Above the Fold

Egg Freezing Fertile for Disruption Says Freeze.Health

Oct 8, 2018

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF Health

Although egg freezing was only approved for general use six years ago, the business is fertile ground for disruption according to Jen Lannon, co-founder of website Freeze.Health.

Jen and her co-founder, Sidonia Swarm, started the site when, through their own consumer research, they found that egg freezing could cost anywhere from $4,000 to $18,000 — at clinics in the same market!

Now that ‘social egg freezing’ is a thing among Millennial women who want to delay motherhood, Freeze.Health hopes to become the go-to resource for price shopping, medical information on the process, and details on the patient experience. Believe it or not, but women rallying around #NoBabiesNow don’t exactly feel like they belong at fertility clinics with so many baby pictures on the walls.

Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health.

Health in 2 Point 00 Episode 52

Oct 6, 2018

Today on the 52nd episode of Health in 2 Point 00, Jess reports from InsurTechConnect 2018! In this episode, Jess asks Matthew about RockHealth’s $6.8 billion fundraise to date & its $3 Billion raise in Q3, Weight Watcher’s rebranding itself and pushing into the wellness space, and (just in time we might add) Maven, a women’s digital health clinic, series B round of $27 million from Oak HC/FT

4 Signs that Disruption is Accelerating in Health Care Delivery

Oct 5, 2018• 6

By REBECCA FOGG

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t read the term “Disruptive Innovation” cited in relation to health care delivery. This might seem like a good thing, given that our expensive, wasteful, and in some cases frightfully ineffective traditional delivery model is in dire need of transformation. However, the term is frequently misunderstood to refer to any innovation representing a radical departure from an industry’s prior best offerings. In fact, it actually has a very specific definition.

Disruptive Innovation is the phenomenon by which an innovation transforms an existing market or sector by introducing simplicity, convenience, accessibility, and affordability where complication and high cost have become the status quo—eventually completely redefining the industry. It has played out in markets from home entertainment to teeth whitening, and it could make health care delivery more effective by making providers’ care processes, as well as individuals’ own self-care regimes easier and less costly. This, in turn, would reduce the need for both more, and more expensive, interventions over time.

Unfortunately, disruption has been slow to emerge in the health care sector. It’s been thwarted by the broader health care industry’s unique structure, which tends to prioritize the needs of commercial insurers and large employers (who pay the most for consumer care) over those of health care consumers themselves. It also stacks the deck against disruptive entrepreneurs, since established providers effectively control professional licensing requirements, and (along with insurers) access to patients & key delivery partners.

Part 2: Bypassing Prior Authorizations

Oct 4, 2018• 22

By NIRAN AL-AGBA, MD

A few weeks ago, I saw a young patient who was suffering from an ear infection. It was his fourth visit in eight weeks, as the infection had proven resistant to an escalating series of antibiotics prescribed so far. It was time to bring out a heavier hitter. I prescribed Ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic rarely used in pediatrics, yet effective for some drug-resistant pediatric infections.

The patient was on the state Medicaid insurance and required a so-called prior authorization, or PA, for Ciprofloxacin. Consisting of additional paperwork that physicians are required to fill out before pharmacists can fill prescriptions for certain drugs, PAs boil down to yet another cost-cutting measure implemented by insurers to stand between patients and certain costly drugs.

The PA process usually takes from 48-72 hours, and it’s not infrequent for requests to be denied, even when the physician has demonstrated an undeniable medical need for the drug in question.

THCB Spotlights: CY5

Oct 3, 2018

By ZOYA KHAN

I know we have been bombarding you all with a bunch of videos and announcements, but there are some really interesting pieces of health tech that are launching and events that are happening in the Fall. Today I wanted to spotlight another really cool startup that Matthew met with at #TechCrunchDisrupt18 called CY-5 (pronounced Sci-5, trust me Matthew & I kept calling it C-Y-5). Their company is developing biometric temporary tattoos to track your vitals. Right now their tattoos can measure your heart rate and your inter-cranial pressure. Also, strangely enough, their tattoos are designed and printed onto a special paper that conducts electricity- that means it requires no exterior electricity source to monitor your biometrics! It is all in the design of the product that powers the tattoo. Their focus right now is to test their product out in the elderly population. For all of you out there that can’t get real tattoos, this would look really cool plus it would track your vitals and keep you healthy- double win.

Zoya Khan is the Editor-in-Chief of THCB as well as an Associate at SMACK.health, a health-tech advisory services for early-stage startups.

Another Round of NYC Curated Matchmaking through DHMP!

