From the category archives:

Health Care Politics

by: Larry Emmott at March 20, 2019.

Death by a Thousand Clicks: Where Electronic Health Records Went Wrong

March 21, 2019

From Fortune: Follow the link and read the whole thing. Electronic health records were supposed to do a lot: make medicine safer, bring higher-quality care, empower patients, and yes, even save money. Boosters heralded an age when researchers could harness the big data within to reveal the most effective treatments for disease and sharply reduce medical […]

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HIMSS19: Loud and clear message from feds on patient data: It belongs to patients

March 14, 2019

From FierceHealthcare: Officials put industry stakeholders on notice over efforts to block patients’ access to their data. The Department of Health and Human Services made public several proposed rules aimed at increasing consumer access to their health data, but whether these regulations lead to the long-held goal of industrywide interoperability will take years to determine. Source: HIMSS19: Loud […]

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ADA comments on agency’s request to modify HIPAA rules

February 21, 2019

From ADA News: Washington — The ADA is asking the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights to incorporate flexibility and keep processes simple to help dental offices remain HIPAA compliant. Source: ADA comments on agency’s request to modify HIPAA rules Hmmm

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Hospitals Must Now Post Prices. But It May Take a Brain Surgeon to Decipher Them.

January 17, 2019

From The New York Times: On Jan. 1, hospitals began complying with a Trump administration order to post list prices for all their services, theoretically offering consumers transparency and choice and forcing health care providers into price competition.It’s turning into a fiasco. Source: Hospitals Must Now Post Prices. But It May Take a Brain Surgeon to […]

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The “healthcare crisis” is in fact not a crisis of care but a crisis of affordability

December 28, 2018

The “healthcare crisis” is in fact not a crisis of care but a crisis of affordability. So far attempts to fix the established system with central command and control have proven to be a ineffective. Technology has the potential to lower costs and improve care. Eventually the entrenched interest will be overwhelmed.

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Urgent Care Centers Take Off

December 20, 2018

From US News: Increasing demand is spurring a dramatic expansion in the number of urgent care centers in the U.S. There are about 8,250 urgent care clinics throughout the country, according to the most recent estimate by the Urgent Care Association. From 2014 to 2017, about 400 to 500 new urgent care clinics opened each year, […]

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Disruption is coming

December 6, 2018

Medicine (and by default dentistry) is an industry ripe for disruption. As usual the established players which in this case includes physicians, med schools, hospitals and insurance companies will resist the changes. However using history as a guide the disruption will start at the lower end of services and then grow. We are already seeing […]

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Considerations On Cost Disease

October 16, 2018

From Slate Star Codex: The cost of health care has about quintupled since 1970. It’s actually been rising since earlier than that, but I can’t find a good graph; it looks like it would have been about $1200 in today’s dollars in 1960, for an increase of about 800% in those fifty years. Source: Considerations On […]

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How Formerly Independent Doctors Were Pushed Out of Business

October 11, 2018

From Reason: “Is the independent doctor disappearing?” U.S. News & World Report asked earlier this summer. The answer is: yes—and to a significant extent, that’s a result of deliberate policy. Your doctors didn’t jump out of business; they were pushed. Source Reason According to the article only 33% of physicians own their own practice. That compares to 80% […]

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Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and others make health data pledge to Ease Patient, Provider Access to Health Data

September 18, 2018

From CNBC: There are many broken things about the U.S. health care system. But one of the biggest and most overlooked problems is that patients still find it too hard to share their medical information between doctors, especially those working in different hospitals. Source: Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and others make health data pledge This is […]

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CMS Head: We’re Working Toward Interoperability. Are You?

August 16, 2018

From Healthcare Analytics News: Healthcare is stuck in a 1990s time warp. That’s according to Seema Verma, M.P.H., who heads the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)… …But in spite of these steps forward, healthcare organizations still depend on faxes, CD-ROMs and paper notes. Interoperability remains elusive, and patients still don’t have access to, never […]

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Trump Administration Requires Hospitals To Post Standard Prices Online

August 14, 2018

From The Daily Caller: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will require hospitals to update their online price list annually starting Jan. 1, reported The Hill. Before the new rule, CMS required that hospitals share prices with people who requested them.CMS said the rule was made to “encourage price transparency,” according to The Hill. […]

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The Cost Issue and Questions to ask Yourself

June 19, 2018

Patients do not care about cost when someone else (a third party) is paying for treatment. They do care about quality outcomes and the overall experience of a healthcare encounter. When paying themselves patients have different priorities. How many times have you had patients refuse treatment because their insurance will not cover it? Way too […]

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Dispute between California Dental Association, Delta Dental of California settled for $65 million

May 31, 2018

From ADA News: The San Francisco Superior Court granted final approval May 2 of a $65 million class action settlement between the California Dental Association and Delta Dental of California,… …The CDA filed the legal action in August 2013 in response to Delta Dental’s plans to reduce reimbursement rates for their Premier plan by 8 […]

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Good Trend

May 29, 2018

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Trump Administration Wants to Take On Medical-Records Puzzle

March 13, 2018

From Bloomberg via ADA News: “At a time when health-care data is being generated from so many sources, too often that data runs into the hard walls of closed systems that hold patients, and their information, hostage,” said Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, …“Patients ought to have control of their […]

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State launches Aetna probe after stunning admission

February 19, 2018

From CNN: Stunning? California’s insurance commissioner has launched an investigation into Aetna after learning a former medical director for the insurer admitted under oath he never looked at patients’ records when deciding whether to approve or deny care. Source: State launches Aetna probe after stunning admission – CNN This is not stunning to anyone on […]

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What Hospitals Can Learn from Airlines About Buying Equipment

January 25, 2018

From Medtronic: One big reason why is that hospitals purchase technologies without requiring that they communicate with each other. The optimal air flow is based on a straightforward calculation using the height of the patient. Height data, however, resides in the electronic medical record, which typically does not communicate with the ventilator… …Because similar gaps […]

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‘Breaking new ground’ in standards development

January 22, 2018

From ADA News: For most dentists, the development of the guide means that when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services eventually publishes Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Claim Attachments regulation, there will be a tested and proven way to report dentist-defined periodontal examination data in a standardized, structured, electronic document, Source: ‘Breaking […]

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