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Commentology: What Your Employer Is Secretly Thinking As Obamacare Goes Live Part II

Oct 12, 2013• 8

By THCBist

In response to Kip Piper’s recent post, “What Your Employer Is Secretly Thinking As Obamacare Goes Live” Michael Turpin writes:

A very comprehensive article and predominantly spot on. I do have a few alternative views.

Employers are waiting to see if public exchanges are viable alternatives – As a consultant who works with employers every day, the universe of employer sentiments is varied. The preponderance of public exchange options with be narrow network, lower level reimbursement plans that will not be like for like equivalents to employer sponsored open access PPO plans. With low individual mandate penalties and higher costs for younger exchange enrollees due to 3:1 community rate banding, there is concern that the first enrollees will select against the plans and not be offset by younger, healthier participants who will balk at the prospects of higher premiums.

Self insurance will be highly prevalent – The average employer can save as much as 6% by self funding their insured benefits. It is true they take on higher liability but the first 6% is essentially playing with house money because the employer will not pay taxes on insured benefits or insured PPACA taxes. Employers, especially those with young healthy employees, would be better served self insuring to avoid community rate cost old to young shifting and insured premium taxes. Younger consumers use fewer benefits. Average year over year medical trends will likely be low single digits — much lower than the likely community rated increases tendered the first year in the exchanges.

Private exchanges will gain some traction – The IBM decision is only for retiree medical benefits. Walgreens is the first major retailer to adopt a private exchange for actives. A private exchange is to health plans what the 401k was to defined benefit pension plans. A true private exchange pits multiple insurers against one another in a Cost Co type private market where individual enrollees are given an annual stipend to buy benefits. Each enrollee can choose between a range of plans and insurers.

Confessions of a Self-Tracker

Oct 11, 2013• 22

By Michael Painter, MD

Hello. I am Mike Painter, and I track. I don’t necessarily have a compelling reason to track health parameters such as exercise patterns, heart rate, weight, diet and the occasional blood pressure. Yet I do. I do most of my tracking with several small devices, simple sensors and software applications. My tracking is also pretty social—meaning I share much of my data widely and daily. You’re welcome to see it—most of it is on Strava. Admittedly, I still keep some data daily on a paper calendar, and I do monitor diet and sleep in my head—i.e., nobody needs to remind me about my food splurge days. The local bakery is intimately aware of that data point as the employees witness me charge in, wild-eyed and drooling for a giant cinnamon roll every Thursday morning—almost without fail.

It all feels pretty normal to me.

Here’s the rest of the story: I track to enhance athletic performance rather than monitor my health, per se, or even really my wellness. I am an avid cyclist and have tracked miles, location, accumulated elevation, heart rate and power readings and other data for years. I share that information with both cyclist colleagues I know and don’t know on Strava. That site eagerly ingests my data—and among other things, plops it into riding (and running) segment leader boards, riding heat maps—and, most importantly, in training, trend graphs like the attached. All that data is incredibly helpful to me—it empowers me by making me face the numbers—it makes my training data- and reality-based. I don’t have to guess to maximize my fitness and minimize my fatigue level in anticipation of a big event. I follow the numbers.

Is all that bad? To me, my obsession with tracking my athletic performance seems like an extension of observing data for health and wellness.

Target Demographic

Oct 11, 2013• 9

By Rob Lamberts, MD

He seemed a bit grumpy when he came into the office. I am used to the picture: male in his early to mid-forties, with wife by his side leading him into the office to “finally get taken care of” by the doctor. Usually the woman has a disgusted expression on her face as he looks like a boy forced to spend his afternoon in a fabric store with his mother. My office is the last place he wants to be.

He let himself down on the couch across from my desk with a wince, belying the back pain that brought him here. He looks around at my office, which is not only a place he didn’t expect to be, but not what he expects a doctor’s office to look like. First there’s the sofa he is sitting on, which is where my patients spend most of their time during their visits. Then there is my guitar just behind me. He and his wife comment on how their daughter would love the fact that I have a guitar, as she is into acoustic guitar music. Then there’s me, wearing jeans and an untucked button-up shirt, sitting back in my chair and chatting like an ordinary person. He seems intrigued.

