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.

Mar 11 2014

Here is an extreme warning of the danger of defective HIT products; Cerner has apparently paid over $100 million in an arbitration award stemming from a dispute with a North Dakota hospital using Cerner's software.

http://www.kansascity.com/2014/03/10/4878599/cerner-settled-dispute-with-1062.html
Mar 11 2014

In the very odd category, research in JAMA suggests that having a casino open or expand is correlated with a decrease in rates of childhood obesity among Native Americans.  No explanation provided.

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1835503
Mar 11 2014

NCQA has updated its standards for recognition as a medical home and announced it has certified about 6800 sites for medical home status.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/PracticeManagement/PracticeManagement/44700
Mar 11 2014

CMS has withdrawn its controversial proposed changes to the Part D drug benefit program, which would have limited preferred networks and changed formularies.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/10/us-usa-healthcare-medicare-idUSBREA2706420140310
Mar 10 2014

A study in the Journal of Health Economics finds that modest copays on coverage provided to low-income persons might deter excessive unnecessary utilization.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629613001409
Mar 10 2014

iRxReminder has raised in $250,000 in seed money for its medication adherence app.

http://www.pehub.com/2014/03/irxreminder-gets-250000-in-seed-funding/
Mar 10 2014

HealthStream, which provides educational content for health care professionals, is paying around $15 million for Health Care Compliance Strategies, which offers online compliance training.

http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/Healthstream-buys-HCCS-to-expand-online-education-compliance-47388-1.html?utm_campaign=daily-mar%207%202014&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter
Mar 10 2014

Interactive Health, a large provider of wellness solutions, has acquired Health Solutions, another wellness provider.

http://www.interactivehealthinc.com/newsroom-story.asp
Mar 06 2014

A study in the journal Telemedicine and eHealth finds that patients who use virtual visits do not have fewer in-person visits; in fact the same people tend to be high utilizers of both tele-visits and in-person ones.  The study was conducted at the Mayo Clinic and suggests that virtual visits may be additive to utilization and costs, not substitutive.

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-technology/patient-portal-messaging-tele-visits-do-not-affect-in-person-physician-visit-frequency-say-mayo-researchers.html
Mar 06 2014

According to Avalere Health, Medicare Advantage enrollment continued to grow for the 2014 year, with enrollment rising to 15.9 million people, almost 30% of all beneficiaries.  This was a 9% gain from 2013, in spite of concerns about reimbursement cuts.  Medicare Part D enrollment also grew.

http://avalerehealth.net/expertise/managed-care/insights/medicare-advantage-and-part-d-plans-see-enrollment-increase-with-payment-an
Mar 06 2014

A survey from Sullivan Cotter and Associates indicates that the gap between primary care and specialist physician pay has begun to narrow, with an increase of 5.7% for primary care doctors and about 3% for specialists.  But the absolute gap is still huge, with primary care doctors averaging around $200-250,000 while specialists can earn multiples of that.

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/compensation-issues/pay-gap-between-specialists-primary-care-physicians-diminishing.html