Archive for July, 2008
Thursday, July 31st, 2008
This posting is the conclusion in my series "The 7 Causes of Healthcare Overutilization." Reasons #6 and #7 focus on patients and their behavior.
6. Marketing to Patients
Earlier I wrote that the pharmaceutical industry spends $7 billion marketing to physicians. Well, they also spend $4 billion marketing directly to patients. These ...
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Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
http://www.qualityforum.org/pdf/news/IBPriceTransparency_6-page_Final.pdf
This is a good starter article for some basic information and sources for pricing transparency. Unfortunately, it glosses over a few major barriers that Compass has effectively solved for its customers:
1. "Retail" charges by providers are generally meaningless to patients with traditional insurance unless the insurance contract with the provider ...
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Tuesday, July 29th, 2008
As I spend more time at industry functions, I have experienced a number of people speaking of consumer driven healthcare simply in terms of high deductible health plan. In reality, how large or small the deductible is has very little to do in terms of teaching people to be better ...
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Tuesday, July 29th, 2008
In this study, SHPS surveys a large number of self-insured clients and finds some very surprising results: Wellness programs and traditional insurance plan design tend to increase healthcare expenditures while disease management, employee cost orientation / education, and effecient plan administration tend to decrease healthcare expenditures. Whether or not you ...
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Tuesday, July 29th, 2008
In a continuation of this series on the reasons for healthcare overutilization, let's examine advertising, malpractice and technology:
3. Marketing to Physicians
The pharmaceutical industry as a whole spends $10,000 on each and every physician in America marketing the latest medications—more than $7 billion annually. Physicians are often faced with a decision on which ...
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Friday, July 25th, 2008
The average employee health insurance cost for family coverage is $12,106.[i] That cost--whether it is in insurance premiums or medical claims paid by the employer--increased an average of 6% in 2007 and many employers are facing increases as high as 30% this year.[ii] To put that cost in perspective, a family ...
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Sunday, July 20th, 2008
According to recent research from the McKinsey Consulting Group, 39% of healthcare consumers seek this type of resource when trying to make decisions about their healthcare. It is the highest ranked category and perfectly fits the Compass PHS support model. Read here for more information: http://chilmarkresearch.com/2008/06/16/what-consumers-want-how-about-relevant-personal-advice/
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Thursday, July 10th, 2008
The lead article in the Sunday New York Times on June 29th was on the high cost ($1,000 per scan) and questionable efficacy of cardiac CT scans that can visualize the coronary arteries of the heart. However, the article goes on to quote cardiologists and other experts on both sides of ...
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Monday, July 7th, 2008
Jacob Kuriyan, PhD, president and chief executive of Physmark Inc., wrote an opinion piece for the LA Times titled "New rules for healthcare" (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-oew-kuriyan7-2008jul07,1,1295924.story). The basic theme of the article was that the best way to control costs would be to allow employers and insurers to focus on chronically ill ...
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Thursday, July 3rd, 2008
Before I begin, it is important to define the word co-insurance. Co-insurance is simply the fixed percentage of total healthcare costs that an employee pays. Example: an employee with a 20% co-insurance benefit would pay $20 out of a $100 doctor bill. The employer or insurance company would pay the remaining ...
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