He owns a business, which is a service type business like mine. Like me, he and his wife choose to do things differently, charging less for folks who can’t afford it. I chat with him about the stress and strain of owning and running a small business, pointing out how his choice is similar to mine.

He had actually suggested coming to me after he had seen me on television, but obviously had initial doubts as to the accuracy of the report. Spin happens. But as we talk, there is much to find in common, and he warms up. His shoulders relax, he sits back on the couch, and forgets he’s in the doctor’s office.

Healthcare’s Tech Disconnect: Why Aren’t We Building the Products Patients Really Need?

Oct 11, 2013• 8

By Leslie R. Schover

Having been supported by several small business grants from the National Cancer Institute to create online interventions for cancer patients, I have been learning gradually about commercialization models to get our work out to the public. I am dismayed about the major disconnect between eHealth entrepreneurs and eHealth intervention researchers (my personal reference group).

Last year I attended Stanford Medicine X and last week I did a demo of one of our web sites at Health 2.0 in Santa Clara. Both times, I was struck by the assumption in the IT developer and consumer community that giving people realtime feedback about their health will automatically result in major positive changes in behavior, not to mention cost savings for insurers.

The Connected Patient movement seems particularly naïve to me. Psychologists have been using self-monitoring, i.e. recording behaviors such as smoking, eating, and exercise, for at least 30 years to promote behavior change. First we used paper-and-pencil diaries, but researchers like Saul Schiffman quickly adapted the first handheld computers to prompt people to record their behaviors in realtime, greatly increasing the accuracy and power of self-monitoring.

As technology has advanced, so have our means of self-monitoring. Overall, however, the technology matters far less than the procedure itself. For most people, tracking their smoking, calories, mood, or steps does change unhealthy behaviors somewhat, for a limited period of time. A small group of highly educated, motivated people is more successful in using self-monitoring to make larger, more lasting changes.

I was reminded of this last year in a seminar on tracking at Stanford Medicine X, when a concierge physician from San Francisco and several of his patients talked about being empowered to change their health by using feedback from various types of sensors. One had paid out of pocket for a continuous blood glucose monitor since his insurance would not cover the costs to use it for his Type II diabetes.

Another doggedly demanded access to the data from his cardiac defibrillator. They believed their experiences heralded a sea change in health care in the United States. I am all for empowering patients with knowledge, tracking tools, and social support.

However, if knowledge and feedback was all it took to change unhealthy behaviors, psychologists would be superfluous in the world.

My Return to American Health Care

Oct 10, 2013• 41

By Beth Arnold

A year and a half ago, my husband, James Morgan, and I moved back to the U.S. after living 10 years in France.

We returned more or less kicking and screaming. We had been away long enough to lose some of our American culture and to prefer the European way of life, despite our squabbles with it–and every American abroad has some squabbles. I had discovered I was a born expat, something I’d suspected my entire adult life — from my first trip to Europe when I was 19 years old–but hadn’t arranged to test until my younger daughter graduated from high school. Jim and I are both writers, and I’d thought of a book idea for him (Chasing Matisse) that would take us to France, and my intention was for us to stay there.

But there were things we’d left undone for the 10 years we’d been away that needing tending to — life was calling us back. And if the truth be known, I felt France was falling behind in the world, and her inability to change was grating. Paris was stuck in her perpetual stupendous, effervescent beauty, while nothing new happened there at all. This city I love more than any other had long since lost the artistic dynamism that had propelled it forward with Picasso, Matisse, and the other artists that the Lost Generation had adopted and promoted in the early part of the 20th century, when Malcolm Cowley wrote his classic Exile’s Return.

