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 24 2013

A Wisconsin startup called Wellbe has gotten $1.4 million in initial capital for a software tool that helps patients as they go through episodes of hospital-based care.

http://medcitynews.com/2013/10/wellbe-raises-1-4-million/?utm_source=MedCity+News+Subscribers&utm_campaign=301780795f-RSS_Daily+Top+Stories&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c05cce483a-301780795f-67648197
Oct 24 2013

Cureatr, a startup which provides a mobile care coordination tool for providers, raised $5.7 million in capital.

http://www.pehub.com/2013/10/24/cureatr-raises-5-7mln-series-a/
Oct 23 2013

As a concession to single-payer advocates, the reform law created public coop plans as an alternative, but an article in the Washington Post finds that they are flailing, with many in financial trouble and likely to default on billions of dollars in loans.
Oct 23 2013

Express Scripts apparently intends to drop a number of brand-name drugs from its national formulary, which may reflect a new trend in aggressiveness to control spending.

http://www.drugchannels.net/2013/10/express-scripts-and-inevitability-of.html#more
Oct 22 2013

The President acknowledges that the health insurance exchanges are screwed up and says the best experts in the country are working on fixing them, which only raises the question--what kind of idiots did you have working on it before and why?
Oct 21 2013

The New England Journal of Medicine carries several Perspectives discussing the need for physicians to be aware of and discuss with patients the cost of treatment in a world with greatly increased consumer cost-sharing.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1306826?query=featured_home
Oct 16 2013

IOM Report on Cancer Care

http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2013/Delivering-High-Quality-Cancer-Care-Charting-a-New-Course-for-a-System-in-Crisis.aspx
Oct 16 2013

FDA Guidance on Mobile Health Apps

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/MedicalDevices/DeviceRegulationandGuidance/GuidanceDocuments/UCM263366.pdf
Oct 16 2013

A study published in Health Affairs indicates that hospitals with higher nursing staffing ratios had less likelihood of incurring the Medicare excess readmissions penalty.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/32/10/1740.abstract