The Health Care Blog

MEMORIAL DAY OFF

I'll be taking Memorial Day off. If you are in DC for the holiday I highly reccomend the exhibit of WWII photos in Union station, where I passed a very pleasant hour wating for a train. Best wishes to all...

POLICY: It sucks to be sick and poor in America

While some of my fellow bloggers have seized on the opportunity afforded by the Canadian election to criticize the alleged "monstrosity" of the Canadian health care system, the true "stinking" is emanating from the system for care of the poor...

TECHNOLOGY: Upping the ante on physician technology use

The Bridges to Excellence program, that the very careful THCB reader may have noted was discussed in the P4P piece by the HSC folks referenced in yesterday's post, is in the news today for offering to hand out cash to...

QUALITY: Pay for Performance, Care Management and the scribblings of defunct economists

Back in 1997 when IFTF was working on the 10 Year Forecast of Health and Healthcare, our chief economist Greg Schmidt vehemently decried capitation and FFS as unsustainable systems and said that a rational market would develop in paying for...

PHARMA: Formularies--penny-wise, pound foolish.

You may notice some slightly funky publishing schedules this week as I'm on the east coast confirming that Boston is cold in May, that the Big Dig is never-ending, and that Amtrak can make the trains run on time. Meanwhile...

POLICY & HEALTH PLANS: Managed care costs Medicare more

This isn't new news, and has been disputed in a roundabout way in various other pieces, particularly one by Jeff Lemieux that I commented on last year. However, the Commonwealth Fund has a latest report showing that in terms of...

POLICY: Overview of HC system spending

The California Healthcare Foundation is out with more great reference work. This one is an overview of the whole health care system. They call it Health Care Costs 101 and it's a nice summary of some voluminous work done at...

PHARMA: Bristol-Myers to Stop U.S. Sale of Serzone

BMS is pulling its poorly selling anti-depressant Serzone off the market. BMS blames poor sales for the move, but the drug has been blamed for liver problems and the folks at Public Citizen have been suing to force a full...

LIGHT RELIEF

If you are needing a break to get you to the weekend, the photos from the first half of my trip to the UK and Turkey are now up at my personal blog. But don't blame me if your boss...

HOSPITALS: CalPERS drops 36 hospitals

Here's the Sacramento Bee's report on CalPERS paring down the list of hospitals it will contract with in the Blue Shield HMO product. Although some big names like Cedars Sinai are on this list, the real deal is the fight...

HOSPITALS: Straight Outa' Compton, by MATT QUINN

St. John's Regional Medical Center <>, Oxnard's only hospital has filed a civil lawsuit seeking to impose an injunction against members of the Colonia Chiques gang. According to the injunction, gang members - who "frequently arrive at the hospital as...

GENERAL: Round-up of few stories

So I've made it back from vacation. The last story (for a while) from Matt Quinn runs after this one, but I thought I'd give you a quick preview of what I've been seeing in news since I came back....

BLOG NOTES:

I'm back from a great trip to the UK and Turkey, and of course have jetlag and so am up at 4 am writing this. Pics will be up at my other blog soon... Meanwhile many, many thanks to Matt...

INSURANCE: Premiums Rising, by MATT QUINN

The Boston Globe reports that the largest malpractice insurer in Massachusetts will raise doctors' premiums 11 percent on July 1. The responses from "outraged" physicians (and insurance company executives) in Massachusetts echo the sentiments of those in Pennsylvania, New Jersey,...

HOSPITALS: Tenet Update, by MATT QUINN

In stark contrast to last week's placid shareholder meeting, Tenet's Shareholder Committee is outraged - OUTRAGED! - at the "endless cycle of scandal" at the hospital chain and has threatened to run an ads in the Wall Street Journal detailing...

PAYERS/HOSPITALS: The CalPERS and Sutter Saga Continues, by MATT QUINN

According to an article in the SF Chronicle, the epic battle over hospital charges between CalPERS and Sutter, the state's largest purchaser of health care and the biggest hospital chain in Northern California, respectively, is a conflict that demonstrates the...

HEALTH INSURANCE: ED Overcrowding - Addressing Supply & Demand, by MATT QUINN

A recent study from the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation on Health Care and the Schneider Institute for Health Policy at Brandeis University has concluded that Emergency Rooms Overcrowded Due to Poor Contact With Doctors . It seems that,...

HOSPITALS: Soothing Kool-Aid Served at Tenet Shareholder Meeting, by MATT QUINN

The LA Times reports that, in opposition to last year's meeting, the mood was "calm" at Tenet's annual shareholder meeting. There were so few issues to discuss that, in sharp contract to last year's "raucous showdown" with shareholders, Tenet Chairman...

HOSPITALS: Gamesmanship to avert specialty hospital classification, By MATT QUINN

A new model of specialty hospital is emerging to cherry-pick the most profitable patients from community hospitals. A group of physicians and investors has proposed building a surgical hospital in Loma Linda, California, specializing in cardiovascular and orthopedic procedures, a...

HOSPITALS: Fraud--Hospital CEO Goes to Jail, by MATT QUINN

After the - alleged - Medicare fraud at HealthSouth, Tenet, Medco, et. al... the government has held the CEO of an organization that defrauded Medicare personally responsible: According to AIS Health, Guy Roland Seaton, the CEO of a California subacute...

TECHNOLOGY: Healthcare IT--Staying the Course (or Not) by MATT QUINN

With rosy prognostications , encouragement from Leapfrog , the support of our Fearless Leader, and leading healthcare organizations pledging billions for Healthcare IT, the universal adoption of electronic medical records and CPOE seems like a done deal. But debt and...

TECHNOLOGY: WebMD as victim of AMA activism? by MATT QUINN

There's a long article from CNET about the problems that WebMD is facing: While the true scope of WebMD's "lost" or HIPAA non-compliant claims is hard to ascertain from this article, it appears that payers, providers and the AMA are...