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.

Dec 20 2013

Home Care Delivered, a vendor of home medical supplies for diabetes, wound care and other medical needs, has been recapitalized by FNB Capital Partners.

https://www.pehub.com/2013/12/f-n-b-capital-partners-closes-fourth-investment/
Dec 20 2013

A study in JAMA Surgery finds that use of robots in colon surgery results in no better quality, but significantly higher costs.

http://archsurg.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1790379
Dec 20 2013

Congress has passed a short term override of the SGR formula implementation for 2014, avoiding a 24% cut in physician payments from Medicare.  A longer term fix appears closer than in past years.

http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20131218/NEWS/312189951/budget-bill-with-short-term-sgr-fix-clears-congress-ready-for-obama?AllowView=VW8xUmo5Q21TcWJOb1gzb0tNN3RLZ0h0MWg5SVgra3NZRzROR3l0WWRMWGFWdndKRWxiNUtpQzMyWmFwNW5RWUpibWdiUlVxdzBRYzlpS1ZCZjQ5emp5ZHN0bjFRZGU2UmI5WEhxMFIwZXZ3ZUxPbTdkVktKc1dhL0VwL0VlczNoR3dGcGZVelREM3AxUTVlL2x1cUU0bXk2cnVMc0lzPQ==
Dec 19 2013

Studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggest that pharmacogenetics may not provide much assistance in improving dosing and management of blood thinner therapies.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1310669
Dec 19 2013

Patient engagement is all the rage but there is not yet good evidence that it  helps improve patient safety, according to a survey of research on the topic published in the BMJ Quality & Safety.

http://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/early/2013/12/13/bmjqs-2012-001769?papetoc
Dec 18 2013

Care.com, which helps match patients with caregivers, particularly for home health care, has filed for an initial public offering.

http://www.pehub.com/2013/12/vc-backed-care-com-files-for-ipo/
Dec 18 2013

According to the Private Exchange Evaluation Collaborative, 45% of employers either are or plan to utilize a private health insurance exchange and an additional 15% would send employees to the public exchanges for health benefits, but there is concern about the stability of these entities.

http://www.nebgh.org/resources/PEEC%20Executive%20Summary%20December%2010%202013%20FINAL.pdf
Dec 18 2013

Wildflower Health, which provides mobile solutions to help health plans engage members and whose first product is a maternity care management tool, has raised an initial round of financing.

http://www.pehub.com/2013/12/wildflower-health-nabs-series-a-funds/
Dec 18 2013

Maxwell Health has raised $6 million in financing for its SAAS platform to help manage employee benefits and health plans, bringing its total Series A round to $8 million.

http://www.pehub.com/2013/12/maxwell-health-raises-6-mln-in-funding-round-led-by-vaizra-investments/
Dec 18 2013

HHS issued the rules designed to force health plans to cover people who haven't yet paid their premiums (and who may never do so) after enrolling through the exchanges, transferring the burden of the defective enrollment process from the government to the plans.

https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/12/17/2013-29918/patient-protection-and-affordable-care-act-maximizing-january-1-2014-coverage-opportunities
Dec 18 2013

For those of use who have been diligently taking our multivitamins every day, bad news, a series of studies suggest they have no benefit.  Bad news for the multi-billion dollar multivitamin industry.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304173704579262693876479358
Dec 18 2013

PMBI Pharmacy Benefits Report

http://reports.pbmi.com/report.php
Dec 17 2013

According to research published in the journal Healthcare, medical practices participating in the Physician Group Practice Demonstration, the forerunner of the ACO concept, had reduced cancer care costs of $721 per patient or 3.9% annually, all attributed to less inpatient care.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213076413000183