplane.)

In any case, we decided that we might as well seize the opportunity and hold a short symposium on market-based transformation for the Northeast Florida health care and business communities. Dean Chally of the University of North Florida's College of Health graciously arranged the space on their beautiful campus, and so we're set for a 7:30AM, 2 hour conference. Michael will talk about public reporting, Matthew will present on the consumer side of H20, and I'll hit H2O business-to-business analytics, the emerging medical home movement, and some wellness/prevention approaches that are gaining traction. Should be a fun morning. If you're in the neighborhood, be sure to drop by and join us.

Interview with Joseph Kvedar, Partners Center for Connected Health

By Matthew Holt

Joseph Kvedar is the director of Center for Connected Health, which is part of the Partners HealthCare System's empire in Boston (that's Mass General and the Brigham for you old-schoolers). Joe emceed the conference I spoke at yesterday, and I stopped in for a quick chat with him this morning to get an update on the Center's progress.

If you need an introduction to the Center, its web site is here, a piece Joe  wrote for THCB last year is here and the transcript of a longer interview I did with Joe is here.

Today we had time for a quick catch-up, in which he touches on the state of the EMR initiative at Partners, the wider role of Connected Health within Partners, and the state of their current pilots. Here's the interview (The first minute is a little quiet. My apologies.)

You can also see the details about the Center's symposium (27-28 October). There, you can find out more about Connected Health than you can imagine, and you'll probably see a little flavor of Health 2.0 there, too. We hope to bring a little flavor of the community aspect of Connected Health to the Health 2.0 Conference (October 22-23). Yes, we know they're close together ... but speaking as someone who's been to both, I recommend both highly!

THCB is proudly sponsored by

Health Plan Illiteracy: study finds many do not understand their benefits

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn

Health plan illiteracy is alive and well, according to J.D. Power and Associates. The consumer market research firm's 2008 National Health Insurance Plan Study finds that one in two plan members don't understand their plan.

In this second year of the survey, J.D. Power notes that, as consumers understand the benefits of their Benefit, their satisfaction with the plan increases. Thus, there is a virtuous cycle that happens between a plan and an enrollee when communication is clear and understood.

J.D. Power looked at member satisfaction in 107 health plans throughout the U.S. in terms of seven key metrics: coverage and benefits; choice of doctors, hospitals and pharmacies; information and communication; approval processes; claims processing; insurance statements; and customer service. The survey was conducted in November and December 2007.

Last year, Abt Associates found that most insured workers don't understand simple health plan language. I abstracted some of Abt's findings in this chart that I use in many of my presentations. Health plan illiteracy goes beyond general health illiteracy -- this is people blessed with benefits who don't 'get' them.

Continue reading " Health Plan Illiteracy: study finds many do not understand their benefits"

The virtues of virtual visits

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn

Rush-Presbyterian Medical Center's Virtual Integrated Practice (VIP) is more evidence that remote health care can improve health outcomes.

At Rush, a team has been refining the VIP model for the past four years. The VIP's objective is to improve chronic disease management for older people by deploying an
interdisciplinary team using communications technology.

The main challenges in primary care for VIP's target patient population are:

• Multiple chronic problems
• Polypharmacy
• Physical disability
• Functional impairment
• Economic stressors

The Holy Grail here is that when these patients are optimally-managed, VIP can identify missed opportunities for primary prevention and avoid eventual disability.

Continue reading " The virtues of virtual visits"

Searching for the price of one appendectomy

By Sarah Arnquist

This month's Philadelphia Magazine ranks the city's top physicians -- a fad nearly all major city magazines have adopted because it attracts great advertising dollars.

But tucked amid the pages of smiling surgeons and OB-GYNs is a gem of a story by the magazine's executive editor, Tom McGrath, in which he takes readers through the maze he encountered while trying to decipher the hospital and insurance bills following his daughter's appendectomy.

After his five-year-old daughter had her appendix out at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), McGrath set out to learn why it was so impossible for him to understand how much his daughter's surgery and hospital stay cost, how much the insurance company was paying, and how much he owed.

"I discovered two things: first, that much of the cost of our health care is determined behind smoked glass, where patients are never invited to look," McGrath wrote. "And second, that in trying to make sense of a single simple case where everything went right, you can learn a lot about what’s wrong with health care in America."

