By Evan Falchuk
I was interviewed today by Employee Benefit Adviser, one of the leading publications in the employee benefits market. I spoke with EBA’s Editor in Chief, John Ortman about trends in the health care market, problems with the quality of health care around the world, and, of course, Best Doctors.
The podcast is here.
By Evan Falchuk
I gave a speech yesterday at the Midwest Business Group on Health’s 30th Annual Conference. The MBGH is one of the country’s leading organizations on health care, and its members include the leading innovators and thought leaders on health care in America. It was a privilege to present to them.
I spoke about why health care just isn’t a consumer business, in spite of all of the efforts to turn people into health care “consumers.”
Read the text of my remarks below the fold, it was a very interesting day.
By Evan Falchuk
Some things you might have missed these last few days, what with the snow and the Superbowl:
1. The always interesting Hank Stern at Insureblog talked about the first of my three posts on Japan (the other 2 are here and here).
2. KevinMD used my post about how your doctor’s moods affect the quality of your care to talk about the problem of burn-out among physicians. He’s written about it before, and it’s important.
3. I tried to explain why U.S. employers aren’t crazy. At least they’re not crazy to want to pay for health care themselves, thank you.
4. Good news at the Wall Street Journal’s Health blog: government-designed, privately-sold, cheap health insurance. Too good to be true? Yes, as I point out in a comment there and in more detail here.
5. This research makes me think oh my God. Please hurry up and build the technology seen in either Avatar or the Matrix.
By Evan Falchuk
Some news from the weekend:
1. Congratulations to my brother, Brad, co-creator and executive producer of Glee. They won the Golden Globe for best musical or comedy TV series. They beat some terrific shows, like 30 Rock, Entourage and The Office. Well done, and congratulations to everyone at Glee.
2. Speaking of awards, I was honored by Lexis Nexis as one of the Notable People of 2009 in the field of Workers Compensation. It’s not as sexy as a Golden Globe but it is a great honor, since it was voted on by other workers compensation professionals. What it is really about is the work we do at Best Doctors to make sure that people who get hurt on the job get the right care. I owe special thanks to Mark Walls, of Safety National Insurance, for nominating me and Best Doctors. Mark and the other senior executives at Safety National care deeply about doing the right thing, and helping each and every injured worker have the best chance to get well. I commend them and I am grateful we are able to play a role in helping them succeed.
3. More from me over the weekend: if you listen to one doctor about health reform, make it Dr. Seuss.
4. Interesting: questions about immediate savings from corporate wellness programs. Do they work?
5. Happy birthday, Martin Luther King, Jr. You were a true American patriot and hero.
By Evan Falchuk
Australia’s riskinfo.com, a leading publication for benefits advisers, released today the results of its study of the three “Best Initiatives of 2009.”
I’m proud to say that Best Doctors made the list for a program it launched with leading Australian insurer MLC.
The experience shared with Australian advisers during the launch of Best Doctors by leading UK adviser, Colin Boxall, in his capacity as an adviser and also as a father of a very sick child, served to highlight the value of this service. Mr Boxall told advisers that in relation to receiving claim benefits for critical illnesses “… sometimes, having money is not enough.”
Congratulations to everyone who worked on this important initiative, especially Frank Ahedo, head of our European business, who spearheaded this effort. It underscores what I’ve written about many times before – no matter where you live, or what health care system your country has, the experience of being sick is mostly the same.
Mr. Boxall said it very well indeed.
By Evan Falchuk
A round-up of interesting things found on the web:
1. Joe Lieberman wants you dead.
Well, maybe not you, in particular. But Ezra Klein can’t figure out why Senator Joe Lieberman opposes the current version of the Senate health care reform bill. So, he has reflected on the point concluded that it is because he
seems primarily motivated by torturing liberals. That is to say, he seems willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score.
Well, ok, then. Health care seems to make people say some crazy things.
2. Jonathan Bush doesn’t like Congress.
Babies are enjoying a renaissance. First, they day trade. Now, they seem to have access to Israeli-manufactured submachine guns:
I still have to keep going to Washington and sucking up. . . . Because the problem is when you have a baby with an Uzi, right, they might accidentally mow you down. But here’s the thing . . . they’re brilliant people. It’s just that the idea of a market in health care never occurred to them.
But the CEO of Athena Health makes some interesting points. He doesn’t think the reform proposals in Washington are a good idea, but says that companies like his stand to make a lot of money implementing whatever it is that is passed. It’s a colorful interview that is worth reading.
3. Massachusetts businesses are worried that federal reform will undermine the Massachusetts reforms of 2006
For all the talk about how bad the Massachusetts health care reforms are, a coalition of the most important business groups are worried federal law might undermine them. So they wrote a letter to Senator Kennedy’s (temporary) replacement Senator Paul Kirk asking him to make sure this doesn’t happen:
Our hope was that national health reform efforts would compliment, rather than undermine, our state efforts. In recent weeks, we have grown increasingly concerned that many provisions contained in the health reform bills before Congress could actually undo the success of Massachusetts health reform by making coverage more expensive. . . . .Employers cannot absorb this increased cost, particularly when our health care costs are already among the highest in the nation.
The business groups are especially concerned with taxes on health insurers and so-called “Cadillac” plans, but also raise a number of other issues. Their biggest concern is cost-containment and they are worried that the Senate bill isn’t going to address that problem.
4. The UK’s Health Insurance and Protection Magazine featured an interesting story on Best Doctors
As I noted after my recent visit to our European headquarters, different countries may have different health care systems, but the experience of being sick or treating patients is very similar:
The fact that medical treatment varies locally and internationally is well-established. In the UK, mastectomy rates for breast cancer patients range from 36% to 53% between regions, and between surgeons from 19% to 92%. . . . [T]hese examples serve as useful reminders that doctors operate within a complex context. While national guidelines exist, there remain difficult choices to be made.
Bottom line: everyone wants more control over their health care.
5. Tinker!
At Healthcare etc., Marya Zilberberg says good things happen when we question authority and try things for ourselves:
People, we are no better informed than our ancestors banging their drums to ward off solar eclipse. . . . If we want true innovation, we need to get back to our tinkering roots. Learn to darn your socks, help your child to read and teach her to tinker, so that she can stay curious. Question “experts”: most of the time the mountains of complexity behind their concepts are useless or unnecessary, or created for the purpose of exclusion by obfuscation. Throw open these black boxes and shine a light in them. Play with stuff. Play with ideas. Tinker!
I’m all in favor of her advice. Except the the part about sock darning.
UPDATE 12/15/09: This was cool and came out late yesterday: My brother and his co-creators of the show Glee received 2 nominations for awards from the Writer’s Guild of America.
UPDATE #2: And they got four Golden Globe nominations. Not a bad day.
By Evan Falchuk
If you were watching New England Cable News on Friday, their top business news story was on how EMC deals with the problem of health care costs. A big part of the story was Best Doctors.
You can see the story below. I’m in it in a couple of spots:
I’ve written about EMC previously here.
Also last week, BLR posted a free whitepaper on trends in benefits and compensation. It, too, included Best Doctors and Delia Vetter, Senior Director of Benefits for EMC.