The World Wars had crippled France for a time, and she had gotten back on her feet. But what the French do so very well is the past — not the present or future — and this is even truer in our digital global society. The French refusal to change defines the Gallic nation in every way imaginable, and the centuries-long celebration of their grand culture is what we love about them — and is also placing them in the rear of the international pack.

Except for this — their Number One in the World (as determined by the World Health Organization) health care system.

One of the things I most dreaded about returning to America was having to deal with a health care system that was an embarrassing national wreck.

What Covered California Got Right–And What Other States Did Better

Oct 10, 2013• 1

By Dan Diamond

On the day that Covered California went live — the very moment that Executive Director Peter Lee declared the exchange “open for business” — staff debuted a video celebrating the launch.

The video features photos of cheerful, ethnically diverse people — spliced between scenes of California — holding up signs written in English, Farsi, Korean and other languages that all translate to “open.” (You can watch Lee unveil the video, beginning at the 10:40 mark.)

One week later, Covered California brought the video back; once again, clips of grinning men and women toting signs that read “Ya abrimos” filled time before a webinar on Tuesday where officials shared updates on the exchange’s progress.

The smiling faces and multilingual message illustrate one of California’s major challenges in rolling out the ACA: The state is arguably the most geographically and demographically diverse in the union. Expanding health coverage to seven million uninsured residents will take time and a unique strategy.

But you can also forgive Covered California officials for wanting to remind the public that their exchange is live. During much of the first week, the site often sent a different message.

What Went Wrong
Covered California’s launch was supposed to be different. The state had spent years gearing up for the exchange’s rollout on Oct. 1. It had enlisted dozens of groups to help perform outreach. It had equipped some staffers with “Keep calm and go live” t-shirts.

But a triumphant debut turned out to be an oft-frustrating one. In California, like in most of the nation, most launch day stories didn’t center on the people signing up for coverage through the new exchanges, but on all the people who couldn’t.

Australia’s Prisoners’ Dilemma: Incentives Matter in Health Care

Oct 10, 2013• 4

By Chris Denoia

The shortcomings of the Fee For Service (FFS) model are widely known.

During the 1800s, the British empire shipped prisoners to newly formed penal colonies in Australia (technically, these were British prisoners, but that doesn’t make a catchy title). Ship captains were compensated for each prisoner who boarded the ship. The financial incentive ruled over decency, each captain stuffed as many prisoners on to the ship as it could handle. Of course, the prisoner survival rate lingered at a precarious 50%, while those who managed to survive the journey often arrived beaten, sick or starving.

Attempts were made to improve the survival rates, through what might be considered early wellness programs. Captains were mandated to bring citrus to combat scurvy, a 19th century wellness program. Doctors were required on each ship carrying prisoners, improved access ala concierge medicine. I’m sure someone may have proposed it’s the prisoners responsibility to survive the trip and they ought to engage in their own survival. Nevertheless, requiring lemons and limes and placing physicians on the ships proved equally ineffective.

In 1862, economist Edwin Chadwick suggested a change to the incentive structure. Ship captains were no longer compensated for each prisoner who boarded in England, but, instead, received payment for every living prisoner who got off the ship in Australia. The first pay for outcomes program in healthcare. The survival rate on ensuing trips jumped from 50% to 98%.

The moral of the story is that incentives matter.

Primary care physicians are the ship captains of the 21st century.
American patients are prisoners of the US healthcare system.
Misaligned incentives are the root cause for what ails the system.

Christopher DeNoia is the Vice President of Business Development at Amplify Health, where this post originally appeared.

The Government Shutdown: Why the Pipeline Matters

Oct 9, 2013• 5

By Suzanne M. Rivera

Much attention has been paid to the government shutdown that started last week. Many of us heard heart-tugging stories on public radio about the NIH closing down new subject enrollment at its “House of Hope,” the clinical trial hospital on the NIH main campus. These stories gave many people the impression that clinical research halted around the country when the federal government failed to approve a Continuing Resolution.

