We Need Legal Assaults On The Greediest Providers!
When a patient is hospitalized, or diagnosed with a deadly disease, they often have no choice about the cost of their treatment.
They are legally helpless, and vulnerable to price gouging.
We need more legal protection of patients. In some cases we need price controls.
In the final part of this series, I discuss how we need to empower patients by allowing them to challenge their medical bills in courts.
Assault Phase Four – Binding
Arbitration of Medical Bills
We must allow patients to challenge their medical bills in expanded
‘Health courts.’
Patients should be able to contest any bill over $250, especially if they have not given ‘informed
financial consent’ to the provider.
Such ‘consent’ would require that if a procedure can be
scheduled in advance, it can also be quoted in advance. If the patient requests
an estimate, they must be notified in writing at least seven days in advance.
This would allow the patient to request a different provider, or to investigate
other alternatives. If an estimate is requested but never produced, the patient
has no liability. (That will shake up the providers rather quickly.)
We Need Legal Assaults On The Greediest Providers!
When a patient is hospitalized, or diagnosed with a deadly disease, they often have no choice about the cost of their treatment.
They are legally helpless, and vulnerable to price gouging.
We need more legal protection of patients. In some cases we need price controls.
Next in this three-part series, I discuss how we could challenge Big Pharma by lessening regulation of generic drugs, having the government take over production and establishing price review boards.
Assault Phase Three – Challenge Big Pharma
Step One – Less Regulation of Generic Drugs
If an off-patent drug has been approved by other first-world nations, this would
constitute automatic approval by the FDA.
The price gouging around Epipen would have ended quickly,
if new versions of genetic drugs did not require an FDA approval process. We
should let reputable drug companies produce whatever generic drugs they want.
We Need Legal Assaults On The Greediest Providers!
When a patient is hospitalized, or diagnosed with a deadly disease, they often have no choice about the cost of their treatment.
They are legally helpless, and vulnerable to price gouging.
Medicare offers decent protection — i.e. limits on balance billing, and no patient liability if a claim is denied.
But under age 65, it is a Wild West — especially for emergency care, and drugs and devices. The more they charge, the more they make. Even good health insurance does not offer complete financial insulation.
We need more legal protection of patients. In some cases we need price controls.
‘Charging what the market will bear’ is inadequate, even childish, when ‘the market’ consists of desperate patients. Where contracts are impossible and there is no chance for informed financial consent, government can and should step in.
This series describes the new laws that we need. Very little is required in tax dollars….but we do require a strong will to protect.
This post is part of the series “The Health Data Goldilocks Dilemma: Privacy? Sharing? Both?”
In our initial blog post of February 20th, “For Your Radar – Huge Implications for Healthcare in Pending Privacy Legislation,” we broadly discussed six key issues for healthcare stakeholders in the potential federal privacy and data protection legislation. We committed to future posts comparing and contrasting specific legislative proposals.
The buzz around federal privacy legislation continues, but as of yet there appear to be no proposals or bills that have emerged as the lead bills.
In the meantime, the clock is ticking. As we mentioned in our February 20th post, a significant catalyst for federal privacy legislation is the desire of companies covered by the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) to have that broadly-applicable, stringent state law preempted by a more company-friendly federal law. The CCPA, which sets stringent consent and other requirements for large companies, or companies collecting or monetizing large amounts of consumer data from California residents, goes into effect January 1, 2020 – less than six months from today.
Is it possible for a legislative body to move quickly on such a controversial topic? Again, California’s experience may be instructive. The CCPA was passed into law and signed on June 28, 2018, about a week after it was introduced. Lawmakers were in a rush in order to keep a popular and even stricter consumer privacy ballot initiative from being put before the California voters. (The sponsors of the ballot initiative agreed to withdraw it if the CCPA were enacted by the June 28th deadline.).
I’ve been driven steadily nuts by a series of recent articles that are sort of describing what’s happening in health tech or (because the term won’t die) digital health, so I thought it was time for the definitive explanation. Yeah, yeah, humility ain’t my strong suit.
It won’t have escaped your attention that, after five years during which Castlight Health more or less single-handedly killed the IPO market for new health tech companies, suddenly in the middle of July 2019 we have three digital health companies going public. While Livongo, (FD-a THCB sponsor) Phreesia and Health Catalyst are all a little bit different, I’m going to use them to explain what the last decade of health tech evolution has meant.
Don’t get carried away by the precise details of the IPOs. Phressia is already out with a market cap of $845m. Yes, it’s true that none of the three are profitable yet, but they are all showing decent revenue growth at an annual run rate of $100m+ and Livongo in particular has been on a client acquisition and annual triple digit revenue growth tear. It’s also the newest of these companies, founded only in 2014, albeit by buying another company (EosHealth) founded in 2008 that had some of the tech they launched with. Going public doesn’t really mean that the health care market will swoon for them, nor that they are guaranteed to change the world. After all, as I pointed out in my recent somewhat (ok, very) cynical 12 rules for health tech startups, UnitedHealth Group has $250 Billion in revenue and doesn’t seem to be able to change the system. And anyone who remembers the eHealth bust of 2000-2002 knows that just because you get to the IPO, it’s no guarantee of success or even survival.
But just by virtue of making it this far and being around the 1/10th of 1% of health tech startups to make it to IPO, we can call all three a success. But what do they do?