Oct 2, 2018

Come to the Society for Participatory Medicine conference (Boston, Oct 17)

Oct 2, 2018

Join me at the 2nd annual Society for Participatory Medicine (SPM) conference, co-located with the Connected Health Conference at the World Trade Center in Boston. It’s magical and very inexpensive–Matthew Holt

DEMOCRATIZING HEALTH CARE!
Me. You. Us. Healthocracy.

Don’t hesitate another minute! Avoid severe FOMO (fear of missing out) and regrets by registering for the second annual SPM conference!

Hear from amazing speakers Patti Brennan, Rasu Shrestha, Bill Marder, Sarah Krüg, Ivan Handler, Casey Quinlan, Jason Bobe, Brennen Hodge, as well as mother/daughter heroes, Angela & Grace Kennedy, and Kristina & Kate Sheridan. Help create a Participatory Medicine Manifesto in the afternoon. Patients Included!

Spotlight on Casey Quinlan, Mighty Casey Media

Casey’s work in standup comedy, network news and health policy will entertain, enlighten and inform. After a cancer diagnosis 5 years ago, Casey wrote Cancer for Christmas: Making the Most of a Daunting Gift and produces the Podcast Healthcare Is HILARIOUS. Her favorite people to work with are those who want to fix the system, not serve the status quo.

Learn more about all of the speakers here.

Learn more about the conference or register today (seating is limited).

CONFERENCE DETAILS:
Wednesday, October 17, 2018 (7:30 am – 5:00 pm)
Seaport World Trade Center, Boston, MA
$100 for SPM Members ($150 for non-members)

THCB Spotlights: TestCard

Oct 1, 2018

By ZOYA KHAN

A few weeks back, Matthew met with TestCard (another Brit like him) at TechCrunch Disrupt 2018. Greg, from TestCard, spoke to Matthew about how their device can test multiple different illnesses using urine and a clinical grade camera, which then spits out results (almost) immediately on your smartphone. Currently, the device can be used for detecting pregnancy, glucose, STIs, UTIs, and many more diseases. Their focus is on preventative care for patients, so they are working with insurance companies to use their product as a kit to diagnose problems that are prevalent in UK’s population. Not to mention their slogan is “A bit like Theranos, but our flagship products work.”

Zoya Khan is the Editor-in-Chief of THCB as well as an Associate at SMACK.health, a health-tech advisory services for early-stage startups.

Reducing Cancer Care Costs by Comparative and Cost-Effectiveness Research (CER)

Oct 1, 2018

By ELAINE SCHATTNER, MD

Well, it’s time to resume our discussion of Bending the Cost Curve in Cancer Care.

We’ve reached the end of the list, on ideas to reduce oncology costs put forth by Drs. Smith and Hillner in the May 25 issue of the NEJM. Really this 10^th and final point intended for oncologists is two-in-one: “The need for cost-effectiveness analysis and for some limits of care must be accepted,” they chart. So doctors should embrace studies of comparative effectiveness and cost effectiveness.

Hard to argue with reason — they’re correct, of course. They write:

… The national imperative is to empower a transparent, acceptable, equitable, politically independent agency for guidance in making tough choices in the public interest so that doctors do not have to make them at the bedside.⁶⁰ Ultimately, we will have to make decisions based on some criteria, and comparative-effectiveness⁶¹ and cost-effectiveness⁶² analyses are good ways to align resource use with the greatest health benefit.

This sounds great, and is probably right, but I don’t think it’s realistic.

Modeling readmissions

Oct 1, 2018

By PAUL LEVY

The current intent to judge hospital performance and modify hospital payments based on relative rates of readmissions is not wise. Contrary to President Obama’s characterization that readmitting a patient to the hospital is equivalent to bringing a car back to the mechanic after a repair, rates of readmissions are based on a number of factors, of which a significant portion are services not provided by the hospitals and environmental conditions not controlled by the hospitals.

But let’s put my objections aside and determine how we would model an “appropriate” rate of readmissions. Well, a new article in JAMA* explores existing models, noting that robust models are needed “to identify which patients would benefit most from care transition interventions, as well as to risk-adjust readmission rates for the purposes of hospital comparison.” The article concludes that the capability for doing these things does not yet exist.

In “Risk Prediction Models for Hospital Readmission,” the authors state as their objective: “To summarize validated readmission risk prediction models, describe their performance, and assess suitability for clinical or administrative use.” Their conclusion, after reviewing two dozen such models, was that “Most current readmission risk prediction models that were designed for either comparative or clinical purposes perform poorly.”