The Coming Battle for Medicare

The Insider's Guide - Tech - The Business of Health Care - Physicians - Subscribe The Coming Battle for Medicare By ROBERT LASZEWSKI Republican Vice Presidential pick Paul Ryan isn’t the only one Democrats are piling on this week. The knives have come out for Senator Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat. I guess that isn’t a surprise. If Ron Wyden is right on Medicare then so are Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney. The fundamental problem here is that the Democrats have decided that their best path to victory in the November elections is to say that the Republicans want to destroy Medicare as we know it and that the Democrats can preserve it. The truth is that no one can preserve Medicare as we know it. There isn’t a prayer that your father’s Medicare will be around in 10 years. There is a legitimate policy debate going on about the direction we will have to go with it. Read more. NYT Report Takes on HCA Profits, Romney Link By THCB STAFF In the wake of last week's front page story describing irregularities at cardiac catheterization units at some HCA-owned hospitals, the New York Times published a story this morning questioning profits at the Nashville-based chain. At a time "when many hospitals across the country were nearly brought to their knees by growing numbers of uninsured patients, one hospital system not only survived — it thrived." The report links HCA fortunes to a 2008 change in emergency room billing policies that the paper argues allowed the chain to bill Medicare for certain patients at a much higher rate than it had previously. The beneficiaries of the "windfall" included the Frist family and private equity groups Bain Capital and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company. See also the HCA statement responding to the report.  Hospital Quality Under Scrutiny   By E. THOMAS WOOD Last week’s New York Times article on cardiac care at some HCA-owned hospitals yielded a chorus of comments from readers who argued that for-profit hospital care is inherently low-quality care. As it happened, in working on a history of the investor-owned hospital sector, I had just been crunching data that might either support or refute that assertion. The results are surprising, if far from decisive. Last September, the Joint Commission released the first of what it said would be annual lists recognizing “Top Performers on Key Quality Measures™” among the nation’s accredited hospitals. Unlike hospital quality measures that look at results – death rates and other outcomes – this one looks at processes. In theory, then, it ought to be more fair to hospitals that tend to serve sicker or more compromised patients, such as government-run hospitals in inner cities. Read more. Reviving the Pipeline: A Call to Action For All By ANDREW MORRIS-SINGER, MD Annie Lowrey’s July 28 article “Doctor shortage likely to worsen with health law” in the New York Times noted the growing shortage of primary care doctors particularly in economically disadvantaged communities, both in rural and inner-city America. This problem will likely get worse before it gets better as more Americans gain coverage and seek a regular source of care. As the article suggests, training more doctors and incentivizing them to pursue careers in primary care will be a key part of the solution. And it will require a multipronged campaign, using both some of the traditional strategies for workforce renewal and a few unique tactics not typically deployed in efforts to fix health care. Read more. Bad Directions By ROB LAMBERTS, MD I love the GPS analogy for health care.  Patients need a GPS for their health, showing them the reality of their past, present, and future health.  The analogy has not only shown me how I want to give care for my patients, it has also given me insight into the pitfalls of automated medical care. Way back in the days when GPS was new, the rental care company Hertz advertised “NeverLost,” a GPS on your dashboard (if you forked out the extra money for it).  I was asked to give a talk in Oregon, and decided I would try out this cool new technology (since others were picking up my bill).  While I found it overall very useful, there were a couple of times it didn’t work as advertised. Read more. Why We Won’t See EHR Consolidation Anytime Soon By JOHN MOORE At this juncture, it would be foolhardy to try and execute an EHR acquisition roll-up strategy. The technology has yet to stabilize, significant development investments are still required and most vendors do not have sufficient market penetration. Read more. It Doesn't Have to Be This Way ... By EVAN FALCHUK Scientific studies show that patients are misdiagnosed between 15% and 44% of the time. We can and should implement policies that address this problem.  