HealthSouth, the large operator of inpatient rehabilitation hospitals, is acquiring Encompass Home Health and Hospice, which operates in 13 states, for $750 million.
Avalere releases a more accurate analysis of public exchange premiums than most of the crap being put out, demonstrating that for the plans that were most popular in 2014, premiums are increasing an average of 10%. That is a massive jump for consumers.
An analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation reports on medical and drug deductibles in public exchange plans for 2015. For the popular bronze plans, average deductibles are over $5000, and they aren't a lot lower for silver plans.
Emdeon, the large EDI and revenue cycle management vendor, is buying ChangeHealthcare, a cost transparency and provider comparison service. The price is $135 million base and up to $50 million in contingent payments, which may not be quite up in Castlight territory, but is an equally absurd valuation for something that already is largely available free to consumers.
A survey reported in the American Journal of Managed Care finds that use of health information technology is reducing the time physicians have to see patients; for each new system a doctor uses, capacity to see new privately insured patients drops by about 14%, although no effect was reported on Medicare or Medicaid capacity.
Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development regularly estimates the average cost to bring a new compound to the market and currently says that cost is $2.56 billion, more than double what it was 11 years ago.
MedeAnalytics, a cloud-based or cloudy health care analytics firm, has acquired OnFocus HealthCare, which focuses on data to improve performance or performance to improve data, something like that.
A study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine confirms that only about 30% of older Americans use the internet to find health information and that less than 10% of those who have serious health issues do so.
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.