Physicians News Digest. Medscape Access. Who Really Pays For Health Care Might Surprise You : Shots - Health News. President Obama said eight million people signed up for health coverage through new insurance exchanges. J. Scott Applewhite/AP hide caption itoggle captionJ. Scott Applewhite/AP President Obama said eight million people signed up for health coverage through new insurance exchanges. J. Eight million people have signed up for subsidized private health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, President Obama said this month. Full implementation of the health law has renewed discussions of winners and losers, makers and moochers. Here's a corrective to common misconceptions about who pays for health care. 1) Before Obamacare we had a free-market health care system. Government has been part of the business of medicine at least since the 1940s, when Washington began appropriating billions of dollars to build private and government hospitals.
If you're insured through an employer that files an income-tax return, your coverage is heavily subsidized by the feds. It's another subsidy. MMS: Error. CBO: Healthcare reform will cost $100B less than expected. Health insurance premiums will be lower than expected for the next few years. Therefore, the Congressional Budget Office revised its estimated cost of the Affordable Care Act to $1.4 trillion over the next 10 years--a decrease of about $100 billion. In its report published Monday, the CBO said premiums will fall because so many insurers are using narrow networks and lower reimbursement rates for plans sold on health insurance exchanges. "A crucial factor in the current revision was an analysis of the characteristics of plans offered through the exchanges in 2014," the report states.
"The plans being offered through the exchanges this year appear to have, in general, lower payment rates for providers, narrower networks of providers and tighter management of their subscribers' use of healthcare than employment-based plans do. " Sign up for our FREE newsletter for more news like this sent to your inbox! The CBO now expects 24 million people will buy coverage through an exchange plan in 2016. President Obama nominates Sylvia Mathews Burwell as new HHS secretary. President Barack Obama this morning nominated Sylvia Mathews Burwell to replace Kathleen Sebelius as secretary of the U.S.
Department of Health & Human Services. Sebelius--the public face of the botched HealthCare.gov rollout--stepped down from her post today after five years of service, as FierceHealthcare reported last night. RELATED: Katheen Sebelius to resign as HHS Secretary Sign up for our FREE newsletter for more news like this sent to your inbox! Burwell currently serves as director of the Office of Management and Budget. Obama made the announcement shortly after 11 a.m. today. He said Sebelius will go down in history for her "extraordinary" leadership and "serving as the secretary of the Health and Human Services when the United States of American finally declared that quality, affordable healthcare is not a privilege but a right for every single citizen of these United States of America.
" Before her federal government service, she worked for McKinsey & Company. Is healthcare reform bringing an end to small practices? No matter the maneuvering on Capitol Hill, the transition to ICD-10 still represents a major undertaking, especially for those with limited resources. Such is the predicament small physician practices find themselves in. Although the transition to ICD-10 is intended to bring greater specificity to clinical documentation, might it also have the side effect of forcing a certain subset of the physician population to reconsider its viability? In the conclusion of an interview with Gus Geraci, MD of the Pennsylvania Medical Society (PAMED), the Chief Medical Officer describes how ICD-10 and healthcare reform is affecting the professional lives of small, independent practices which may not survive all the change taking place in the industry. How serious an undertaking in the transition to ICD-10 for physicians?
Not to pat ourselves on the back here at the medical society, but we’ve been talking about this now for three years. Ron Chapple Stock/Thinkstock Related White Papers: Related Articles: Your Brain on Booze. Alcohol is a drug with two stories. There’s one story of feeling relaxed after a glass of wine and another of being unconscious after a bottle. There’s one story of feeling social after a margarita and another of feeling reckless after tequila shots. There’s one story of feeling alive and in the moment at sunset and another of feeling nothing at all by sunrise. “Alcohol is an interesting drug because the distance between the dose that causes a small buzz and the dose that can kill you is not very big,” says Aaron White, a neuroscientist with the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
“A little bit can be good for your heart, relaxing and part of a healthy lifestyle … but as soon as you go past those few drinks, it’s a different drug. The risk of cancer goes up, the risk of injuries goes up, and of course, blackouts and overdose deaths go up.” Blood Alcohol Content Levels Your Brain on Booze Warning Signs of an Overdose Preventive Measures. Malcolm Gladwell: Tell People What It's Really Like To Be A Doctor. Top 3 skills healthcare leaders need now. One thing became clear in 2013, all leaders across the health system have been challenged to keep pace with change, and the best of them have been driving change. In a year of active mergers and acquisitions, most of our clients voiced a need for leadership that can facilitate change across complex organizations. At the same time, we noted that all organizations are keenly aware of the M&A climate and that awareness is part of what is fueling a demand for a new type of leadership.
