Forget The Robots: Venture Capitalists Change Their Health Care Investments : Shots - Health Blog. Hide captionSurgical robots like this one are wildly expensive. Before the economic troubles began, investment in such high-tech medical devices was plentiful. Now, hospitals are looking for comparatively simple solutions to cut costs: streamline medical billing and even investing in $1 catheters that can save upwards of $50,000. Frank Perry/AFP/Getty Images It wasn't that long ago that money flowed steadily to entrepreneurs who dreamt up whiz-bang medical devices. Hospitals souped up their surgical suites with robots or high-tech radiation machines for cancer treatment. Cost wasn't an issue: They just got passed along to insurance companies, who passed them on to employers and patients.
But after the Great Recession hit and the 2010 health law passed, the financiers behind the medical arms race started to rethink their investment calculus. "The changes in the health system are rocket fuel for entrepreneurs," says Roberts' partner Bob Kocher. Their solution? Cost of health reform quietly rises $111B. The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services estimates the cost of the Affordable Care Act will increase by $111 billion between 2014 and 2021, prompting some initial Congressional inquiries, reported the Associated Press. Rep. Dave Camp, a Michigan Republican, has begun to inquire as to why the cost has risen. The new calculations were in the upcoming budget proposed by the Obama administration, Bloomberg News reported. Administration officials claim the costs are increasing due to budget technicalities, according to the AP.
Sign up for our FREE newsletter for more news like this sent to your inbox! "This staggering increase ... cannot be explained by legislative changes or new economic assumptions, and therefore must reflect substantial changes in underlying assumptions regarding ... costs," Camp wrote Friday in a letter to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. To learn more:- read The Associated Press article- here's the Bloomberg News article. U.S. Leads In Healthcare IT Adoption - - HIMSS. Accenture study shows that government incentive programs to spur adoption of EHRs have helped the U.S. outpace other nations in healthcare IT. Health IT On Display: HIMSS12 Preview (click image for larger view and for slideshow) The Obama administration's federal incentive programs to spur the adoption and use of digitized medical records has helped the U.S. position itself as a global leader in the adoption and use by physicians of health IT, concludes a new eight-country study from Accenture.
Released Feb. 15, the study, Connected Health: The Drive to Integrated Healthcare Delivery, examined eight countries--Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, Singapore, Spain, and the United States--and looked at how these nations' health systems are applying systematic approaches to healthcare IT. [ Read about some of the top don't-miss events at HIMSS12, taking place this week in Las Vegas: What To See At HIMSS12. ] Other key findings for the U.S. were: More Insights. HIT Exchange: Media for the Convergence of Healthcare Business + Technology. Overview ICD-10. With enactment of the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014, CMS is examining the implications of the ICD-10 provision and will provide guidance to providers and stakeholders soon.
This provision in the statute reads as follows: “The Secretary of Health and Human Services may not, prior to October 1, 2015, adopt ICD-10 code sets as the standard for codes sets under section 1173 (c) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1320d-2 (c)) and section 162.1002 of title 45, Code of Federal Regulations.” About ICD-10 On October 1, 2014, the ICD-9 code sets used to report medical diagnoses and inpatient procedures will be replaced by ICD-10 code sets. The transition to ICD-10 is required for everyone covered by the Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA).
Please note, the change to ICD-10 does not affect CPT coding for outpatient procedures and physician services. Stay up to date on ICD-10! Sign up for CMS ICD-10 Industry Email Updates and follow us on Twitter. CMS Resources Logos. Top 10 Areas of Focus for Health Organizations in 2012. Although the Supreme Court's recent announcement that it would rule in 2012 on challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's individual mandate provision may put the future of President Barack Obama's signature legislation into some doubt, it appears that the healthcare industry -- both providers and payers -- are preparing to do business in some kind of changed regulatory landscape.
In fact, according to its annual report on the top health industry issues for the year ahead, PwC's Health Research Institute says that, despite economic and political uncertainty, health organizations will move ahead to meet regulatory requirements in 2012 and respond to a host of other challenges. According to the PwC, among "market-driven, private-sector solutions" that are emerging are collaborative business arrangements, strategic use of health informatics and innovative ways of connecting with consumers. When consumers are unhappy, providers take up the “us versus them” stance.
How did we get to the point where the Federal Government plans a hostile takeover of one-sixth of the American economy? Consumers abused their benefits and the providers pushed back to control costs and now insurance providers have secured their very own circle in Hell alongside stock brokers, bankers, ambulance-chasers and telemarketing lawyers. The clues of what was coming were there and we all should have seen it coming. According to a study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2006, only 18% of Americans are satisfied with the total cost of healthcare and only 44% of Americans are satisfied with the quality of healthcare in America.
Another study conducted by Gallup between 2006 and 2008 found that “the United States maintains the third-highest GDP per capita ($48,000) of all OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries. Resources: