Incremental health reform doesn’t work. Not even in Maine which is learning an "Expensive Lesson as Health Plan Stalls."
Above the Fold
HEALTH PLANS: Last ditch defense of MA extra payments
I saw this letter in the NY Times from some NAACP types defending Medicare Advantage’s advantages over Medicare FFS—the advantages being extra money from the taxpayer. I was going to comment but Bob Laszewski said it for me:
The Health Insurance Industry Employs Minority Groups to Protect Medicare Advantage Payments–Could They Have Sunk Any Lower?
PODCAST/CONSUMERS/TECH: Interview with Joseph Kvedar, Partners’ Connected Health guru
Joseph Kvedar wrote a piece for THCB a couple of weeks back on Connected Health and its potential. As I’m in Boston I dropped in on him in his office at the center of the world’s greatest collection of medical ivory towers in downtown Boston, just near Mass General. What he’s doing is preparing for a world in which doing more of the same may not be an option, and his employer is at least thinking about what it’s role might look like in that future.
But Joseph isn’t some other start-up whiz-kid with a few ideas. He’s the Director of the Center for Connected Health at Partners, and he has some very interesting things to say in depth about the promise of using technology to improve health and reduce costs of the very sickest patients–and the roadblocks and incentives along the way. And he’s, just perhaps, threatening to radically disrupt his own organization from the inside.
Here’s the interview.
TECH/HEALTH PLANS: Interview/Podcast with Mark Ganz, CEO Regence and Luis Machuca, CEO Kryptiq
This is the transcript from an interview I did at WHCC last week with Mark Ganz, the CEO of Regence, the Oregon based Blues plan that operates in the Pacfic Northwest, and Luis Machuca, the CEO of Portland-based health IT messaging company Kryptiq. Machuca is innovative as both and employer and a technology guy, and Ganz is, shall we say, not your typical insurance company executive!
Matthew Holt: This is Matthew Holt with the World Healthcare Blog, reporting from the World Healthcare Congress, doing a podcast. It’s kind of funky back here because we are in this glass-enclosed blogger’s corner which they put together at the back of the exhibit hall, but they are still setting up the exhibit hall, so you can hear the vacuum cleaners in the background. But no matter, we are on with the first podcast of the day.Today we have got some very interesting folks: Mark Ganz, who is the president and CEO of the Regence Group, which is the big Blue’s plan in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest; and Luis Machuca, whose name I just got wrong again. [laughs]
Luis Machuca: Machuca!
Matthew: Machuca! Sorry, my pronunciation is–they never taught you that about proper Spanish accent in the English school I went to. He is the CEO of Kryptiq, which is an IT messaging company. Well, I should let Luis tell you about that. Mark has already been on the podium twice today in two different areas; Luis has just been talking about an initiative that is being run for his employees with Regence. So let’s start there; Luis, give us the quick find out about what are you doing with your employees and how you work with Regence and what innovative things you are doing around employee healthcare at Kryptiq.Luis: Hi Matthew. So, really what Kryptiq is all about is building tools that enable healthcare transformation. We’ve really, from day one, always felt that transformation starts from the inside out. So before we try to transform the world of healthcare outside, and build tools for them, we wanted to make sure that we were sensitized to the notion of delivering the very best possible healthcare in the most efficient of ways. So we’ve done many things along those lines, starting with reimbursing for email and patient portal enable clinics for employees.More recently, and why Mark is here really, is to align with health plans who also embrace the notion of transformation and the notion of getting more decision in the hands of the employees, and more tools and information for employees to make the right decisions about their healthcare dollars.
TECH/POLICY: Boston Friday dog blogging
This week I’ve been in Washington DC at the World Health Care Congress and I’ve talked to a lot of people–some on and some off the record. Much of that of course has been available at WorldHealthCareBlog, and some smattering of that has been seen over here at THCB from time to time. But all engrossing stuff—especially getting up close and personal with Jack Wennberg a couple of times.
I then moved up to Boston where I’ve been listening to some smart people and talking with various technology companies. You’ll hear much more about that in the coming days, including a very interesting interview with Joseph Kvedar at the Center for Connected Health at Partners. That’ll be a podcast when the upload cooperates.
POLICY: How will you get paid? By Paul Levy
Paul Levy is the President and CEO of Beth Israel Deconess Medical
Center in Boston. Paul recently became the focus of much media
attention when he decided to publish infection rates at his hospital,
despite the fact that under Massachusetts law he is not yet required to
do so. For the last year and a half he has blogged about his
experiences in an online journal, Running a Hospital,
one of the few blogs we know of maintained by a senior hospital
executive. Today he gives his take on pay for performance.
This is the next chapter in my Wednesday is Student Day series. Rocky, a medical student, asks below: "What is your take on pay for performance, and will it be integrated into BIDMC?"
My
economics professors in college set forth a series of theories and
formulas that described the functioning of the free market. We all knew
that this formulation was unrealistic, in that most markets are
imperfect. There is often "friction" between parties in a marketplace
that result in imbalances between supply and demand, that result in
uneven knowledge between and among buyers and sellers, or that
otherwise gets in the way of an economically efficient equilibrium
condition.
INTERNATIONAL: Rationing American style
I don’t approve of health care by anecdote, but there are plenty of loonies on the Canada bashing right who do. And some of them make movies to prove their point. I also think that taking individual stories out of context, compared to using data to describe the actual patterns of care, isn’t that valuable in an intellectual sense. But it sure seems to work in an emotive one.
But let me warn those aspiring Canada-basher film-makers. While you’re out raising your millions, certain pro-single payer groups here have beaten you to it. Apparently the bashers may not know this but there are both people who have problems south of the border, and others with video cameras who’ve met them. I’m awaiting the assurance that this is all the Canadians fault somehow.
The rest of you in the more rarefied crowd at THCB can go back to your regularly scheduled programming.
PHARMA: Fard on Pharma-Non-Profit Cause Alliances
Fard Johnmar at Envision Solutions has another report out. This one is about the public’s view of disease specific non-profits, such as the American Diabetes, Heart, Cancer, et al Associations/Societies and their alliances with drug companies. Neither side looks too good. To learn more head over to the Spotlight on Pharma-Non-Profit Cause Alliances.
THCB: Email problems
My hosting company’s site was hacked yesterday. While they fix it I can’t get email. If you need to find me try matthewseparate AT gmail.com
JOB POST: Policy Analyst/Organizer – Healthcare for All
Come help lead the fight for health care for all! The Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) and the Institute for America’s Future (IAF) seek a policy analyst/organizer to work on our campaign for universal healthcare. This person should have experience in developing and working with coalitions and should be a creative self-starter who can help drive progressive issues like universal healthcare into the national debate. This position will report to CAF’s co-director and will work closely with our online communications and press teams.
