ACO
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Apixio Illuminates The Pain of Recording Patient Risk Factors (Part 1)
Many of us strain against the bonds of tradition in our workplace, harboring a secret dream that the industry could start afresh, streamlined and free of hampering traditions. But history weighs on nearly every field, including my own (publishing) and the one I cover in this blog (health care). Applying technology in such a field often involves the legerdemain of extracting new value from the imperfect records and processes with deep roots. Along these lines, when Apixio aimed machine learning and data analytics at health care, they unveiled a business model based on measuring risk more accurately so that Medicare Advantage payments to health care payers and providers reflect their patient populations more appropriately...
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Connected Health Symposium Looks for Answers to Healthcare's Troubling Questions
As Joseph Kvedar, MD, director of Partners Healthcare’s Center for Connected Health, looked out upon a crowded ballroom at Boston’s Park Plaza Hotel Thursday afternoon, he was reminded of a concept hatched roughly two decades ago. “We had the crazy idea that the doctor and the patient didn’t have to be in the same room together,” he recalled. This week, more than 1,000 healthcare exec Read More »
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FTC Commissioner: Accountable Care Organizations Will Likely Lead to 'Higher Costs and Lower Quality Health Care'
In August, I wrote about how hospital monopolies are the biggest driver of health costs that nobody talks about. These powerful hospital chains know that insurers have no choice but to accept their jacked-up rates, and the cost of health insurance goes up whenever it suits their needs. Now, according to remarks by Federal Trade Commissioner J. Thomas Rosch, it turns out that accountable care organizations—one of Obamacare’s most touted policy gizmos—could make this problem far worse. Read More »
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What Economists Don’t Know About the Health Care Industry
Recently, I resorted to a rare economic argument in a health IT article, pointing out that it’s unfair to put the burden of high health care costs on the patients. Now 101 economists have come out publicly recommending that very injustice. Their analysis shows the deep reluctance of those who are supposed to guide our health care policy to admit how distorted the current system is, and how entrenched are the powerful forces that keep it from reforming...But in this case, the average patient has knowledge that these economists lack. The problems are also well known to anyone in the health care industry who has the courage and clarity of vision to acknowledge what’s going on. If we want the system to change, let’s put public pressure on the people who are actually responsible for the problems–not the hapless patient.
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