We were struck by how key healthcare leadership roles have changed, from the chief information officer to the chief medical officer. We have seen new leadership dyads emerge, such as the chief information officer and the chief medical information officer, and we have seen new roles emerge, such as chief accountable care officer and chief data officer. We have also seen some of the greatest turnover in the industry, including the highest CEO turnover in a decade. First is interconnectivity. 23andMe's Anne Wojcicki envisions the future of preventative medicine. Anne Wojcicki and her genetic sequencing company 23andMe are locked in a battle with the FDA.
Even though it can't report results to customers right now, Wojcicki isn't letting herself get bogged down in the present. At SXSW 2014 she laid out her vision of the future of preventative medicine -- one where affordable genome sequencing comes together with "big data. " In addition to simply harvesting your genetic code, the company is doing research into how particular genes effect your susceptibility to disease or your reaction to treatments.
And 23andMe isn't keeping this information locked down. It has been building APIs that allow it to share the results of its research as well as the results your genetic tests, should you wish to. It's when that data is combined with other information, say that harvested from a fitness tracker, and put in the hands of engineers and doctors. Comments. Obamacare Just Made Americans Richer Without Anyone Noticing. Glenn Beck once said Obamacare would mean "the end of prosperity in America forever. " But so far, it turns out President Obama's 2010 health law is actually putting money in Americans' wallets. To be exact, President Obama's 2010 health law was responsible for about three-quarters of a surprising January rise in U.S. consumer spending and American income growth, according to calculations by the Wall Street Journal. While not exceptional, the gains were significant: a 0.4 percent rise in consumer spending ($45.2 billion) and a 0.3 percent rise in personal incomes (up $43.9 billion), according to new figures released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The growth came in spite of the expiration of unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed and all that horrible winter weather. So what exactly did the Obamacare rollout do to cause such a rise? Overall, that tax hike resulted in a $700 per worker tax increase on average, according to the Tax Policy Center. Vulnerable Dems huddle over health fixes. The White House took the rare step of naming more than a dozen Democrats it worked “in close consultation” with ahead of a Wednesday announcement about changes to the Affordable Care Act.
All of the Democrats the administration cited are up for reelection in 2014, and most are either vulnerable, or find themselves early targets by the GOP for their past support of ObamaCare. The administration announced Wednesday it would allow insurers to continue offering health plans that do not meet ObamaCare’s minimum coverage requirements. Prolonging the “keep your plan” fix to accommodate for President Obama’s broken promise about the law will avoid another wave of health policy cancellations otherwise expected in critical weeks before Election Day in 2014. The administration’s announcement of the delay singled out 13 Democrats that helped craft that change. The officials said Sens. A similar story is playing out in New Hampshire, where Shaheen might find herself up against former Sen.
Oscars: 19 Million Tweets in 12 Hours. If Patients Are Flipped Out by Today's Physician Encounters, Why Not "Flip" The Clinic? What’s to be done? Some possibilities: Change the conventional encounters and prevailing dynamics between clinicians and patients. Embolden and empower patients with skills and knowledge to be actively engaged in their health and health care—not just when they’re in the doctor’s office, but during the rest of their busy lives. Make getting health care as convenient for patients as possible by ridding it of bureaucracy. Or, as one might put it: “flip” the clinic. Flip the Clinic, in fact, is the name of an RWJF-funded initiative that has emerged from the Foundation’s Pioneer portfolio. (An archived video presentation of a Google+ Hangout on the subject is above.) According to RWJF Entrepreneur in Residence Thomas Goetz, Flip the Clinic drew much of its inspiration from Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy—the not-for-profit organization that aims to offer “free world-class education” online, through an extensive library of videos and lectures as well as interactive challenges and assessments.
Obama Urges Focus on Health Care Law’s Benefits. In brief remarks at the White House, the president began what aides described as a weekslong effort to move on from the negative stories of the botched HealthCare.gov rollout. Mr. Obama again conceded the problems but said critics who contended that the law had failed were wrong. And he pledged to keep fighting back efforts to repeal the law for as long as he remained in the Oval Office. “My main message today is, we’re not going back,” Mr. Officials said the president’s remarks were intended to kick off a public effort by the White House, Democrats on Capitol Hill and outside allies to remind the public why they should be supportive of the president’s health care law.
Mr. “We need to make sure that folks refocus on what’s at stake here,” Mr. He added, “I’m going to need some help in spreading the word.” The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. U.S.’s Report Card on Premature Births: An “A” for Effort, but “C” Overall. For six consecutive years, the U.S. has successfully lowered the rate of preterm births, to 11.5%. But that still falls short of the March of Dimes goal. The nonprofit organization, which leads the Prematurity Campaign to improve the health of mothers and babies by educating women about the risk factors for preterm birth, hopes to lower the premature birth rate in the U.S. to at least 9.6% by 2020. Each year, the March of Dimes issues a Premature Birth Report Card that grades each state on its efforts to lower premature births.
