Learn what change:healthcare can do for you, how c:h can save you money, and help your employees make smarter healthcare consumer decisions.

Check out the demo at http://company2.changehealthcare.com/for-employers/guided-tour/.

If any of you listen to podcasts or work in San Francisco, then you know Chris’ work and understand why we are so freak’n thrilled to add his integrity, experience, focus, insight, and personality to the team — He’s an A+ rock-star who understands development, community engagement, and building products and services that are intuitive, collaborative, support millions of Users and scales to meet demand. Most importantly, Chris knows how to listen to Users, respond, and get stuff done!

Please welcome Chris (sometimes referred to as ferf, theFerf or cmac), his wife Amy (who has a fitness book and video podcast), and their 100lb. golden retriever ‘Cason’ to the change:healthcare family and Nashville.

The change:healthcare team is growing and preparing for some more significant announcements that will DRAMATICALLY shift and improve how everyday people try to deal with the healthcare system as consumers.

More to come, but we thought you might want to know about Chris.

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.

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

Thanks for reading!!!

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).

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…

Right now, there is a lot of effort going into the effort to bring transparency to healthcare, and we’ve met a lot of them in the past two years of doing this. We’re going to meet more in the coming years, but it’s nice to find friends in among the fray who are thinking outside of the box and who share our goals.

We need all of the friends we can get. Thanks guys!

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!

Schizophrenia is the same as a split or multiple personality

Schizophrenia is NOT the same as multiple personality, which is an exceedingly rare, totally different disorder, now more commonly called dissociative identity disorder.

Schizophrenia is a defect of character

The negative symptoms of schizophrenia (for example, the inability to experience simple pleasure from people or things, lack of initiative or motivation, lack of or limited speech) give the mistaken impression that people with schizophrenia are just lazy and could act normally if they wanted to. This idea is no more realistic than suggesting that someone with epilepsy could prevent a seizure if he tried harder.

Poor parenting causes schizophrenia

For many years, people blamed families—especially mothers—for causing schizophrenia because they were either too permissive or too controlling. These theories have no credibility today. Scientific studies suggest that this no-fault brain disorder is caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

There’s no hope for people diagnosed with schizophrenia

Because of new medications, psychosocial treatments, and consumer and family psychoeducation, schizophrenia is now considered highly treatable. The emergence of these new therapies has enabled doctors to treat the symptoms of most patients with schizophrenia, enabling them to live meaningful, productive lives in their communities. Improved mental health literacy and public awareness help improve treatment outcomes and lessen stigma and disability.

To learn more about schizophrenia, ask questions and/or order a copy of the newly released, easy-to-read book, go to Schizophrenia for Dummies (Wiley, 2008).

Authors Jerome Levine, MD and Irene S. Levine, PhD are both professors of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine.