Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Monday, May 10th, 2010
Compass Chief Medical Officer, Eric Bricker, MD was recently interviewed for an article on Insure.com on how patients can talk to their doctor about medical costs. Go here to read the article and learn how to talk to doctors about lower cost medications, tests and procedures: http://www.insure.com/articles/healthinsurance/etiquette-of-asking-for-price-breaks-and-free-drugs.html
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Tuesday, April 27th, 2010
The recent health reform legislation will continue to alter the landscape of an already dynamic healthcare system. While companies face the regulatory compliance challenges that the legislation brings, it is important that they do not take their eye off of three major healthcare trends:
(1) Costs will continue to rise
(2) ...
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Monday, October 19th, 2009
The most recent healthcare article on CNN announces dramatic increases in employee healthcare costs this year: http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/19/news/economy/healthcare_openenrollment_changes/index.htm.
While no-one wants to see healthcare costs continuing to increase, you can prepare and protect yourself against these changes when you use Compass as your guide. We are only the only service ...
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Wednesday, September 16th, 2009
CNN published an artile on avoiding medical billing disasters:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/16/health.medical.bills/index.html
The problem is that the entire article missed the one crucial step that is important before going for any type of healthcare service: be an educated consumer. If you know how much the procedure will cost, where to get it for ...
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Monday, September 14th, 2009
The NYTimes had a recent article on advocacy:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/health/12patient.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
Unfortunately, this article is a regression to the type of article written 3-5 years ago. The field of advocacy is changing dramatically from the "find a doctor" / "fight a bill" to a comprehensive professional service that helps people not only navigate the ...
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Monday, August 17th, 2009
Time had a good article this week on the clinical necessity of an MRI to diagnose breast cancer. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1916045,00.html
I liked the article because it pointed out that our culture of "more information is better" is not always true and can lead to unnecessary services when lower cost treatments could have ...
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Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
Kaiser had a good interview with Chip Kahn, the president of a major for-profit U.S. hospital federation. http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Checking-In-With/Checking-in-Chip-Kahn.aspx Chip has balanced comments even about the possible success (or lack there of) of a Mayo type healthcare model. It is clear from Chip's point of view that hospitals support reform as long as ...
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Thursday, August 6th, 2009
One of the solutions being battered about in the news regarding the various health reform proposals is the use of an insurance co-op model vs. a public option insurance plan. A co-op is just a legal structure for a bunch of individuals and families to buy insurance as if they were ...
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Wednesday, August 5th, 2009
Eric told me last night that the surgical volume in many of the surrounding hospitals seem to be down substantially. When talking to GI docs about their endoscopies, Eric noted that they were complaining that volumes for diagnostic endoscopies had dropped from 10 a week to 2 per doctor. When ...
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Wednesday, August 5th, 2009
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204619004574324361508092006.html
Mr. Laffer simply points out that any plan that does tie patients to their healthcare costs will ultimately create unfettered demand and promote runaway costs. Nothing in the healthcare reform lexicon today seems to focus on this fact and thus reform discussions as they exist will only further the existing cost ...
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