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Robert

How Consumerism Hurts Wellness and Disease Management

Consumerism in healthcare has been hailed by many including ourselves as one of the key components in solving the healthcare crisis in the U.S.
“…one of…”
Pushing cost to the patient is merely the first step. Without transparency, consumerism has the potentially devastating affects on the gains that wellness and disease management have begun to make.
Under Consumer [...]

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Illinois Law is Step 1 for Uninsured

As of April 1 in Illinois, they have taken step 1 in protecting the uninsured. A new law caps uninsured patient bills at cost +35%.
Hooray! A good first step!
Now don’t rest on your laurels, Illinois.
Cost plus is great if you can understand the “costs” portion, but most patients do not. Step 2 is to root [...]

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The Fiscal Health of U.S. Hospitals

Thursday’s Healthpopuli post caught my eye – Hospitals’ fiscal health is eroding. More than 50% of hospitals had a negative margin in Q4 2008. Sounds like the hospitals need wellness and disease management programs to address their ailing health just like patients are getting.
The main reason cited in Healthpopuli for the poor fiscal health is that [...]

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13 Million Uninsured 20-Somethings

Just saw the CNN report on 13 million uninsured 20-somethings in this country. New to the job force and turning down their health insurance.
What are they thinking?!?! Do they believe that they can just go out and buy what they need in terms of medical goods and services on the free market? Good grief! This [...]

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Blind Faith in Your Insurer – Not a Good Idea

I have learned not to put complete blind faith in my Insurer. I do NOT blindly pay outstanding balances from providers and assume that my Insurer processed the claim properly, and neither should you as this story will show. Even though I’m a pretty savvy healthcare consumer (this IS what I do for a living [...]

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Live from Surgery Part 3

Went for the third of the four surgeries for varicose veins in my legs. Tweeted the whole procedure again (see below). And since this procedure was soooo much more graphic, I got the pix and video to go with it. To bring everyone up to speed, the first two surgeries were laser ablation from the [...]

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Live from Surgery – part 2

The tweets (messages on twitter) was so popular last time, I did it again for the follow up laser ablation surgery done on the back of my legs for varicose veins. You can catch the first installment here if you missed it.  And once again, I went through the trouble of reverse flowing the tweets [...]

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Allies in Healthcare Transparency

Just had a great interview with some allies in the battle to bring transparency to the healthcare system. I spoke with Kristy Williams of Alijor and for those not familiar with them, the concept is interesting. On Alijor, patients can connect with providers to address their specific need(s). Simply opening a line of communication between [...]

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Why We Do This and Post-Op Update

First off, thanks for all of the concern and support from so many people over the past few days WRT my surgery. It seems I’m telling people things and repeating myself and I hate to bore anyone, so I’m putting this together to give folks the details and use my own experience as a personal [...]

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Live from the Operating Room

Had a bit of outpatient surgery done on my legs today. Laser ablation on my legs to eliminate varicose veins. Basically they numb the site, locate the vein using ultrasound, insert a fiber optic cable and cauterize the veins closed at the faulty junction. I was awake and on no drugs for the whole procedure. [...]

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