Continue reading "Searching for the price of one appendectomy "

THCB UPDATE

If you haven't had a chance to sign up for THCB UPDATE yet, you really should. You'll get a helpful reminder email from us a few times a week when important posts go up on the site. In the two and a half six months since the service launched more than 700 1,000 1,200 1,300, 2,000  people have signed up, thoroughly surprising me. I've pledged not to divulge any details about the people who sign up, but I can tell you that list reads a bit like a health care who's who. Go on: It's free. It's useful. And people seem to like it. Go visit the sign up page.

Around the Web in 60 Seconds

By THCB STAFF

NYT Lying - Giving Ourselves The Psychological Push We Need to Reach Future Goals? Or Just Good Old-Fashioned Twisted Fun?

LAT: Food 2.0 - What to eat while Googling

Microsoft: Health 2.0 could eventually "expand Web 2.0 concepts to the entire health ecosystem of payors, providers, employers, consumers, life sciences entities and even the government."

Wired Science: ""With the world teetering on the edge of a full-blown food crisis, it may be time to cut back on biofuel, said Barack Obama yesterday."

MIT Tech Review: The Candidates on Tech

HealthTech: "A Pan-European eHealth Infrastructure Could Revolutionize Healthcare."

SF Chronicle: Medical Tourism is Big...

WSJ: Medical Tourism is Not So Big...

Continue reading "Around the Web in 60 Seconds "

Can “consumerism” work in health care?

By Brian Baum

“Consumerism,” -- free market, open competition - regardless of the term used to describe this market behavior, can the concept of “natural market forces” exist in health care?  It seems as though observers of the health care “market” fall into two distinct points of view:

POV 1:  Consumerism in health care is a train that has already left the station.
POV 2:  Health care is different and true market forces can never prevail because the players' roles are so polarizing, and the “buyer” and the “consumer” are so disconnected.

I suspect that for anyone reading this, you have already checked off your respective point of view. (While the merits of this topic are worth debating, ultimately, time and events will answer this question.)

In the meantime, let's consider the following:

Continue reading "Can “consumerism” work in health care?"

THCB's own correspondent in India

By Sarah Arnquist

Less than a month ago, I quit my job as a newspaper health care reporter and moved to India. No, I wasn't fleeing the dismal atmosphere permeating traditional newsrooms these days (not entirely at least). This was a premeditated step to travel and learn about health care in the world's largest democracy before starting Johns Hopkins Masters in Public Health Program this summer. Oh, and in the meantime, I joined the staff of THCB.

After 16 days in Hyderabad (located in the south-central state of Andhra Pradesh), I've adjusted to the heat, spicy food and traffic, and am now ready to begin some real reporting. Over the next month or two, I'll share what I learn on THCB. I'm particularly interested in the exploding private health sector, the emerging health insurance markets, maternal and child health, and the wide gaps in care between the haves and the have-nots.

If you have any contacts in Hyderabad or suggestions for posts, please feel free to contact me at sarnquist@gmail.com or in the comments section.

MN lawmakers pass bill to ban sharing info on medical debt

By Eric Novack

Perhaps this should be applied to groceries, utility bills, clothing, and, of course, housing…

Oh, wait, that is what the mortgage lending industry was doing for several years.

Two quick Health 2.0 "on tour" conference appearances

By Matthew Holt

Today, Health 2.0 co-founder Indu Subaiya will be moderating a panel at Consumer Health World in Las Vegas (from the Transmarx folks) while tomorrow I’ll be on a panel at the Consumer Connectivity & Web Empowerment Conference (put on by the World Congress) in Boston.

And of course there’ll be a few more sprinkles of Health 2.0 friends and family around the country in the lead up to the Fall meeting in San Francisco, October 22 & 23.

Should Hospitals Install Bar Coding or CPOE First?

By Bob Wachter

Robert Wachter is widely regarded as a leading figure in the modern patient safety movement. Together with Dr. Lee Goldman, he coined the term "hospitalist" in an influential 1996 essay in The New England Journal of Medicine. His most recent book, Understanding Patient Safety, (McGraw-Hill, 2008) examines the factors that have contributed to what is often described as "an epidemic" facing American hospitals. His posts appear semi-regularly on THCB and on his own blog "Wachter's World

This is one of the most commonly asked questions in IT World, and my answer has always been “CPOE first” – largely because that has always been David Bates’s (the world’s leading IT/safety researcher) answer. But I’ve changed my mind. Here’s why.

Before I start, I promised that I’d let you know if I ever blogged on a topic in which I have a financial conflict of interest. On this, I do: I serve as a paid member of the Scientific Advisory Board of IntelliDOT, a company that makes a stand-alone bar coding system. If that freaks you out, stop reading. But recognize that if you had asked me the “bar coding or computerized provider order entry?” question last week, I would have answered “CPOE”.

