Skip to main content
search
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.

Sep 23 2015

A Commonwealth Fund blog post suggests that increasing the differential between younger and older adults' premiums under the reform law would end up costing the government more in higher subsidies, but gives no alternative solution for the very unfair situation of charging relatively healthy young people excessive premiums to pay for older adults health care.

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/blog/2015/sept/charging-older-adults-higher-premiums-could-cost-taxpayers
Sep 23 2015

A study in Health Affairs finds, shockingly, that long-term care hospitals time discharges to maximize reimbursement.  Just amazing that a provider would follow an incentive to get the highest payment.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/34/6/907.abstract
Sep 23 2015

Institute of Medicine Report on Diagnosis Quality

http://iom.nationalacademies.org/Reports/2015/Improving-Diagnosis-in-Healthcare.aspx
Sep 23 2015

2015 Kaiser Employer Health Benefits Survey

http://kff.org/health-costs/report/2015-employer-health-benefits-survey/?utm_campaign=KFF%3A+2015+September+EHBS&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=22204092&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--Rqotq-jlGf2kYFJsVapjQSLD34RYUxZ3zx9Na8r20FrPjmOh9g81pFhRB6lbd0-qfgiTwWVrTuWnVZRPLZAUQkRGiPu8KpALACvC2ycgKHrm-jX0&_hsmi=22204092
Sep 22 2015

EHR vendor Modernizing Medicine has raised $87 million in new capital.

https://www.pehub.com/2015/09/modernizing-medicine-scores-38-mln-series-e/
Sep 22 2015

Revenue cycle management company HealthPort is buying ECS, which offers on-demand access to medical records.

https://www.pehub.com/2015/09/healthport-iod-to-buy-ecs/
Sep 22 2015

According to JAMA research, patients think a doctor who delivers an optimistic message is more compassionate and would prefer him or her to one delivering a pessimistic message, suggesting that the content of a message unduly affects a patient's perspective of the physician delivering it.  Another item to add to patient education.

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2441250
Sep 21 2015

Medicare requires a three-day hospital stay to get coverage for subsequent skilled nursing care, which seems silly, and research published in Health Affairs shows no difference in number of admissions or length of stay at hospitals and skilled nursing facilities between Medicare Advantage plans that enforce the rule and those that waive it.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/34/8/1324.abstract
Sep 21 2015

Universal Health Services, a large hospital chain, is buying Foundations Recovery Network, an addiction treatment firm, for $350 million.

http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-universal-health-services-buying-foundations-for-350m-2015-9?utm_campaign=KHN%3A+Daily+Health+Policy+Report&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=22185080&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_6mP52dacF0bQacAC84HyM824yKuK_Qba5pzZQ3-nQtinjkyD2HpdXXYi6_qT5fqWj-REss0vYGY4yQtYrVuwu_UJfsGniQM0Z2hsjv3HfLygw9-k&_hsmi=22185080
Sep 21 2015

DaVita, through its troubled HealthCare Partners division, is buying the Everett Clinic, a large Washington state physician group.

http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_28848150/davita-to-buy-seattlearea-primary-specialty-physicians-group?utm_campaign=KHN%3A+Daily+Health+Policy+Report&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=22185080&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9JE_8Rud5lT9MW8J9EGVVopLdzPcc1p-VVM9wsYa90HNsNXeywEMeNfkT-8x-H8p8ARXUIxk4FVkihKe-tJzG9p5dzKu3GdHmjvHVeCU-4fedxgbM&_hsmi=22185080
Sep 21 2015

A SullivanCotter survey finds that primary care physician compensation increased 3.4% in 2015 and specialty physician compensation by 2.3%, with urgent care and psychiatry seeing the largest increases and anesthesiology, radiology and neurology the lowest.  Orthopedic surgeons had the highest compensation.

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/compensation-issues/2015-physician-total-cash-compensation-by-specialty.html
Sep 18 2015

Everything is coming up roses for Clover Health, lucky as can be with a $100 million fundraising for its "data-driven health plan" model for Medicare members.  We will see how lucky the investors are feeling in a couple of years.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/17/clover-health-a-data-driven-health-insurance-startup-raises-100m/#.oqnxb8:j4fd
Sep 18 2015

Iora Health adds $20 million more in capital to increase the expansion of its primary care clinic focused model.

http://medcitynews.com/2015/09/iora-health-raises/?utm_source=MedCity+News+Subscribers&utm_campaign=bf61e8fece-MCN+Daily+Email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5092836c41-bf61e8fece-408793005
Close Menu