The “consumer” is all the rage in health care and a new report form PWC examines the customer experience and how to improve it, based on expectations in other industries and surveys of health care patients. Simple things like friendliness, speed and convenience may be keys to building loyalty and managing retention.
A study from Truven Health Analytics looks at likely outcomes from the reform law’s provide insurance or pay a penalty provisions, suggesting that few employers would likely drop coverage, but some assumptions in the model appear to have flaws.
Another wonderful Potpourri, as lovely as a summer day, with information on small physician practices, medication adherence in Medicaid, access to care in Massachusetts, plan loyalty and PHRs, a survey regarding onsite health centers and hospital productivity in Massachusetts after reform.
A new survey from Jackson Healthcare gives a snapshot of current views of many physicians. Physicians are perhaps the most important part of the health care system and they appear stressed, concerned and discouraged about the future and about many of the health care programs they work with.
It is well known that a relatively few people account for a very large proportion of American health spending, a fact reinforced by a recent brief from the National Institute for Health Care Management. What is most interesting is how much this fact is routinely ignored in reform discussions.
A group of health care organizations has produced a guidance for employer-sponsored wellness programs with incentives, published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The statement is supportive of these programs, although expressing some reservations about incentive use.
Research published by the National Bureau of Economic Research uses experience from an HRA plan to examine what happens when people presumably have better access to outpatient care. The primary finding is that as there is more outpatient spending, there is a higher likelihood of an inpatient admission and greater inpatient spending, largely for more discretionary treatments.
The length of the summer day begins to decline, but not the quality of our Potpourri, this week including patient decision-making, the effect of genetic tests on overall health care use, an employee survey on health benefits, the growing market power of hospital systems, making decision aids more user friendly and physician compensation.
The Alliance for Home Health Quality and Innovation sponsored a useful report on characteristics of home health care and other post-acute care services by Medicare beneficiaries, with a focus on those surrounding hospital readmissions, a significant current issue for hospitals.
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 [email protected].
© 2024 Healthy Skeptic.
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