Co-Founder and COO Robert Hendrick spent a few minutes with the local TV crew to share tips on how to save money on your prescriptions. Easy steps that can add up to huge savings. You’ll be surprised!
Thanks for all of the support, and for trusting us to help you make smarter healthcare decisions and save money in the process.
In less than a week, a few of us will be in San Francisco for the Health 2.0 conference as well as attending the HealthCamp SF Bay. We are excited to be part of such an innovative group of folks trying to make changes in the healthcare world. You may be asking… what is this HealthCamp thing?
HealthCamp is about putting social media, open source and the best of the Internet, Mobile Web and process innovation to work for better health care and health technology. HealthCamp is a user-organized “un–conference” movement that brings consumers, health providers, health industry experts and technology professionals together for a one day event to exchange ideas informally, locally, openly. Participants themselves provide the content, with break-out sessions they develop themselves and plug into a schedule grid on the day of the event. Anyone can present and host a session in nearly any format.
#HCSFBay is our hashtag on Twitter, please use it and spread the word!
Well, if you don’t know who we are or what we do, you can take a peek at our sexy personal detiails to see pictures and bios for us (Christopher Parks, Robert Hendrick and Chris McIntyre). If you are wondering what we do, head on over to http://www.changehealthcare.com and see how we can help you save money on your health related expenses.
Make sure you follow us on Twitter, that is the best way to keep up with us when we are on the road!
See you there!
- Excerpt from Melinda Mae by Shel Silverstein
Healthcare reform is a “monstrous whale.” The federal government could learn a little something from the childrens’ tale about Melinda Mae. Instead of trying to cram ALL of healthcare reform into one big bill and get everyone to swallow it all at once, smaller bites would be more manageable.
Smaller bites might actually pass.
Let’s start with some easy small bites that most Americans are eager to agree on. How about a bill with just these points in it to garner support and get something/anything passed.
Those are things most all of us can get behind. Once we get that, let’s go for the next bite. Eventually we will finish the whole whale, or at least we’ll eat what we’re able to stomach.
That’s how Melinda Mae would do it.
Let us know your thoughts on healthcare reform in the comments! Your voice matters.
change:healthcare’s COO Robert Hendrick has been featured in several stories (practically across the country) for tweeting his outpatient surgery last October. Recently the Kansas City Star plublished a story about ‘Twitter’ titled “More people flock to Twitter as a conduit for information.”
Highlight: “Hendrick is a co-founder of Change:Healthcare, a business that helps clients save money on health care. Hendrick said that twittering his surgery was a way to show people the process and educate them. ‘2 veins down. 2 to go. 1 lower left leg. 1 lower right leg. Top left leg done,’ he tweeted from what he described to his followers as a cold operating room. Twittering, Hendrick said, “gave me a sense of connection to people during the surgery.”
Check out the full story online at the Kansas City Star website or download the PDF here.
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 is America for goodness sakes.
So what are they doing in lieu of buying insurance?
Radical things like minding their health– watching what they eat, working out, bundling up before they go out in the cold, washing their hands (oh, these kids – they’re like modern day hippies shunning the norms of society).
They go to the doctor only when absolutely necessary instead of for every little ache and pain. They go to retail clinics (like Minute Clinic and The Little Clinic) where they know the costs BEFORE they buy (oh my, what are these kids coming to wanting to know the price before they blindly incur the expense). They look things up on the internet (It may be MY chronic disease but shouldn’t the doctor know more about it than me? He treats it, and I only live with it…every single day of my life).
But why should these 13 million have insurance? In case something happens.
Hellooooo – they’re 20-somethings and invincible.
But seriously, why should they? Because it underwrites the rates of the older portion of the population. If they don’t get healthcare, they don’t offset the risk pool – they don’t underwrite the older segment of the population. And we know what that means – our rates will go up because they aren’t contributing monetarily (and taking less out than they put in) as we expect them to do.
But we can still get them. In New Jersey, children can stay on their parents insurance to age 30! Thirty!!!! In many other states it’s only 24 or so.
So now I’ll set aside the sarcasm.
What we are seeing is the revolution. The new generation is taking a stand. We have a product – health insurance – AND THEY ARE NOT BUYING! The business world should get the message here. These folks are going to opt for surgery overseas, retail clinics and internet consults. They are going to cost shop prescriptions and doctors. They are going to demand affordable access to care and they are going to want to know the price AHEAD of time. And they are going to return health insurance to truly being insurance – a safety net for catastrophic situations instead of the all you can eat buffet for $20 we have bad for soooo long – too long.