Continue reading "Should Hospitals Install Bar Coding or CPOE First? "

WSJ analyzes specialist pay

By Eric Novack

On the front page of Today’s Wall Street Journal is an article entitled, “Medical Specialties Hit by a Growing Pay Gap”.

A few passages worth thinking about:

"Many in health-policy circles have focused on how the current health-care payment system is helping create shortages among primary-care doctors, internists and others on the front lines of medicine. But often lost is how the system is endangering some of the country's most highly trained specialties as well."

And later…

"… Medicare implemented a new system to set standard fees for physicians' services and procedures. The system's aims were to clamp down on prices and, ironically, narrow the disparity between the bread-and-butter office visit and more-expensive specialty procedures. (emphasis mine) Over time, private insurers have taken their cue from Medicare to set their reimbursements, too."

And one more…

"Medicare officials say the government program tries to address cost disparities by continually reviewing its fee schedule but says it relies a lot on medical-specialty societies to raise such issues."

"We want to make sure that payment is appropriate and that includes not underpaying," says Terrence Kay, senior adviser to the director of the Center for Medicare Management.

Marrying for health care

By Sarah Arnquist

About 7 percent of Americans recently reported in new Kaiser Health Tracking Poll that someone in their household got married so they could get health benefits. While 7 percent may be a bit high, I have no doubt some people consider health benefits when deciding the timing of their marriage.

I gave similar advice to a friend only a few months back. She had recently moved to Denver with her fiancee, and was temporarily unemployed. She wanted health insurance and could afford to buy it, but she couldn't get it.

Except for seasonal allergies, she's a healthy 26-year-old woman. Allergies were reason enough, however, for two insurers to deny her coverage. Her fiancee's policy only covered spouses. My advice: get married quickly at City Hall and then again eight months later at the planned wedding. (She rejected that idea and found a job after about two months of looking that offered health benefits.)

Under John McCain's proposed health plan, many more people like my friend may be denied coverage. His solution? Create a high-risk insurance pool. But do allergies make my friend high-risk? I don't think so. Where do individuals like her fit in?

Over at the Health Access blog, Anthony Wright describes California's high-risk pool, known as the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board, or MRMIB. It currently has a waiting list of more than 500 people. Another example of people who want insurance but can't get it.

A Hat Tip to Pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock

By Brian Klepper

Here's one of today's entries in The Writers' Almanac, the wonderful daily newsletter sent out by Garrison Keillor on NPR. Parents of boomers like me were big fans of Dr. Spock, treating him with an almost cult-like reverence for his sensible wisdom about child care. He later parted ways with some of his more conservative followers, when he became an iconic protester against America's war in Viet Nam. I wonder whether regular THCB readers will read this and, like me, note that this is the same message Jane Sarasohn-Kahn relates in The Wisdom of Patients. We stand on the shoulders of giants.

It's the birthday of Dr. Benjamin Spock, (books by this author) born in New Haven, Connecticut (1903). His Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946) was a best seller during the period after World War II, when parents across America were raising the Baby Boom generation. Spock opened his first pediatric practice in 1933. After 10 years of observing children and their health, Spock decided to write a book about taking care of them. Instead of writing it out himself, he dictated the book to his wife, to give it a conversational tone. Previous parenting guidebooks had encouraged parents to be stern with their children, and they were written as a list of commands. Dr. John B. Watson had written in his guidebook, "Never, never kiss your child. Never hold it in your lap. Never rock its carriage." Dr. Spock encouraged parents to be affectionate, and he also encouraged them to follow their own instincts. The first sentence of his book was, "You know more than you think you do."

The bizzaro world of McCain's health care politics

By Matthew Holt

I sometimes write two different versions of pieces, one for you wonks at THCB and one for the more general crowd at Spot-on. Well to be more accurate I write one version which gets edited heavily over at Spot-on, so today here I'm putting up the THCB version of the one that went up on Spot-on yesterday.

My 6 weeks of traveling the world on an extended honeymoon is over. Thanks very much to Brian Klepper and the cast of thousands who’ve been keeping THCB rolling excellently while with my lovely wife Amanda I’ve been diving on coral reefs, sleeping under the stars with the Bedouin, exploring 3,500 year-old tombs, watching Lions tear apart a buffalo, and tracking chimps hanging out in the rain forest. (Pictures of all this and more to come, I promise)

So what better way to return than to enter the jungle of US Presidential politics? Yesterday I sat in on 2 conference calls. One from the McCain camp on their man’s health care proposal, the other from the Campaign for America’s Future, which is promoting Jacob Hacker’s plan as the theory behind both Clinton and Obama’s policy intentions. It wasn’t pretty.

