All Posts By

Kevin Roche

The Healthy Skeptic is a website about the health care system, and is written by Kevin Roche, who has many years of experience working in the health industry through Roche Consulting, LLC. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements and may be reached at khroche@healthy-skeptic.com.

Oct 25 2016

An analysis from Blues plans in Texas, Illinois, Oklahoma, Montana and New Mexico finds that high deductible plans reduce health spending by 9.2% over three years, on a pre and post high deductible plan enrollment basis.  Little methodological information was given so hard to evaluate credibility of the study, but the results are consistent with other findings.

http://www.hcsc.com/consumer_directed_health_plans.html
Oct 25 2016

A study in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that heart attack patients treated at hospitals with higher quality, according to mortality measures, lived about a year longer than patients treated at lower quality facilities.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1513223
Oct 24 2016

Entering a new era, Epoch Health, which operates clinics focusing on men's health, attracts $5 million in new capital.

https://www.pehub.com/2016/10/kayne-newroad-ventures-invests-5-mln-in/
Oct 20 2016

NexHealth gets $1.5 million for a cool idea that only 20 or 30 other companies are already pursuing---an app for scheduling doctor appointments.

http://medcitynews.com/2016/10/nexhealth-raises-1-5m-automated-physician-appointment-booking-system/?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=36170813&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--miX_eqmPePfzOS680n5CU7dOBxGiwROHFNBR1NdnZOK40JdhvSwERQ1leR3EwvjUlAHKbixOWx8iWbfMCPe-Le7QrN_7T-xBcUeW-2DTp84QSc38&_hsmi=36170813&rf=1
Oct 20 2016

The propeller heads at Propeller Health raised an additional $21.5 million for their respiratory medication adherence product.

http://medcitynews.com/2016/10/propeller-health-series-c/?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=36170813&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9w4ceAONzjUZsar7IfO8e1OPaI5gNH3dldtkqsdIuyKYO_E_QiJTwq0OxWY_SsGvddjSpmZLShLYj9UzXKQ4oIETjMoTRLlzOaS4-xTojJ08-08SU&_hsmi=36170813&rf=1
Oct 19 2016

Heals, which offers house calls by doctors, gets well by collecting $27 million in new funding.

https://www.pehub.com/2016/10/doctor-house-calls-startup-heal-inks-26-9-mln-series-a/
Oct 19 2016

Casamba, HealthWyse and TherapySource, all post-acute care software providers, are merging, with the new company to be called CasaWyseSource or WyseSambaTherapy or Wyseasarap, or something like that.

https://www.pehub.com/2016/10/casamba-forms-mergehealthwyse-and-therapysource/
Oct 18 2016

For the most significant outcomes, a recent study in NEJM finds no difference between bare metal and drug-eluting stents.  Drug and device companies are really good at selling expensive products with no or marginal outcome improvements.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1607991
Oct 18 2016

A study in NEJM finds that while ten-year mortality was similar for treatment or surveillance for prostate cancer, failure to treat led to more metastases and disease progression.  Proponents of ending PSA screening and what they view as excessive diagnoses of prostate cancer may be happy, but for a few men, late diagnosis and/or surveillance just means worse disease and outcomes.  The same approach is coming on mammograms.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1606220