They are all using new technologies to tackle longstanding health care problems.
“The Health Data Goldilocks Dilemma: Sharing? Privacy? Both?” series will cover a whole host of topics that discuss, clarify, and challenge the notion of sharing data and if it should be kept private or made public. On the one hand, sharing health information is essential for clinical care, powering medical discovery, and enabling health system transformation. On the other hand, the public is expressing greater concerns over the privacy of personal health data. This ‘Goldilocks Dilemma’ has pushed US policymakers towards two seemingly conflicting goals: 1) broader data interoperability and data sharing, and 2) enhanced data privacy and data protection.
But this issue is even more nuanced and is influenced by many moving parts including: Federal & State privacy legislation, health technology legislation, policy & interoperability rules, data usage from AI & machine learning tools, data from clinical research, ethical concerns, compensating individuals for their data, health data business models, & many more.
Fear not, Deven & Vince are here to walk readers through this dilemma and will be providing pieces to help explain what is going on. Most of their discussion & pieces will cover 2 specific affected areas: 1) How are policymakers addressing health data privacy risks, and 2) The impact on business models within the Health Data Goldilocks Dilemma.
We hope you enjoy the series and if you have any pieces to add to it, please email me zo**@***************og.com
Zoya Khan is the Editor-in-Chief of THCB & an Associate at SMACK.health
I would urge THCB-ers to read Reframing Healthcare by Dr. Zeev Neuwirth. While much of the territory he covers will be familiar to those of us with an interest in healthcare reform (meaning just about everyone reading this blog), Chapter 5 breaks new ground in the field of primary care.
Primary care is perhaps the sorest spot in healthcare, the
sorest of industries. Primary care providers (PCPs) are underpaid,
dissatisfied, and in short supply. (The supply issue could be solved in part if
employers didn’t pay employees
bonuses to get useless annual checkups or fine them if they don’t, of
course.)
They are also expected to stay up to date on a myriad of
topics, but lack the time in which to do that and typically don’t get
compensated for it. Plus, there are a million other “asks” that have nothing to
do with seeing actual patients.
For instance, I’ve gone back and forth three times with my
PCP as she tries to get Optum to cover 60 5-milligram zolpidems (Ambien)
instead of 30 10-milligram pills. (I already cut the 5 mg. pills in half. Not
fair or good medicine to ask patients to try to slice those tiny 10 mg pills
into quarters. And not sure why Optum would incentivize patients to take more
of this habit-forming medicine instead of less.)
This can’t be fun for her. No wonder PCPs burn out and leave
the practice faster than other specialties. What some of my physician
colleagues call the “joy of practice” is simply not there.
Amazon has quietly put together a syndicate including Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan to provide better and more affordable health care for their combined 1.2 million workers.
The joint effort, called Haven, makes sense because many companies of size today are self-insured to provide health care at lower costs. But this is different. Jeff Bezos, Jamie Dimon and Warren Buffett seem to be personally involved in the development of Haven. So, what could they possibility have up their sleeves?
At the same time, many Democrats running for president are promising single payer health care (Medicare For All) as the solution to controlling costs and providing quality health care for everyone. Republicans argue that this is socialism and will result in unacceptable increases in taxes that will ruin our economy.
While politicians debate, Amazon’s real objective may be to create a health care payer to rival all payers with tens of millions of Amazon Prime Members as health plan members.
With Amazon’s buying power, scale and capabilities, the ecommerce giant could create a health payer offering that could render the need for a single payer system moot.
On Episode 88 of Health in 2 Point 00, Jess and I talk about all of the IPOs occurring in health tech today. First up is Livongo, with their IPO valuation set at $2 Billion, they have the highest valuation but I wonder if they will be able to grow at the same rate and expand to other sectors to serve their patient populations. Health Catalyst is up next, with their IPO valuation set at $800 Million, it will be interesting to see if they are going to continue down their enterprise play or switch over to SaaS, and last is Phreesia (that has been around longer than the other two) with its IPO valuation set at $500 Million that acts as a front door to the EMR management system- Matthew Holt
Health disparities domestically and globally can often be attributed to social determinants of health (SDoH). According to Healthy People 2020, SDoH are conditions and resources in the environments in which “people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks.” Examples of these include: resources to meet daily needs (e.g. access to and quality of housing and food markets), educational opportunities, employment opportunities, and transportation. Despite well-established literature on the importance of SDoH, these factors are often overlooked and excluded in health care frameworks.
Concurrently, health services provided in
traditional settings such as hospitals and clinics can be expensive and
inaccessible. There are a large number of communities, from rural areas to
major cities, that are in need of high-quality care. Innovative technologies
can mitigate these challenges. Home and community-based care models coupled
with digital tools provide the opportunity to serve patients where they feel
most comfortable in a cost-effective manner.
In an effort to spur creativity in the SDoH tech environment and improve the landscape of home based care, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Catalyst partnered to launch two Innovation Challenges on Social Determinants of Health and Home and Community Based Care.
For the SDoH Challenge, innovators were asked to
develop novel digital solutions that can help providers and/or patients connect
to health services related to SDoH. Over 110 applications were submitted to the
SDoH Challenge. For the Home and Community Based Care Challenge, applicants
were asked to create technologies that support the advancement of at-home or
community-based health care. Nearly 100 applications for Home and Community
Based Care Challenge were received.
