Jeanne Pinder
The insurance company’s “explanation of benefits” explains nothing. In fact it often confuses matters more. Also: People believe their insurance companies are paying more than they really are, because quite often the explanation of benefits leads to that conclusion. When I founded this company, in fact, a major impetus was the fact that no one […]
Jeanne Pinder
A friend writes: “I’m prescribed a Nasonex inhaler for seasonal allergies, to be used as I need it, not everyday unless needed. I order 3 months at a time, as I used to get discounts this way. It works quite well for me. “For the first few years, I paid $75.00 to $90.00 dollars per […]
Jeanne Pinder
People are often surprised to find that their insurance policies may cause them to pay more for prescriptions in the form of co-pays than they would pay if they simply put away their insurance card and chose to use cash. This is not true for every medication or every policy but it’s true often enough […]
Jeanne Pinder
Remedy, a startup company that raised nearly $2 million to build a business arguing people’s medical bills for them, has folded after around two years in business. Victor Echevarria, one of the founders, wrote on Medium recently: “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the end of Remedy today. Above all, we want […]
Jeanne Pinder
We got to watch a community member learn how to shop for health care in real time the other day, when our partners over at NOLA.com I The Times-Picayune were doing a Facebook Live. She came in in the comments, saying, “I pay my insurance over $500 a month. My out of pocket after my […]
Jeanne Pinder
“The box of prescription drugs had been forgotten in a back closet of a retail pharmacy for so long that some of the pills predated the 1969 moon landing,” Marshall Allen writes at ProPublica. “Most were 30 to 40 years past their expiration dates — possibly toxic, probably worthless. But to Lee Cantrell, who helps […]
Jeanne Pinder
One of the biggest secrets in health care is the rates that insurance companies pay providers. One insurer might pay one provider $2,400 for an MRI and a different provider $400 — in the same locale and for the same MRI. But we rarely see documentation of that, because the rates are kept secret. So […]
Jeanne Pinder
“The business and mission of pharmacies are being re-shaped by several major market forces, most impactful being uncertain health reform prospects at the Federal level — especially for Medicaid, which is a major payor for prescription drugs,” Jane Sarasohn-Kahn writes over at Health Populi. “Medicaid covered 14% of retail prescriptions dispensed in 2016, according to QuintilesIMS; […]
Jeanne Pinder
“Early last year, executives at a small hospital an hour north of Spokane, Wash., started using a company called EmCare to staff and run their emergency room. The hospital had been struggling to find doctors to work in its E.R., and turning to EmCare was something hundreds of other hospitals across the country had done,” […]
Jeanne Pinder
“Michael Koumjian, a heart surgeon for nearly three decades, said he considered treating the sickest patients a badge of honor. The San Diego doctor was frequently called upon to operate on those who had multiple illnesses or who’d undergone CPR before arriving at the hospital,” Anna Gorman wrote recently for Kaiser Health News. “Recently, however, […]