First,  we need to pass laws that will let hospitals know that whatever information they gather is and would be kept confidential, and not be used as some kind of a way to generate lawsuits.  This would make it possible for hospitals and doctors to start collecting, studying, and sharing data on how often misdiagnosis happens, and why. Read more. THCB Marketplace NEW RELEASES The Health Care Handbook The American health care system is vast, complex and confusing. Books about it shouldn’t be. The Health Care Handbook is your one-stop guide to the people, organizations and industries that make up the U.S. health care system, and the major issues the system faces today. How to Live Forever *Results May Vary. Nominee Palm Springs International Film Festival. Nominee Hamptons International Film Festival. How to Live Forever Director Mark Wexler embarks on a worldwide trek to investigate just what it means to grow old and what it could mean to really live forever. But whose advice should he take? Does 94-year-old exercise guru Jack LaLanne have all the answers, or does Buster, a 101-year-old chain-smoking, beer-drinking marathoner? Why Nobody Believes the Numbers Ever wonder if those wellness, disease management, medical home and other programs imposed on your medical practices really work? Answer that question for yourself by reading Why Nobody Believes the Numbers, the first population health outcomes measurement book not infused with THC. CONFERENCES Health 2.0 San Francisco October 7-10, Hilton San Francisco The groundbreaking conference series returns to San Francisco. Keynotes by Joe Flower and Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini. Speakers from Qualcomm, AT&T, Mayo Clinic, National Cancer Institute, ZocDoc, OptumHealth and RedBrick Health, along with presentations from top health care startups changing the field and many more.  The First Annual Open Source EHR Summit and Workshop October 17-18, Gaylord National, National Harbor, MD It is projected that more than 200 hospitals and 1000 clinics, within the federal sector alone, will be managing and maintaining their EHRs using open source codes within the next few years. An increasing number of state agencies are deploying open source solutions as well. In recent months, many private sector health care communities facing the unsustainable high costs of health IT have started calling for alternate approaches to maintain and manage traditional proprietary electronic health records. These open source activities create a huge market opportunity for both private and public sectors.   REAL ESTATE 61,000 Square-Foot Building Available For Lease Near Boston Ideal for Medical Offices, Back Office Uses A 61,000 SF building that can be easily converted to medical use is available for lease just 17 miles from downtown Boston. Located in Hingham Technology Park 3 on a 9-acre parcel in Hingham, Mass., and there is close proximity to numerous hotels and conference centers, and easy access to Rtes. 3, 93, 128 and 95. The site is a quick drive to Plymouth and Cape Cod.  For more information, contact Richard McKinnon at 617-472-2000, or email richmck@grossmanco.com. To learn more about the additional development potential of this site, visit www.HT3park.com. COURSES UPenn Online Course: Health Policy Health Care and the Affordable Care Act, Ezekiel Emanuel, MD PhD "This course will explore the history and structure of the current American health care system, including the history of and problems with employment-based health insurance, the challenges surrounding access, cost and quality, and the medical malpractice conundrum. The course will then explore the history of health care reform and the challenges that were overcome to achieve health reform in America. Finally, we will delineate the specific ways that the Affordable Care Act improves access and quality, and will control costs. Throughout lessons regarding health economics, health policy, and medical practice will be elucidated." For more information, click here.  Software Advice Is picking an EHR for your practice killing you? softwareadvice.com   Copyright © 2012 THCB, All rights reserved. You are receiving e-mail because you subscribed to the THCB Reader at some point. Our mailing address is: THCB 650 Delancey Street #221 San Francisco, CA 94107 Update your subscription preferences. or unsubscribe from this list