The U.S. earned a “C,” but six states made significant enough improvements to earn an A — Alaska, California, Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon and Vermont. The states with the highest premature births rates included Alabama, Louisiana, Puerto Rico and Mississippi, which all received an “F.” (MORE: New (And Hopefully Improved) Definition of Term Pregnancy) The national preterm birth rate peaked in 2006 at 12.8%, after steadily rising for more than 20 years. Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com.
The one little question that could save your life. Val Jones, MD | Physician | October 31, 2013 I realize that my blog has been littered with depressing musings on healthcare lately, and so I thought I’d offer up one very positive and “actionable” suggestion for all you patients out there. In the midst of a broken system where your doctor is being pressured to spend more time with a computer than listening and examining you, where health insurance rates and co-pays are sky-rocketing, and where 1 in 5 patients have the wrong diagnosis… There is one “magic” question that you should be asking your physician(s): “What else could this be?”
This very simple question about your condition/complaint can be extremely enlightening. Physicians are trained to develop extensive “differential diagnoses” (a list of all possible explanations for a set of signs and symptoms) but rarely have time to think past possibilities 1 through 3. So why don’t all employers offer these benefits? This one little question could save your life. How-healthtap-disrupted-the-health-care-industry. The Internet is a hypochondriac's nightmare, as anyone who has Googled his medical symptoms can attest. (Sore throat? Might be a cold. Or it might be thyroid cancer.) Plus, it's not always clear who is serving up those diagnoses and remedies. That's why Ron Gutman created HealthTap, an app that lets people pose medical questions to real doctors. Since the Palo Alto, California-based company launched in 2010, HealthTap's growing community of more than 48,000 physicians has answered nearly one billion questions.
Recently, Gutman spoke with Inc. about how he got started. I Wanted to Change Health Care I got interested in health care in 2003 as a graduate student at Stanford University's business school. After I graduated, I dove deep into the consumer health market. When I started HealthTap, my mission was to improve the life expectancy of humankind by giving people immediate access to health information and doctors, anytime and anywhere. People Are Sick of Waiting Each Doctor Gets A Score. Follow the Transform #TXFM Sessions LIVE. North Carolina Hospital Closes, Citing No Medicaid Expansion. Antibiotic Use On The Farm: Are We Flying Blind? : The Salt. Primary care physician salaries are rising, but how long will it last? Nonprofit hospital tax breaks questioned. CSHS-Spending-Brief_March%202013.
Doctors worried about loss of clinical autonomy, compensation. Docs Must Lead the Charge for Real Reform. Health Reform in 2013: What's Happened, What's Left & What it Means for Providers | Strategic Planning. Medical students need to learn to be patients. Patients need pay for performance too. X. Overcoming Obstacles to Better Health Care. Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us. Health Care Spending In America, In Two Graphs : Planet Money. Who influences HIT policy? The successful physician of 2015: 5 essential traits. Obama administration takes steps to implement individual mandate. The Nitro Primary Care Chronicle. MDAndersonNews : Maintaining a #healthy diet... Q&A: How to improve your diet and take Healthy Bites in 2013. Obama: ‘Our Commitment To Medicare … Is Really Important’ Link between health care spending, quality unclear. Commonwealth Fund Panel Proposes Options To Slow Health Care Spending.
Should We Tax People for Being Annoying? The Role of CDIS' in Denials Avoidance on ADVANCE for Health Information Professionals. Infographic: A picture of health. McConnell, Others Demanding Spending Cuts - Including Medicare. High-Cost Care Not Necessarily Quality Care. Medical schools don't care about the primary care shortage. 5 Foods That Help You Sleep. House OKs bill to avert fiscal cliff, doc pay cut. 2012 - The Year In Healthcare Charts. Encryption Shortfalls Plague Healthcare Industry - Healthcare -
Walmart Bails On Obamacare-Sticks Taxpayers With Employee Healthcare Costs. UPMC tax status contested. The Patients of Saints: Exploring the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota | My American Odyssey. Page 8 - Windows 8 in Health Care: 10 Apps for Doctors, Patients and Researchers. The coming massive doctor shortage and the future of primary care. ACOs deliver care to 31 million Americans, report finds. Hospitals Get New Grades On Safety. The Family History Campaign | Geisinger Genomics Institute. U.K. NHS mandate includes expansion of health IT, PHRs and mobile health. International Profiles of Health Care Systems: Australia, Canada, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Japan, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States.
HealthcareInformation_TrendsAndTransformations_2012. Former President Clinton Launches Healthcare Initiative. Health Costs: How the U.S. Compares With Other Countries. A quick primer on health insurance exchanges. A Brief History of Inventing Innovation - Rita McGrath.
House Budget Medicaid Plan Chops. Quality. Kaiser Health Reform Gateway: Health Care Reform and Health Insurance Reform Analysis, Data and Information. Political Cartoon: "Between A Rock And A Hard Place?" By Jimmy Margulies, The Record. Home - Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Commonwealth Fund - Health Policy, Health Reform, and Delivery System Improvement. Slideshow: The election and the ACA's future.