Check out Christophers segment in the Great American Motorcycle Tour with Dr. David Kibbe (his interview starts around 11 min 30 sec.)!

The Nashville Business Journal published an article in October (that I somehow missed), highlighting Nashville’s push toward consumerism in health care.

Here is what they had to say about change:healthcare:

“Change:healthcare launched a new version of its Medstimate cost ratings tool in May. It features comprehensive pricing data for hospital inpatient and outpatient services.

“The feedback we’ve gotten from the providers is sort of mixed,” says Robert Hendrick, the company’s co-founder and chief operations officer. “We have providers that are understandably a little nervous about it because they feel like it’s exposing their prices. Then we have some relatively forward-thinking providers who are saying that this is information we need, too, because they’re not really consistent in their pricing. They’re looking for what is the market for health care services.”

The Nashville company was formed in 2006 by Hendrick and fellow health care executive Christopher Parks to simplify the medical bill-paying process through the company’s cornerstone MedBillManager tool.

Hendrick says the tools and data provided by change:healthcare are unique to the health care industry.

The company received $1 million from Nashville investment firm Solidus in 2007 and projects between $6 million and $9 million in revenue within three years, Hendrick says.

Change:healthcare is also marketing a new book titled “My Healthcare is Killing Me,” authored by Hendrick, Parks and Katrina Welty of the company’s management team. It is billed as a consumer’s guide to the complex health care industry and has been featured on CNN’s “House Call” medical program.

“The cost of health care is going up in double-digit percentages each year,” Hendrick says. “It’s killing the employers. The employers have reached a point where many of them have said, ‘I just can’t do this anymore.’ They are pushing more of the cost to the employee.”

Click to view the complete article online or download a complete PDF of the article HERE.

Big shout out to National Massage Certification.org for naming the change:healthcare blog to their list of 100 Best Blogs for the Mind, Body, and Soul.

We are thoroughly pleased to be amongst many other great blogs in the Health 2.0 category!

Thanks for reading!!!

Christopher celebrated his birthday last week!  Well kind of… he attempted to fly under the radar and avoid any cake, gifts, and party hats by traveling and keeping his  b-day on the down-low.

So yesterday the crew at change:healthcare took him to lunch to celebrate the right way… by making him wear a BIG sombrero!  How fun…

change:healthcare CEO Christopher Parks is this months “You Ask It” expert on SHOUTAmerica.

What is “You Ask It”??  Well it’s an online interactive forum where you can submit questions to leading healthcare experts.

So if you are confused about your health insurance, curious about the changing face of the health care industry, wondering about consumer directed health plan and transparency… Christopher has the answer.

Unleash his knowledge at http://www.shoutamerica.com/content/get-involved/you-ask-it and get involved in the discussion!

The Daily Herald featured a story on change:healthcare, My Healthcare Is Killing Me, and Christopher Parks.

The PDF of “My Healthcare Is Killing Me Teaches Consumers Smart Healthcare Tips” can be downloaded here.

Some how I forgot to post this great article by Smart Money Magazine.  The artice contains tips on how to save money in a tough economy… and change:healthcare was one of them!

Check out the PDF.

Robert was featured on The Doctors October 15th!!  Congrats Robert!

Check out his segment below… you may get some ideas on how to reduce your health care costs.

Monday (10/6) at SHOUTAmerica’s first leadership conference I had the pleasure of hearing Senator Corker brief the audience on his recent accomplishments in bi-partisan healthcare activities.

Here are his four opening points:
1.    Congress does little communicating across party lines – this needs to change
2.    30% of healthcare delivered is wasted, i.e. it does not actually help people get well/healthy
a.)  That directly translates to 5% of our GDP wasted
3.    800,000 Tennesseans and more than 45 million across the country do not have health insurance coverage
4.    Healthcare is not a right, rather a moral obligation
a.)  Everyone deserves access to affordable private healthcare

He was cautious to make the distinction between what Republicans are striving for (preservation of choice) and what Democrats are striving for (universal coverage).  Corker wants the best of both worlds.  He wants  to preserve choice while finding a way to cover everyone.

Throughout the hour and a half speech/discussion I had several points of contention/questions.

1. Is choice our number one priority when we have 45 million uninsured Americans, 9 million of which are children?
2. Should we be providing tax credits as an incentive to purchase health insurance coverage?
3. Should the federal government mandate health insurance coverage?
4. Should all health insurance be community rated?
5. Should we separate health insurance benefits from the employer?

Choice should never be our number one priority (should I never say never?).  We need to focus on increasing access, coverage, and quality, while simultaneously reducing costs.  Choice isn’t even in my top 3 priorities for healthcare reform.

The American government has used the tax-credit concept for years with respect to financial saving.  Despite the tax incentives, Americans still fail to reasonably save the money they earn.  Why would the concept be any different applied to healthcare?  Just because a $5000 per family tax-credit is issued does not mean people will purchase a policy costing $14,000.  That’s still $9000 left for a family to cover.

I still haven’t figured out all the reasons why health insurance coverage has not been mandated by the government. Obviously cost is one (look at the difference between auto insurance and health insurance, we are talking thousands of dollars).  But what are some other reasons, and possibly coverage should be mandated and subsidized by the government up to a certain % of the poverty level.

Community rating all health insurance would mean that risk would be spread equally over large groups of people.  If you have high blood pressure and high cholesterol you would pay the same as the same price as a healthy individual your age.  This could be a good thing if the price groups change/account for age, smoking, family size and location.  It certainly provides a way to increase coverage and reduce costs for high-risk groups.

Health insurance benefits have been linked to our employers for years.  Is this practice too entrenched in our culture to separate it?  No.  However, I think the idea has its pros and cons.

Pros:

1. Makes healthcare portable.  Individuals will no longer feel tied to their dreaded job due to health benefits.  Their coverage and chosen plan could be taken with them to any place of employment.
2. Leads to more individual responsibility.  An individual will have to better understand what they are purchasing.

Cons:

1. Less guidance on aggregating large numbers of people to spread insurance risk.
2. Decoupled benefits will reduce competitive advantages between employers. Not that this directly is a bad thing – but will we see employers giving employees the money in their pockets that they used to see by way of health benefits?

All and all I still haven’t figured out the details of my proposal for healthcare reform.  Fortunately Senator Corker seemed to have a solid “moderate” stance on the issue!

Today Cigna has announced their launch of online game, quizzes, and podcasts that will educate consumers on health care.  Games can be found on Facebook, podcasts on iTunes, and all of the tools are available at itstimetofeelbetter.com.

Interestingly enough the Wall Street Journal article highlights the rewards Cinga provides for participation, “Cigna is offering rewards designed to appeal to users’ altruism: For every three questions a user answers correctly, Cigna is donating clean water for a day to one child in India. More than 25,000 days’ worth of water have been donated since the program was launched.”

I am wondering why they are not providing care for one of the 9 million uninsured children across America. Good to know that my self-education on health and healthcare is not going to benefit those in our country that need the care.