THCB

Categories

Above the Fold

Concierge Medicine From A Doctor’s Perspective – David R. Donnersberger, MD, JD

• 29

Call it boutique medicine. Retainer medicine. Platinum care. Evoking the pastoral image of a sturdy black doctor’s bag and spectacles, concierge medicine is a small but growing trend among over-worked and over-booked physicians. The practice essentially offers a limited number of patients the opportunity to pay a fixed annual fee in exchange for premium services and attention. Fees can range anywhere from $1,000 to $20,000. Concierge medicine has been dubiously received while transition necessitates limiting a physician’s patient base significantly. Imagine receiving a letter from your doctor of 30 years demanding an annual fee on top of the cost of your normal visits. Hurry your check, and you may be one of the lucky ten percent the practice will keep. Thousands of patients have been outraged to receive just this kind of letter from their family doctor.

I believe concierge medicine can indeed offer significant advantages if mixed with a dose of good, old-fashioned business practice. There exists a happy medium that allows physicians to spend increased time with patients without alienating long-term clients. In our practice, we demand no annual fee. We ask that Medicare patients pay out of pocket for their wellness visit; such payment is only covered when the patient turns 65. The patient can in turn be reimbursed on the insurance provider’s schedule.

Continue reading…

TECH: Google Health getting closer

• 4

GooglehealthThose purists who spend their time pondering Google’s next move have found a login page for Google
Health….

Here’s what it says Google will do (no, the page itself doesn’t work!)

With Google Health, you can:

  • Build online health profiles that belong to you
  • Download medical records from doctors and pharmacies
  • Get personalized health guidance and relevant news
  • Find qualified doctors and connect to time-saving services
  • Share selected information with family or caregivers

  Hat-Tip: Tech Crunch

Nancy Pelosi’s Health Care Address – Brian Klepper

• 5

The featured highlight address at the opening session of the Families USA conference is by Nancy Pelosi, Congress’ first woman Speaker. In person, Speaker Pelosi clearly comes across as a brilliant and warm woman, a friend of Families USA, and she was introduced as a champion of social justice and equality in the 110th (2007) Congress, passing the first minimum wage increase in a decade and making college more affordable for working families. While I’m not certain this is true, I heard comments beforehand that this speech was slated as a major health care policy statement by the Speaker.

In it, she succinctly laid out several core principle of her view of reform.

"I want to start by talking about something that we all agree on: that everybody in America has a right to quality health care. But what is it that this health care should look like? What are the principles that this approach should have?"

Continue reading…

The Families USA Health Action 2008 Conference – Brian Klepper

Along with other familiar voices like Maggie Mahar and Ezra Klein, I’m in DC today writing from the Families USA Health Action 2008 conference. Families USA is a progessive (liberal) consumer advocacy organization dedicated to universal coverage, driven by mobilizing the nation’s passionate citizen advocates. I am here at their invitation, but I should note, as an objective observer, not necessarily a cheerleader for the approaches advocated here. My perspective will undoubtedly be colored by my own experiences and realizations working on the dynamics of reform.

The idea that citizen involvement can drive meaningful change was a core theme of the conference’s opening speaker, Senator Blanche Lambert Lincoln, the senior senator from Arkansas. She serves on the Senate Finance Committee, which has oversight of Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, and other health care programs. She was a champion of the SCHIP reauthorization bill, and advocated for small employer health care purchasing pools.

Continue reading…

HEALTH 2.0: NorthEast mixer is tonight

• 4

So if you’re in Boston and want to find out more about Health 2.0 tonight, come to the Cambridge Marriottwhere the first Health 2.0 “local chapter” is having a networking mixer with speakers and panel. And yes I’m the speaker and Indu is one of the panelists.

The local chapter is the brainchild of VC Mark Modzelewski who has done a snappy job in putting this together in a short time. There are over 80 people signed up at the last count, but there’s probably room for a few more.

Here’s the site for more info and to sign up (there’s a small-ish fee to pay for the drinks & nibbles)

 

HEALTH 2.0 San Diego Update

If you’re thinking of attending Health 2.0 San Diego on March 3-4, there is still time to sign up for a pass, although like last time we are closing in on a sellout well in advance of the conference. Come see how Web 2.0 technologies are transforming the relationship between healthcare providers and consumers and meet many of the faces at the forefront of this process.

Featuring speakers from Kaiser Permanente, HealthGrades, Wired, Carepages, top design firm IDEO, the Pew Internet and American Life Project, Silverlink, and many others. As well as demos by promising startups including MedEncentive, Xoova, Sprigley, and many more. Panels include: The User-Experience with Health 2.0, Connecting Consumers and Providers, Designing Health 2.0, Connecting with Health Organizations and Health 2.0 The Future User Experience.  Learn more at the Health 2.0 site

HEALTH PLANS/HOSPITALS: Not a smart move

• 3

There’s been a lot of discussion about a potential health care score a la FICO score. The right way to do this would be some way to reward providers/plans whomever for doing whatever it takes to improve a population’s overall health. Plans/providers which improve a risk adjusted set of health outcomes would do well, and those that didn’t would not.

The wrong way would be to use the score to discriminate against sick people–by refusing them service before they have to chance to run up a bill they can’t pay.

Guess which appears to be being developed by Healthcare Analytics, a company that has as investors Fair  Issac–the company behind the FICO credit rating–and long time problematic for-profit hospital operator Tenet?

Now of course they may not be developing anything of the sort. Maybe it’s just a tool to help hospitals figure out what proportion of their bills are likely to get paid. But in that case why raise $30m in VC?

But you want to know how this will be perceived by the public? Try reading the 2000+ comments on this posting since last Friday! You can guess the reaction without reading the comments.

Healthcare Analytics had better get out there talking about what it’s really doing very quickly, or a whole lot of other people will be filling in the gaps for it. You might have noticed that the country’s mood right now is not very friendly towards corporate greed and bad behavior–and that will get worse as the coming recession deepens.

POLITICS: Another Zogby poll that’s wrong (but understandably so)

• 4

Americans have been lying to pollsters for years, and here’s another example

Question: The candidates for president have each proposed changes to the healthcare system in America. Generally speaking, on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being not at all well, and 5 being very well, how well do you understand the details and differences of the various healthcare proposals put forth by the current presidential candidates?

1. Not at all well: 34%2. Not very well: 21%3. Neutral: 25%4. Well: 13%5. Very well: 6%6. Not sure: 1%

So discounting for the bullshit inflation factor of about 75% that means less than 5% of Americans understand all the candidates proposals—and not that many people read Bob L’s blog. And no I don’t count myself in that 5%. I have no idea what Romney’s health care plan is, ditto most of the rest of the Republicans other than Giuliani’s and he’s probably off back to fake homeland security consulting after Tuesday in Florida. And the Democrats can’t really make their minds up either. On the other hand I’m not sure I count the candidates in that 5% either!

The poll is from a website called PresidentialRx from a group at Vanderbilt Univ with a bunch of middle of the road healthcare worthies on board attempting to explain the health care policies of the candidates to the unwashed masses. There’s another one from HealthCentral run by our bud Craig Stoltz which we featured on THCB the other day which has really cool graphics. (And Susan Blumenthal has done yeoman’s work getting all the details down on her HuffPo blog)

But don’t forget kids, chances of anything actually happening in the next Administration that resembles anything much of the actual plans of any candidate as now described? — low

assetto corsa mods