The Stanford Lectures: So, Is Software (Really) Eating the World?

The Insider's Guide - Tech - The Business of Health Care - Physicians - Subscribe The Stanford Lectures: So, Is Software (Really) Eating the World? By BLAKE MASTERS Here at THCB  we really can't think of many lectures we'd rather sit in on than Peter Thiel's Stanford course on entrepreneurship. And we can't think of a better guest to catch than Netscape co-founder Marc Andreeson.  In this talk, Andreeson talks about how healthcare IT is changing in the Facebook and Big Data Era era, the privacy issue and how the cloud may or not be eating software. If it’s true that software is eating the world, the obvious question is what else is getting or will soon get eaten? There are a few compelling candidates. Healthcare has a lot going on. There have been dramatic improvements in EMR technology, healthcare analytics, and overall transparency. But there are lots of regulatory issues and bureaucracy to cut through. It’s hard to say when these sectors will get eaten. Suffice it to say that people should not bet against computers in these spheres. It may not be the best idea to go be the kind of doctor or lawyer that technology might render obsolete. Read more. The Most Powerful Health Care Group You’ve Never Heard Of By BRIAN KLEPPER AND PAUL FISCHER Excessive health care spending is overwhelming America's economy, but the subtler truth is that this excess has been largely facilitated by subjugating primary care. A wealth of evidence shows that empowered primary care results in better outcomes at lower cost. Other developed nations have heeded this truth. But US payment policy has undervalued primary care while favoring specialists. The result has been spotty health quality, with costs that are double those in other industrialized countries. How did this happen, and what can we do about it. Read more.    Costs Continue to Rise. What Can Employers Do? The Answer May Be Direct Primary Care. By DARRELL MOON The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Jun 28th by a 5-4 vote to let the individual mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) stand. Immediately following, a CEO of one of the nation’s largest insurance companies was asked if people can expect their premiums to go up as this law is implemented. The answer was yes.  So what can employers do to protect themselves from the inevitable? Read more.  Do You Believe Doctors Are Systems, My Friends? By DAVID SHAYWITZ, MD In the current issue of The New Yorker, surgeon Atul Gawande provocatively suggests that medicine needs to become more like The Cheesecake Factory – more standardized, better quality control, with a touch of room for slight customization and innovation. The basic premise, of course, isn’t new, and seems closely aligned with what I’ve heard articulated from a range of policy experts (such as Arnold Milstein) and management experts (such as Clayton Christensen, specifically in his book The Innovator’s Prescription). The core of the argument is this: the traditional idea that your doctor is an expert who knows what’s best for you is likely wrong, and is both dangerous and costly. Read more.  Lessons from MinuteClinic By JOHN GOODMAN After entering the clinic a thought occurred to me: why do we need doctors? Then a second thought: why do we need nurses? Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself. About a decade before the Obama administration started touting electronic medical records and evidence-based protocols there was MinuteClinic. The entity came into existence primarily to cater to patients paying out of pocket. There was no need for a law requiring price transparency. In every market where the dominant buyers are patients spending their own money, prices are always transparent. Read more.  THCB Marketplace NEW RELEASES The Health Care Handbook The American health care system is vast, complex and confusing. Books about it shouldn’t be. The Health Care Handbook is your one-stop guide to the people, organizations and industries that make up the U.S. health care system, and the major issues the system faces today. How to Live Forever *Results May Vary. Nominee Palm Springs International Film Festival. Nominee Hamptons International Film Festival. How to Live Forever Director Mark Wexler embarks on a worldwide trek to investigate just what it means to grow old and what it could mean to really live forever. But whose advice should he take? Does 94-year-old exercise guru Jack LaLanne have all the answers, or does Buster, a 101-year-old chain-smoking, beer-drinking marathoner? Why Nobody Believes the Numbers Ever wonder if those wellness, disease management, medical home and other programs imposed on your medical practices really work? Answer that question for yourself by reading Why Nobody Believes the Numbers, the first population health outcomes measurement book not infused with THC. CONFERENCES Health 2.0 San Francisco October 7-10, Hilton San Francisco The groundbreaking conference series returns to San Francisco. Keynotes by Joe Flower and Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini. Speakers from Qualcomm, AT&T, Mayo Clinic, National Cancer Institute, ZocDoc, OptumHealth and RedBrick Health, along with presentations from top health care startups changing the field and many more.  REAL ESTATE 61,000 Square-Foot Building Available For Lease Near Boston Ideal for Medical Offices, Back Office Uses A 61,000 SF building that can be easily converted to medical use is available for lease just 17 miles from downtown Boston. Located in Hingham Technology Park 3 on a 9-acre parcel in Hingham, Mass., and there is close proximity to numerous hotels and conference centers, and easy access to Rtes. 3, 93, 128 and 95. The site is a quick drive to Plymouth and Cape Cod.  For more information, contact Richard McKinnon at 617-472-2000, or email richmck@grossmanco.com. To learn more about the additional development potential of this site, visit www.HT3park.com. COURSES UPenn Online Course: Health Policy Health Care and the Affordable Care Act, Ezekiel Emanuel, MD PhD "This course will explore the history and structure of the current American health care system, including the history of and problems with employment-based health insurance, the challenges surrounding access, cost and quality, and the medical malpractice conundrum. The course will then explore the history of health care reform and the challenges that were overcome to achieve health reform in America. Finally, we will delineate the specific ways that the Affordable Care Act improves access and quality, and will control costs. Throughout lessons regarding health economics, health policy, and medical practice will be elucidated." For more information, click here.  Copyright © 2012 THCB, All rights reserved. You are receiving e-mail because you subscribed to the THCB Reader at some point. Our mailing address is: THCB 650 Delancey Street #221 San Francisco, CA 94107 Update your subscription preferences. or unsubscribe from this list