McCain’s proxies were Douglas Holtz-Eakin, sensible former CBO director, and Carly Fiorina, the fired HP ex-CEO who has been rehabilitating herself by taking credit for her successor’s success, and been hanging out on the McCain campaign as adviser for tech. Apparently she’s on the VP shortlist, and if so, we got a lot of taste of what we can expect. The choice is between free market choice, and the government telling your family which doctor it can go and see. Yes, you’re going to hear “government run heath care care” alot as if we’re all moving to the Gulag.

(Carly also made an amusing slip when she said that McCain favored importing of generic prescription drugs. Generic drugs are of course usually cheaper here—it’s re-importation of branded drugs that McCain supports, which will lose him the odd contribution from PhRMA).

But no matter competition and choice is always cheaper—trust her.  But then again Carly knows all about succeeding in the free market, right?

 

Continue reading "The bizzaro world of McCain's health care politics"

Seventh Annual Information Therapy Conference

WIxRED: Next Generation Patient-Centered Care As we engage in a national debate about the directions of health care reform, many experts agree that patient-centered care and health information technology (HIT) are critical elements of our future delivery system. The 2008 Information Therapy (Ix®) Conference at the sensational new Newseum will provide a fabulous venue for a national dialog on the intersection of patient-centered care and HIT. On June 12-13, the 7th annual Ix Conference will challenge health care leaders to seize the opportunity for enhanced patient-centered care and system redesign by integrating Ix initiatives into HIT implementation. Click here to learn more.

Who the Health Cares?

By Matthew Holt

After the hotties from Rocketboom, now politics has a daily quickie from another cutie called Lindsay Campbell (the site Moblogic.tv is run by CBS rather than some indie company), but this episode, Who the Health Cares?, points out very sensibly that the Democrats in Congress aren’t really interested in health reform the way that Clinton and Obama say they are.

Lindsay thinks that all the Dems should sign onto the Conyers single payer bill….

CarePages at BIDMC

By Paul Levy

A suggestion from e-Patient Dave after his treatment at our hospital last year prompted us to start offering Carepages to our patients. The idea is to make it easy for people to create and update a private and personalized web page where they can share their latest news with friends and family and receive messages of support. There is no charge to the patient for this service. Similar services had been available to patients if they made an effort to find them, but Dave was right to suggest that we offer it directly. For some reason, we were a bit behind the times on this matter, and I am glad he pointed it out to us. Proving again that patients really have good ideas about how to make life better for patients. Duh!

King of the Serengeti

 

While we're on the theme of the health care jungle, here's one more for you. This young lion and his buddy spent the night feasting on this buffalo.

While I was away....

 
 

I met this little baby cheetah....

Meanwhile, over at Spot-on I'm up discussing the McCain health care plan and some of the Democratic reactions to it.

My six weeks of traveling the world on an extended honeymoon is over. With my lovely wife Amanda I've been diving on coral reefs, sleeping under the stars with the Bedouin, exploring 3,500 year-old tombs, watching lions tear apart a buffalo, and tracking chimps hanging out in the rain forest. What better way to return than to enter the jungle of U.S. Presidential politics? MORE

As ever come back here to comment.

John McCain and The Politics of The Uninsured

By Robert Laszewski

John McCain spoke about health care in Tampa on Tuesday and tried to answer many of the questions that have been raised about his health care reform plan.

The most pressing question is how would people with preexisting conditions get health care coverage in his plan? The worry is that his plan emphasizes tax incentives for consumers to purchase coverage in the individual health insurance market that relies so heavily on upfront medical underwriting.

Here is how his website explained his answer to that question:

John McCain Will Work With States To Establish A Guaranteed Access Plan. As President, John McCain will work with governors to develop a best practice model that states can follow - a Guaranteed Access Plan or GAP - that would reflect the best experience of the states to ensure these patients have access to health coverage. One approach would establish a nonprofit corporation that would contract with insurers to cover patients who have been denied insurance and could join with other state plans to enlarge pools and lower overhead costs. There would be reasonable limits on premiums, and assistance would be available for Americans below a certain income level.

I am frankly amazed he offered this as a "solution."

