Summary: “Mayo Clinic’s chief executive made a startling announcement in a recent speech to employees: The Rochester-based health system will give preference to patients with private insurance over those with lower-paying Medicaid or Medicare coverage, if they seek care at the same time and have comparable conditions,” writes Jeremy Olson at The Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “The […]
Posted inCosts, Health plans, Patients, Providers
How patient satisfaction translates to more money: Randi Oster
Summary: Patient satisfaction is a big deal in health care these days. I talked about the topic with Randi Redmond Oster, the head of Help Me Health and the multi award winning author of “Questioning Protocol,” which details her journey with her son, who has Crohn’s disease, and his multiple operations. “What I discovered was […]
Posted inCosts, Health plans, Health reform, Patients, Providers
Orphan drugs bring bounty for Big Pharma, at a steep price: Shots, NPR
Summary: “Before Luke Whitbeck began taking a $300,000-a-year drug, the 2-year-old’s health was inexplicably failing. A pale boy with enormous eyes, Luke frequently ran high fevers, tired easily and was skinny all over, except his belly stuck out like a bowling ball,” Sarah Jane Tribble and Sydney Lupkin write at NPR in a piece about […]
Posted inCosts, Health reform, Patients, Providers
House passes anti-abortion bill; our research cited on costs
Summary: “The House of Representatives just passed HR-7, an anti-abortion bill that expands the Hyde Amendment (a 1976 bill which prohibits the use of federal funds for abortions) to exclude the use of insurance for abortion coverage,” Noor al-Sibai writes over at Bustle, in a piece that cites us for our statistics. “The bill is […]
Posted inCosts, Health plans, Patients, Providers
What your doctor wishes you knew about insurance: Guest post
Guest post by Dina D. Strachan, M.D. If one were to survey the public, it is not obvious whether being sick would rank as more frustrating than dealing with health insurance —- especially in these times of health reform and uncertainty. Doctors also sometimes find dealing with health insurance difficult —- especially when their patients […]
Posted inCosts, Health reform, Patients, Providers
Transparency at health systems: Beckers Hospital Review
Summary: “Physician organizations, hospitals and health systems are under increasing pressure to deliver transparent, competitive pricing,” writes Kelly Gooch over at Becker’s Hospital Review. “This pressure is coming from multiple sources, according to Igor Belokrinitsky, principal with Strategy&, PricewaterhouseCoopers’ strategy consulting business, and with PwC US. Federal and state governments are demanding more transparency, while […]
Posted inCosts, Health plans, Health reform, Patients, Providers
21 statistics on high-deductible plans: Beckers Hospital Review
Summary: “Hospital and health system executives are well aware of the affects high-deductible health plans have had on hospital finances, from patient collections to bad debt,” Brooke Murphy wrote over at Becker’s Hospital Review, collecting statistics in May 2016. “To help quantify the impact of increasing patient financial obligations on the business of healthcare, here […]
Posted inCosts, Health plans, Health reform, Patients, Providers, Regulators
Get health insurance via employer? ACA repeal will affect you, too
Summary: “Much of the recent attention on the future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has focused on the fate of the 22.5 million people likely to lose insurance through a repeal of Medicaid expansion and the loss of protections and subsidies in the individual insurance market,” JoAnn Volk writes over at Health Affairs (Related […]
Posted inCosts, Health plans, Health reform, Patients, Regulators
Escalator clauses, rising prices, and why we should care
Summary: You may have asked yourself why health prices rise inexorably. Are escalator clauses, the automatic price increases common to many managed care contracts, the driving force behind trend factors? Bill Rusteberg, an independent insurance consultant in Texas, posted on his blog recently about escalator clauses, which he said commonly add 5 percent a year to […]
Posted inCosts, Patients, Providers, Regulators
At the wrong hospital, you’re 3 times more likely to die: New York Times
Summary: “Not all hospitals are created equal, and the differences in quality can be a matter of life or death,” Reed Abelson writes over at The New York Times. “In the first comprehensive study comparing how well individual hospitals treated a variety of medical conditions, researchers found that patients at the worst American hospitals were […]