Do NOT think that it is the sage old regime of healthcare executives and politicos in D.C. who are going to change healthcare. It is the 20-somethings. They alone are able to break out of the old ways of thinking. It has been that way generation after generation. THEY have the new ideas. THEY are taking a more rational approach. They are getting organized and THEY are not content to go along with the system as it has been.
Yes, they are 13 million without health insurance…and growing. THEY will change healthcare.
Once again, Robert has appeared on a TV show!! This time his healthcare cost-saving tips and new book My Healthcare Is Killing Me were featured on Nashville’s very own “Talk of the Town” – a daily talk show featuring news, weather, and whatever is the current “talk of the town.”
You can view Robert’s segment with Meryll Rose below!
Great job Robert… we look forward to seeing you on TV again soon!
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 so they go in order as you read down. For the record, I saw Dr. Roger Bonau at The Surgical Clinic in Nashville.
The discomfort this time may be a little bit more apparent from the posts. But the post op has been better. Luck of the draw, I guess.
The award for best tweet to me during the surgery comes from good friend and health care law blogger, Bob Coffield (catch his tweets @bobcoffield on twitter):
@robert_hendrick another twitter use. Monitor real time malpractice. Going to start including tweet requests in discovery
@bobcoffield doc found no humor in tweets in discovery. I did though.
@Robert_Hendrick did you tell him that I am on the defense side?
Enjoy!
Live from surgery part 2. Tweeting my surgery starting around 9am
Sooo. Valium $2.63 last time. $2.29 this time at same kroger. Must be on sale. Purely for research. Going drug free.
Uh oh. The staff at the doc’s office is following me on twitter now.
Getting quick ultrasound on previous surgery spot. Healing nicely.
Smearing betadine on my legs now. COLD.
Waiting for the rock star doc to show for surg. Country music playing in operating room. I love Nashville.
Doc walked in “what the hell are we listening to?”
First stick. No big deal. Still feel the flush and warmth in my body. Nerves.
Man I’m sweating. Stress of recent days ha heightened my apprehension over this. Doc in canulating (trying to get needle in vein)
Dr. Bonau says of the canulating “This is a bit tortuous.” Mmmmhmmmm.
Doc jinxed us when he said “this will be easier than first one.” Getting more lydocaine right now.
Wondering where the health content 08 tweets are. Not seeing any.
@dian_luffman the adrenaline rush has abated. Still on leg #1. Searching…searching…searching
Left leg canulated. FINALLY! Going for other leg and planning to laser both at one time.
@bobcoffield thanks for the distraction.
Doc is giving me his entire educational background. Been at tulane, NY, sloan kettering, st thomas, vandy…
No more pain than the first time. Far more tedious. “Worst is over.”
Firing up the laser…
Lydocaine going in around laser site. Flattens the vein a bit by putting pressure protectsthe vein from the heat.
Ooooooooow. Bad stick. Bad bad stick. Ow ow ow ow ow
Taste of burnt blood in the back of my throat from laser
Right leg hurt like shit up in the hammy. Left leg done and no pain at all.
Oh so glad to be done. Cleanup to ensue. More COLD stuff on my legs to clean.
So doc goes in at calf. Runs catheter up leg about 12″ and then lasers 12″ of vein shut.
Only getting compression wrap on calves. w00t! No behind the knee wrap.
@bobcoffield doc found no humor in tweets in discovery. I did though.
And done. Thanks to everyone!
8 hours after the surgery, the lydocaine has worn off.
Ah. Now I’m getting the feeling of little bee stings up the back of my left leg. This is fun (sarcasm noted).
Los Angeles… what a city, filled with everything you could possibly ask for! Beaches, mountains, and lets not forget – SMOG!
Last week Christopher and I ventured to LA to meet up with Robert, who is being featured on the new daytime talk show “The Doctors” as their health care cost expert! Check your local listings; the show is airing October 15th!!!
Christopher and I sat in the audience for a nice (long) filming on Thursday afternoon where Robert candidly spoke with ER doc Travis Stork about how to save money on healthcare.
Most of the tips included simple alternatives like looking for generic equivalents to current medications, shopping around for the least expensive pharmacy (often located in a grocery store), and finding hospitals and and other facilities that have good, better, and best value ratings (this info can be found at changehealthcare.com) which provider higher quality and lower cost care.
Congratulations to Robert on some great national PR!!
Let us know if you get a chance to see the show…
Check out Robert’s story and My Healthcare Is Killing Me featured on CNN’s Empowered Patient.
(Click on the story title in green to view the video!)
Out of Tragedy, a Commitment to Change Healthcare is Born
When both of Christopher Parks' parents passed away within a year of each other in 2006, he was left with more than just grief.