Continue reading "John McCain and The Politics of The Uninsured"

The 2nd Annual DiabetesMine Design Contest

Over at DiabetesMine #1 blogger Amy Tenderich and her buds at Medgadget have got this years DiabetesMine Design Contest up. The winner gets to go to (and probably demo at) this years Health 2.0 contest—as if you needed more incentive!

After A Short Stay In the US, Michelangelo's David Returns To Florence

Around the Web in 60 Seconds (Or Less)

By THCB STAFF

Highly Credible Poll of the Day: Seven percent of Americans marry for health insurance. 

WSJ Health Blog:  In wake of celebrity snooping cases UCLA officials say "new system will make employees list their connection to the patient and will warn them if they’re entering “an especially protected chart."

Calif. Gov will try to push through health care plan in Sacramento after defeat last year. Schwarzenegger to AP: "We'll try again. We will continue on, keeping the stakeholders together, fine-tuning it and seeing if we can improve on it since we have the time now, then be back again. We feel very confident."

Relatives of U.S. victims testify to Congress in tainted heparin case.

FDA: Contamination "probably intentional."

National Review: "incident exposes the ugly little secret about drug importation as a means to lower the cost of medicine. Substandard and counterfeit drugs proliferate in many countries in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere."

Surrendered to the void: LSD inventor Albert Hoffman dead at the age of 102. 

NIH Joins Newly Formed International Cancer Genome Consortium

Washington Post: Two Research Teams Reverse Congenital Blindness Using Genetically Altered Viruses

Seattle Times: Targeted Genetics Introduces Gene Therapy

Washington Post: Mining Cancer with Nano Gold in Maryland

MedPage: Pretty Pictures - French Develop Next-Gen, Graphical Medical Communications System

Open Call to MedBloggers- Join Blogging Against Disablism Day May 1st

Healthcare stocks. What's the prognosis?

Health Plans vs. Banks - Who is trusted more?

People trust health insurance companies to hold their health spending information more than they trust banks, according to a survey from Medavante.

In Cure the Confusion: The Consumer Experience of Online Healthcare, Medavante found that consumers perceived that health plans have less bias than financial institutions. Yet, 80 million Americans bank online.

Still, trust in online banking is eroding. Earlier this month, Bankrate's survey asserted that Americans are very concerned about identity theft. This is beginning to impact their online behavior with banks.

This is a new finding. Other data sources assert that consumers lack trust in health plans when it comes to data. Forrester's recent research discovered that consumers don't necessarily trust health plans to keep personal health information private.

Furthermore, Bruce Temkin's excellent Customer Experience Index work at Forrester found that health plans rank in last place in customer experiences. With the growing role consumers are playing in personal health financing, banks are launching an initiative to play a major role in managing personal health information. The Medical Banking Project (MBP) was founded in 2001 as a rallying point for financial services institutions who were carving out a role in health care. Since then, the MBP has grown its membership and mission beyond driving paper out of health care. Its sights are set on "medical banking convergence:" the integration of medical information with health financial data.

But will consumers slow this convergence given their potential concerns about banks managing health information found by Medavante?

Jane's Hot Points: It is possible that consumer trust has eroded in banks' handling of personal information given more press and concern about identity theft, privacy gaffes, and potentially, the impact of the sub-prime mortgage crisis on the consumer psyche. At the same time, Medavante's poll shows that consumers may have more trust in health plans -- which would be big news for the industry.

McCain starting to talk about health care

This morning John McCain’s team will be talking about health care. There are some interesting ideas in McCain’s plan, which is the Bush tax deduction idea morphed into a tax credit, plus changes in Medicare payments. The best quick explanation is from our friends at ICYou.

Matthew Holt

Election no big deal for health industries

By Don Johnson

McCain to talk about healthcare costs this week ...

Health industry executives have few reasons to worry about the so called health care reforms, or health insurance industry reforms, being proposed by the presidential candidates.

Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, is focusing his attention on heath care cost containment this week, but a report in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal shows that he doesn’t understand the problems any better than Senators Clinton and Obama. Americans need regulatory changes (no laws are “reforms") that make health insurance something consumers can use to protect themselves against catastrophic losses and let individuals buy their policies directly from insurers instead of buying policies selected by their employers. And consumers should pay for their primary care and preventive care services out of their pockets, or, at the least, buy unbundled insurance for those services instead of buying bundled insurance that is unaffordable for so many.

The real question is how much could a President McCain do about health insurance costs with a Congress controlled by Democrats, and would he pay much attention to the problem if it were clear that Congress would mark his proposals dead on arrival?