reach US dentists with our list

The lists below are ideal for email ad campaigns. Everything is double optin and completely verified.

All data for USA

He-althcare Related

- N,urses: 135,000 Emails including personal resumes
- Chiroprac.tors: 15,000 Emails with full contact data
- Ve-terinarians: 20,000 Emails with full contact data
- Denti'sts and Dent.al Specialis.ts: 57,000 Emails with full contact data
- He,althcare busin"esses : 230,000 Emails in 365 Medical Business Specialties


B=usiness Related

- USA L,awyers - 142,000 Emails with fields like practice area and year graduated
- Busine'ss: 4,000,000 Emails in thousands of different SIC codes.

For more details, prices and samples please visit: http://www.maxlist.info

To get off our list please visit: http://www.maxlist.info/remove.html

Et tu, Dr. Gupta?

The Insider's Guide - Tech - The Business of Health Care - Physicians   Et tu, Dr. Gupta? By PAUL LEVY As well intentioned and thoughtful as he is, Sanjay Gupta nonetheless misses the point in his recent New York Times op-ed “More treatment, more mistakes.”  The theme of the chief medical correspondent for the Health, Medical & Wellness unit at CNN is: "Certainly many procedures, tests and prescriptions are based on legitimate need. But many are not…. This kind of treatment is a form of defensive medicine, meant less to protect the patient than to protect the doctor or hospital against potential lawsuits." Read more. 10 Ways to make the EMR Meaningful and Useful By ROB LAMBERTS, MD I am an EMR geek who isn’t so thrilled with the direction of EMR.  So what, I have been asked, would make EMR something that is really meaningful?  What would be the things that would truly help, and not just make more hoops for me to jump through?  A lot of this is not in the hands of the gods of MU, but in the realm of the demons of reimbursement, but I will give it a try anyhow. Here’s my list. Read more.  An Important Day for China in Healthcare. What's Next? By PER STENVALL Private investors – foreign and Chinese—have been eyeing China’s private healthcare services industry since the Chinese government began experimenting with limited private participation in 1989. Will the next ten years see more significant developments? This depends to a large extent on the Chinese government’s willingness to allow foreign participation in the sector. Read more. Numbers Don't Lie — The EHR Market Must Consolidate By CONOR GREEN According to CMS, through May of this year, 2,400 hospitals and 110,000 eligible professionals have received $5.7 billion in incentive payments for ensuring meaningful use of electronic health records, representing about half of all eligible hospitals and about 20% of all eligible providers. Despite this widespread adoption EHRs, reliable market share data by vendor is still very hard to come by.  So, when CMS recently updated its attestation data for midyear 2012, we took notice. Read more. Lessons from MinuteClinic By JOHN GOODMAN After entering the clinic a thought occurred to me: why do we need doctors? Then a second thought: why do we need nurses? Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself. About a decade before the Obama administration started touting electronic medical records and evidence-based protocols there was MinuteClinic. The entity came into existence primarily to cater to patients paying out of pocket. There was no need for a law requiring price transparency. In every market where the dominant buyers are patients spending their own money, prices are always transparent. MinuteClinic posts its prices on a computer screen and on readily available pamphlets. Read More. App-Happy Health Care Full of Optimism, Money By MICHAEL MILLENSON Welcome to the realm of Internet-enabled health apps. Politicians and profit-seeking entrepreneurs alike enthuse about the benefits of “liberating data” – the catch-phrase of U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park – to enable it to move from government databases to consumer-friendly uses. The potential for better information to promote better care is clear. The question that remains unanswered, however, is what role these consumer applications can play in prompting fundamental health system change. Read more.    