Binary Fountain, which offers health care firms reputation management and patient experience analytics services, has coupled with investors to raise $16 million.
A Government Accounting Office Report will cheer up by reporting that at least $125 billion of your tax dollars are spent on improper payments, with much of that sum being accounted for by Medicare, Medicaid and other health programs.
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-16-92T
Oct072015
Conglomerate Phillips is buying Blue Jay Consulting, which provides consulting for hospital ERs, to bolster its health business.
Telemedicine vendor TelaDoc went public, and in September it released the lockup on insiders, allowing them to sell shares, then last week it reveals that it lost a major customer and the stock falls about 20%. Uhhh, not sure how I feel about that sequence of events. But also shows once again the danger of buying into hyped approaches. Telemedicine is great, but it is ultimately a commodity.
The US isn't the only country bedeviled by inadequate HIT, a well-respected hospital implementing an EPIC system was found by the United Kingdom's Clinical Quality Commission to have serious problems, some of which endangered patient safety.
Even the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan isn't immune from health care cost growth, premiums for that plan are going up an average of 6.4% for 2016, almost twice the rate of the last few years.
A new cost and revenue survey from the Medical Group Management Association finds that practices are spending on average 12% more in 2015 than in 2014 for technology costs, and these costs are up a third since 201o. Total operating costs per physician have risen an average of 12% since 2010. Practices also report significantly greater use of non-physician clinicians like physician assistants and nurse practitioners.
A survey from provider price comparison vendor Vitals finds that most consumers who have serious medical costs also have limited skills and resources to effectively manage those costs.
According to an AIS analysis of public filings, people covered by individual policies cost insurers 12% more than large group members and 15% more than small group enrollees.
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.
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.