The reality is both less dramatic in the short term and more concerning for the long term. For the most part, federally-funded projects at university campuses and hospitals are continuing as usual (or, the new “usual,” as reduced by sequestration), because the grants already awarded are like I.O.U.s from the government. By and large, university researchers will keep spending on their funded grants, with the knowledge that reimbursement will come once the government re-opens for business. The universities and hospitals are, in a sense, acting like banks that loan the government money while waiting for these expenses to be reimbursed.

Also, many clinical trials are funded by the pharmaceutical industry. So it is not the case that hospitals are closing their doors to research en masse. But the long-term effects of a shutdown will have lasting and compounding effects on our science pipeline. The U.S. federal government is the single largest funder of scientific research at American universities. Each month, thousands of grant proposals are sent to the various federal funding agencies for consideration.

These in turn are filtered and assigned to peer review committees. The whole process of review, scoring, and funding approval typically takes months, sometimes more than a year.

A Little Advice for the Next National Coordinator

Oct 9, 2013• 4

By John Halamka, MD

Over the next few months, Jacob Reider will serve as the interim National Coordinator for Healthcare IT while the search continues for Farzad Mostashari’s permanent replacement.

What advice would I give to the next national coordinator?

David Blumenthal led ONC during a period of remarkable regulatory change and expanding budgets. He was the right person for the “regulatory era.”

Farzad Mostashari led ONC during a period of implementation when resources peaked, grants were spent, and the industry ran marathons every day to keep up with the pace of change. He was the right person for the “implementation era”

The next coordinator will preside over the “consolidate our gains” era. Grants largely run out in January 2014. Budgets are likely to shrink because of sequestration and the impact of fiscal pressures (when the Federal government starts operating again). Many regulatory deadlines converge in the next coordinator’s term.

The right person for this next phase must listen to stakeholder challenges, adjust timelines, polish existing regulations, ensure the combined burden of regulations from many agencies in HHS do not break the camel’s back, and keep Congress informed every step of the way. I did not include parting the Red Sea, so maybe there is a mere human who could do this.

What tools does the coordinator have in an era of shrinking budgets?

At present, Meaningful Use Stage 2, ICD-10, the Affordable Care Act, HIPAA Omnibus Rule, and numerous CMS imperatives have overlapping timelines, making it nearly impossible for provider organizations to maintain operations while complying with all the new requirements.

Can resources be expanded?

Why Badly Designed iPad Apps Put Patients at Risk: EMS and ePCR

Oct 8, 2013• 7

By Jonathon S. Feit

Everyone who knows my writing can attest that I neither pull punches nor play politics. It may distress people, and hopefully it won’t harbinger my demise. But as CEO of a young firm bringing overdue innovations to the Fire and Emergency Medical Services industry, there are only four groups to whom I am duty-bound: our partner-clients, their patients, our team members, and our investors (in no specific order). To remain mum on topics that could affect the physical or financial health and wellbeing of any of these parties would be a disservice.

When I was in the magazine business, I often used the phrase “Respect the medium.” The meaning was simple: when every industry player surfing the waves of innovation is trying something new, how many are asking whether the form is appropriate to the intended function? What changes need to be made to magazine’s font so its text can be read clearly on a small, backlit screen? What interactivity can be embedded into a digitally delivered? How will the user’s experience change when network access is down? (In February 2012, I wrote about these topics for Electronic Design Magazine.)

Failure to ask these questions is often the downfall of the delivery method: either the medium changes or its use declines; rarely do customers acclimate. In the publishing world, if your readers ignore you, you go away—no lasting harm or foul. Not so in healthcare or public safety. Especially during emergencies, if a product fails to work as intended—or to work at all—it can mean lost productivity, mountainous legal fees, brain death, or loss of life, limb and property.

Healthcare IT offers outsized benefits to Emergency Response teams, which depend on speed, ease of training and use, data accuracy, and interoperability. But the stakes of failure or disruption are so high that one can say there are few areas of development with a more desperate need for criticism.