The Health Care Blog – Page 252 – Everything you always wanted to know about the Health Care system. But were afraid to ask.

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10 Houses, 2 Days, 1 City SERENDIPITY Returns to SF and We’re Joining In!

Oct 12, 2018

By ANNE COCQUYT

On October 26-27 SERENDIPITY is coming back to San Francisco with an opportunity-packed, two-day personal and professional development conference. Hosted by the digital networking platform GUILD, this conference is not your average conference. With 40 half-day sessions, curated networking meetings, family-style dinners, and an opportunity-filled cocktail reception, it is uniting more than 500 women across experience and industries.

There’s magic to be had and we want you to join us! We’ll be sponsoring the Women’s Health House over the two days where speakers like Laura Kyriazis, Nimisha Gandhi, Jessica Da Massa, Zoya Khan, Medell Briggs, Meghan Conroy, and Lauren Weinger will empower women of all ages, across all industries to build their network and speak about topics that are not usually on an agenda at a tech conference. They are hosting panels on self-care, family planning, FemTech, public health, menopause, and kegel exercises.

Obesity Training and Reimbursement Should be a Higher Priority

Oct 11, 2018• 10

By HANNAH MARTIN MPH, RD; JENNY BOGARD; WILLIAM DIETZ, MD; ANNE VALIK; NICHOLE JANNAH; CHRISTINE GALLAGHER; ANAND PAREKH, MD, MPH; DON BRADLEY MD

The United States has been facing a mounting obesity epidemic for over a generation, but our health care system has struggled to keep up. Given the complexity of obesity and the pace of curricular change, obesity education for our health-provider workforce is still lacking. There are wide disparities in quantity and quality among programs and disciplines. Similarly, public and private payers have taken vastly different approaches towards coverage for obesity treatment and prevention, which even leaves the most educated providers unsure of what services each patient can access. Because coverage decisions are based partly on what providers are prepared to provide and curricula are based partly on what services are typically covered, these problems reinforce one another. Despite these challenges, several important steps have been taken recently to tackle both sides of the problem. The steps include the development of new Provider Competencies for the Prevention and Management of Obesity and the launch of the My Healthy Weight pledge to standardize coverage for obesity counseling services.

Why We Must Act

In the US, more than one-third of the adult population and nearly one-fifth of the children have obesity. Adult obesity prevalence is projected to reach nearly 50 percent by 2030. Adult diabetes prevalence currently hovers around ten percent and is further projected to affect one-third of the adult population by 2050. Estimates for the total annual medical cost of obesity in the U.S. range from $147 billion to $210 billion, with billions more lost in productivity due to absenteeism and presenteeism. Obesity is also a national security issue. As of 2010, 27 percent of young adults were disqualified for military service due to obesity.

Improving Obesity Education for Health Care Providers

Despite these shocking rates of obesity, fewer than one in four physicians feel that they received adequate training in counseling patients on diet or physical activity. Obesity concepts are underrepresented on medical licensing examinations and substantial gaps in provider knowledge related to obesity care have been recently documented. This is not surprising considering that less than 30 percent of medical schools meet the minimum recommended number of nutrition-related content hours.

Health in 2 Point 00 Episode 53

Oct 11, 2018

Where is Matthew Holt reporting from today? He is at the Novartis Biome Launch Event! And that’s not all, we have some special guest stars for you: Unity Stoakes from StartUpHealth and Zoya Khan from THCB & SMACK.health! Join Jessica Da Massa, as she asks Matthew about what the Novartis’s Biome Event is, updates from StartUp Health (they have a print magazine now!), and talks about JP Morgan Week coming up in January!

Treating Mental Health Disorders with Art

Oct 10, 2018

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF Health

In honor of World Mental Health Day, I’m sharing the story of PeaceLove Studios and its founder & artist-in-chief, Jeff Sparr. Jeff‘s built an expressive arts program to help millions cope with mental health disorders after he found painting to help with his OCD.

Healthcare needs a place for non-pharmaceutical, non-digital modes of therapy, and PeaceLove Studios is focused on ramping up awareness about the therapeutic benefits of expressive arts when it comes to mental wellness. Part of the challenge, however, is just starting the conversation and bringing visibility to mental health disorders in the first place. Jeff is hoping to inspire a movement. Tune in to find out how.

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.

Dr. Patti Brennan – #SPM2018 speaker preview “Supporting the Care Between the Care: The Role of the National Library of Medicine”

Oct 10, 2018

By ePATIENT DAVE deBRONKART

I’m a supporter of the Society for Participatory Medicine’s second annual conference on Oct. 17 in Boston. This article taken from the SPM “ePatients” blog tells you about just one of the great speakers who’ll be there. Please come join us Register here.–Matthew Holt

Dr. Patti Brennan – #SPM2018 speaker preview “Supporting the Care Between the Care: The Role of the National Library of Medicine”

Here’s the latest in our series of posts by and about the outstanding speakers we’ve lined up for the Society for Participatory Medicine’s second annual conference on Oct. 17 in Boston, attached to the prestigious Connected Health conference. Register here. (Our #SPM2018 blog series has more about the speakers and activities.)

Since my earliest days in this work – even before our Society was formed – Dr. Patricia Flatley Brennan RN, PhD, FAAN, FACMI (or “Patti,” as she’s known to her many friends and fans) has been one of the most optimistic voices. She’s always been a dedicated, enlightened researcher, academic (at the University of Wisconsin, Madison) and voice of patient participation. On top of that, she was the director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s terrific Project HealthDesign: Rethinking the Power and Potential of Personal Health Records, which ran from 2006-2014, an absolutely pivotal period in the onset of personal health data. Patti knows that knowledge is power, and that patient power is naturally optimized when patient knowledge is optimized.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was when, in 2016, she was appointed the next Director of America’s National Library of Medicine (NLM). In addition to being extremely participatory, perhaps it’s no coincidence that she’s the first woman nurse and the first nurse in the post.

In a moment I’ll say more about the history of this position, and its significance in the timeline that led to SPM. For now, consider this about her topic at our conference, “the care between the care,” particularly the NLM’s role.Continue reading…

A Challenge Posed; A Challenge Answered

Oct 9, 2018• 2

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.