From the category archives:

Healthcare

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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20% of Employers Plan to Drop Health Benefits… Let change:healthcare help!

In a recent survey conducted by Hewitt Associates, about 20% of employers said they are planning to stop offering health benefits over the next three to five years.
Sad… as if we need another player in the health care game to quit! See Workforce Management for more details on the study.
Equally as interesting as those planning [...]

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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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Dear New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo – save $97 million

Congratulations
Congratulations on your continued progress in gaining commitments from insurance companies to step away from the Ingenix Prevailing Healthcare Charges System (the database most health insurers use to determine “usual and customary rates” for out-of-network reimbursement rates). Most individuals inside and outside of the industry recognize the potential conflict of interest as well as the [...]

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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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Put down the pills… it’s time to meditate!

On January 9th, the Wall Street Journal published an interesting and especially note worthy article titled ‘Alternative’ Medicine Is Mainstream. The article summarizes and outlines simple evidence that diet and exercise are the best “cure” for our most common ailments.
‘Alternative’ medicine, as the authors of this article title it, is what most of us commonly [...]

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Investing in healthcare IT and creating jobs

In an article posted by the Wall Street Journal on January 5th – IBM Chief: IT Investment Will Create Jobs -  IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano presented a report to the Obama transition team stating that a $30 billion  investment in computerizing health-care records, expanding broadband access, and improving the electrical grid could create more than [...]

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Dr. Feld claims the healtcare agenda is already set…

Dr. Stanley Feld, “Top Health Blogger” by Wellsphere, claims that the healthcare reform agenda has already been set by Obama and Daschle.  You can read his post here.  He has some good points regarding reform and the need to involve physicians in the process.  However, his post struck a chord with me when he wrote [...]

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Scared of your company’s pending move to a high deductible health plan??

In the news recently there have been a couple of articles citing some large companies moving their entire workforce to a high deductible health plan (HDHP), as a means of saving money and/or preserving health benefits. The New York Times article “Employers Offering Workers Fewer Health Plans” mentions Nissan – who is moving their entire [...]

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