New research in JAMA Internal Medicine finds that half the difference in readmission rates among hospitals can be explained by characteristics of the patients they treat, further demonstrating the poor design of the CMS penalty program.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2015/09/14/medicare-unfairly-penalizes-hospitals-treating-sickest-poorest-patients-study-finds/Wellness firm Training Amigo is seeking friends to invest $1.5 million in the company.
A study in Health Affairs finds that greater prescription drug use among Medicaid beneficiaries is associated with a modest reduction in overall spending.
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Billionaire entrepreneur Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong has raised huge sums for two more of his panoply of companies, $150 million for a proteomics lab business and $100 million for an immuno-oncology one. Be interesting to see how all this relates to his population health management efforts.
http://medcitynews.com/2015/09/two-of-patrick-soon-shiongs-nantworks-startups-net-250m/?utm_source=MedCity+News+Subscribers&utm_campaign=446e1408df-MCN+Daily+Email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5092836c41-446e1408df-408793005According to a Markets & Markets report the population health management market will be worth over $40 billion in annual revenue by 2018. I have no idea what anyone means by that term and 99% of the people who use it don't know what they mean by it either, but $40 billion is certainly a lot more than the amount of cost savings produced by PHM.
http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/population-health-management-market-263411936.htmlGetWellNetwork is helping someone else's shareholders get well by buying Skylight Healthcare Systems. Both companies are in the patient communication in the hospital business.
http://medcitynews.com/2015/09/getwellnetwork-buys-skylight/?utm_source=MedCity+News+Subscribers&utm_campaign=1f166ce3b7-MCN+Daily+Email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5092836c41-1f166ce3b7-408793005A Peterson-Kaiser tracking brief examines quality indicators for our health system and international comparisons.
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Research carried in the British Medical Journal finds that physician-owned hospitals don't appear to have some of the evils ascribed to them.
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Disruptive-model health plan Oscar Health, which has raised a huge amount of capital at a ludicrous valuation, is having trouble finding customers, but remains optimistic, according to a Bloomberg story. Uhhh, this isn't a business where a fly-by-nite business model is going to get anywhere.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-03/for-health-insurance-startup-oscar-cute-ads-only-go-so-farThe American Medical Association has shockingly discovered that the proposed health plan mega-mergers would hurt competition in many markets!! They are probably right, wish they would look at physician and hospital mergers the same way.
https://commerce.ama-assn.org/store/catalog/productDetail.jsp?product_id=prod2680007&navAction=pushAccentuating the positive, CMS releases the latest results from its Medicare Accountable Care Organization program.
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About this Blog
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. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements through Roche Consulting, LLC and may be reached at khroche@healthy-skeptic.com.