By Evan Falchuk
David Williams, the Charlie Rose of the health care blogosphere, recently interviewed me.
You can listen to the audio of our wide-ranging talk on David’s always-interesting Health Business Blog.
We talked about health care reform, health IT, social media, health care quality, patient navigation, and the role of Best Doctors.
Give it a listen, and visit back to David’s blog regularly.
What’s your opinion on the subjects we talked about?
By Evan Falchuk
You have a right to your medical record.
It’s true – the record of every test and procedure you’ve had done, any films or studies, your doctors notes. It’s all yours if you ask for it.
But it’s not that simple.
By Evan Falchuk
![EMC_logo_2004_color2[1]](http://www.seefirstblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/EMC_logo_2004_color21.jpg "EMC_logo_2004_color2[1]"){kind=logo}
Following my earlier webinar, I said I would be doing a series of Q&A’s with benefit executives from some of the country’s most innovative companies. The first one features the insights of Delia Vetter, Senior Director of Benefits of EMC Corporation. She shared her views on employee benefits, health care IT, and how an important company like EMC thinks about the hottest topics of the day.
I think you’ll find her thoughts very interesting.
By Evan Falchuk
New IT systems are impressive and give the appearance you are operating in a state-of-the-art environment. But do they really do any good if all they are doing is “computerizing the current set-up”? It’s pretty much what we’re doing in the government’s massive new health care IT program.
By Evan Falchuk
Preventable disease is a terrible burden, made all the more tragic by the fact that it can be avoided.
Policymakers in Washington take this a step further, claiming that we can save huge amounts of money by systematic programs to prevent disease and encourage wellness. The document explaining the Republicans’ new “Patient Choice Act” says that wellness and disease prevention can save trillions of dollars (.pdf). President Obama seems to agree, saying these programs like these can create “serious savings” that represent “huge amounts of money in the long term.”
There’s one problem: study after study says it’s not true.
By Evan Falchuk
Doctors and patients complain all the time about how badly our health care system works. It shouldn’t be a surprise — neither doctors or patients designed it. But the internet, and especially blogs, have changed things. Once the little guy couldn’t possibly have a meaningful seat at the table in making policy, today bloggers are among the most influential political forces in America.
Doctors are the emerging political force on the web. Their blogs tell the stories of what it’s really like to practice medicine, and often give the most insightful prescriptions on how to make things better.
But the best doctor-bloggers aren’t political. They simply describe the world as it really is, from inside their offices, to the hallways of their hospitals, to their real-life experiences with patients. Like the best doctors, they aren’t afraid to just call it like it is, and do it with a sense of humor.
Doctors have a chance to transform health care in a way no other group can — and doctor-bloggers are in the vanguard.
By Evan Falchuk
Dr. Val blogs today about cash-only physician practices, as well as other concierge-style practices.
They’re both emerging models of primary care in which the doctor basically opts out of the traditional insurance system. By doing that, doctors typically see fewer patients, spend more time with each patient. They can even make more money per patient, by getting rid of the overhead otherwise tied up in doing medical billing. It sounds great, and it is, for patients fortunate enough to be in a practice like that. But it has its share of critics, who worry that these kinds of practices leave behind those who are less well-off.
But what if a doctor set up a low-cost concierge practice, catering to people without insurance? Wouldn’t that be a great idea?
I’m speaking this afternoon at the Conference Board’s Employee Health Care Conference in San Diego. It looks like an interesting agenda today and tomorrow. My segment is titled, “The Real Path to Improving Quality and Costs.”
I’ll be sure to post updates and share my key learnings. Stay tuned.
LIVE UPDATE (12:27pm): First panel is about the Health Dividend, which seems to mean the savings available from healthier lifestyles and wellness. Hal Rosenbluth SVP Walgreens just presented and highlighted the very aggressive move they are making into clinics at their stores and related wellness services. He said that almost all Americans live within five miles of a Walgreens so this is a great platform for community wellness. He also talked about how proud he was of the very high rates of appropriate use of antibiotics, which he said was a major problem in the market.
By Evan Falchuk
At last week’s NBGH conference, I am told Senator Max Baucus made an interesting observation. He said that America is not Germany or the UK or Canada, and so whatever kind of reform we create here must be “uniquely American.” It’s an obvious point, but it highlights something important:
What does it mean to have a uniquely “American” healthcare system, and uniquely “American” healthcare reform?
Americans are enormously individualistic and our attitudes about healthcare reflect that. We want healthcare to be more accessible, but we recoil at ideas of massive new spending or increased government involvement in our healthcare decisions. We think our system is uncoordinated, expensive and in need of reform, but that our own coverage is just fine, thank you. Americans are also tremendously creative, and when faced with a problem try to tackle it with an entrepreneurial zeal. Indeed, the CBO recently summarized more than 100 reform proposals, and the President’s (awkwardly-named) Forum on Healthcare Reform brought together dozens of leaders and the work of thousands of reform advocates. (more…)
By Evan Falchuk
The National Business Group on Health (NBGH) held its Business Health Agenda in Washington, DC this week. The NBGH is one of the most influential groups in the country in terms of healthcare from the perspective of large employers. This hasn’t happened by accident – its President, Helen Darling, has long held the vision that if you provide a forum for the leaders of American healthcare to share their experiences and challenges, you can create innovative solutions to our healthcare problems. If the high level of attendance at this event (in a terribly down year for conference attendance) is any indication, it’s working.
One of the hottest topics discussed this year was electronic medical records (EMR), highlighted in the most newsworthy way by Linda Dillman, the EVP of Benefits and Risk Management at Wal-Mart Stores. Wal-Mart made news yesterday with the announcement that its Sam’s Club stores would be selling EMR systems to doctors’ offices at prices far below the current market for such things. Dillman told us that although they haven’t officially launched the program yet, they got their first call from a physician practice asking to buy the system 20 minutes after the press release hit the wire. They seem to be onto something, not even counting the nearly $20 billion in the stimulus bill targeted at EMRs. (more…)