Fortunately, the presidential candidates’ wild and undeliverable promises of comprehensive health insurance reforms and universal health insurance are being questioned by Congressional Democrats as well as by the policy wonks quoted by the wsj.com. No wonder health industry executives aren’t worried about who’s elected in the fall. They apparently have decided it won’t make a difference for them or their stocks.

Continue reading "Election no big deal for health industries "

The State of Employer-Sponsored Coverage - Brian Klepper

By Brian Klepper

A detailed new study from the Economics Policy Institute confirms what many of us suspect but haven't had the data to easily nail down. This weightily-titled report by Jared Bernstein and Heidi Shierholz - A Decade of Decline: The Erosion of Employer-Provided Health Care in the United States and California, 1995-2006 - provides more granular information about the enrollment dynamics over time in employer-sponsored health coverage than we've seen in a while. Based on an analysis of the March 2007 Current Population Survey, the numbers reported here are mostly in sync with (but deeper than) similar studies that have attempted to size the enrollment and erosion characteristics of the employer-sponsored coverage market. Strap yourself in; this isn't pretty.

There are two important points here. The first is that, in the six years between 2000-2006, the percentage of American workers with employer-sponsored coverage fell from 51.1 to 48.8 percent, a 2.3 percent absolute or 4.5 percent relative drop. 6.4 million workers (and presumably, another 7.6 million of their family members) lost their health coverage in the process. These losses exceeded gains made between 1995-2000, when the percentage of workers with coverage rose from 49.6 to 51.1 percent. 

Continue reading "The State of Employer-Sponsored Coverage - Brian Klepper"

Ron Paul on health reform: shrink government

By Sarah Arnquist

If elected president, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, promises to shrink the government's role in health care. Government intervention, he says, is the cause of today's high costs, inefficiencies and lack of personal responsibility.

“We can hardly expect more government to cure our current health care woes,” says the Texas OB-GYN's Web site. “As with all goods and services, medical care is best delivered by the free market, with competition and financial incentives keeping costs down.”

Here's the outline of Paul's health reform plan:

• Making all medical expenses tax deductible.
• Eliminating federal regulations that discourage small businesses from providing coverage.
• Giving doctors the freedom to collectively negotiate with insurance companies and drive down the cost of medical care.
• Making every American eligible for a Health Savings Account (HSA), and removing the requirement that individuals must obtain a high-deductible insurance policy before opening an HSA.
• Reform licensure requirements so that pharmacists and nurses can perform some basic functions to increase access to care and lower costs.
• By removing federal regulations, encouraging competition, and presenting real choices, we can make our health care system the envy of the world once again.

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The Genetic Discrimination Bill Shows Us Just How Hard Health Care Reform Can Be

By Robert Laszewski

About 1990, I was a member of something called the Task Force on Genetic Testing at the then Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA). The health insurance industry realized that, with the Human Genome Project in its early stages, we weren't far away from genetics being a part of everyday health care and the Orwellian implications on us as insurance underwriters were not lost.

The task was to think about all of this and develop an industry policy for dealing with it. Here's the headline: In 1990, there was no disagreement among the many insurance executives on the panel that it should never be the insurance industry's policy to use genetic information to underwrite or otherwise use the information in a way that disadvantaged the people we either insured or could insure.

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The Wisdom of Patients - Social Media In Health Care

By Jane Sarasohn Khan

People -- citizens, patients, caregivers, "consumers" -- are early adopters of social media in health, compared to other industry stakeholders including providers, plans, payers, and suppliers such as pharmas and medical equipment companies.

This is but one of many findings in my report, The Wisdom of Patients, which was published yesterday by the California HealthCare Foundation.

The report covers the origins of social media in the morphing of Web 1.0 to 2.0; the current state of social media in health; business models, opportunities and obstacles; a glimpse into the fuzzy future of Health 2.0; and, profiles several of the most pioneering figures in health/social media including Amy Tenderich of DiabetesMine; Matthew Zachary of the I'm Too Young For This! Foundation; Jack Barrette, founder of WEGO Health and formerly with Yahoo! Health; Neal Sofian of Resolution Health; Dan Hoch, MD, of the Harvard Medical School; and, Ben Heywood, CEO of PatientsLikeMe.

Jane's Hot Points: So many people informed this report. I interviewed over 30 people to listen to a broad range of perspectives, and benefited from the peer review of people like Matthew Holt, Scott Shreeve, and Dmitriy Kruglyak. I thank them all. I am fortunate to have had the California HealthCare Foundation sponsor this research. They are a visio