Why Medical Management Will Re-Emerge By BRIAN KLEPPER, PhD Several years ago I had dinner with a woman who had served in the late 1990s as the national Chief Medical Officer of a major health plan. At the time, she said, she had developed a strategic initiative that called for abandoning the plan’s utilization review and medical management efforts, which had produced heartburn and a backlash among both physicians and patients. Instead, the idea was to retrospectively analyze utilization to identify unnecessary care. Read more.  THCB Marketplace The Health Care Handbook The American health care system is vast, complex and confusing. Books about it shouldn’t be. The Health Care Handbook is your one-stop guide to the people, organizations and industries that make up the U.S. health care system, and the major issues the system faces today. How to Live Forever *Results May Vary. Nominee Palm Springs International Film Festival. Nominee Hamptons International Film Festival. How to Live Forever Director Mark Wexler embarks on a worldwide trek to investigate just what it means to grow old and what it could mean to really live forever. But whose advice should he take? Does 94-year-old exercise guru Jack LaLanne have all the answers, or does Buster, a 101-year-old chain-smoking, beer-drinking marathoner? Why Nobody Believes the Numbers Ever wonder if those wellness, disease management, medical home and other programs imposed on your medical practices really work? Answer that question for yourself by reading Why Nobody Believes the Numbers, the first population health outcomes measurement book not infused with THC.   Copyright © 2012 THCB, All rights reserved. You are receiving e-mail because you subscribed to the THCB Reader at some point. Our mailing address is: THCB 650 Delancey Street #221 San Francisco, CA 94107 update subscription preferences or unsubscribe from this list

The Return of Medical Management, Us and Them-Ism, and other posts

The Insider's Guide - Tech - The Business of Health Care   Why Medical Management Will Re-Emerge By BRIAN KLEPPER, PhD Several years ago I had dinner with a woman who had served in the late 1990s as the national Chief Medical Officer of a major health plan. At the time, she said, she had developed a strategic initiative that called for abandoning the plan’s utilization review and medical management efforts, which had produced heartburn and a backlash among both physicians and patients. Instead, the idea was to retrospectively analyze utilization to identify unnecessary care. Read more.  Us and Them-Ism By ROB LAMBERTS, MD The wanna-be congressman appeared with his neat hair and pressed suit, a competent yet compassionate expression on his face.  ”The first thing I am going to do when I get to congress is to work to repeal Obamacare,” he said, expression growing subtly angry.  ”I will do everything I can to give you back the care you need from those who think big government is the solution to every problem.” My wife grabbed my arm, restraining me from throwing the nearest object at the television.  I cursed under my breath.  Read more.  The Colonoscopy Experience By JOHN HALAMKA, MD The preparation is the hardest part. Three days before the procedure, it’s recommended that you reduce the quantity of high fiber foods you eat – fruits, vegetables, nuts etc.For me that was particularly challenging since my entire diet as a vegan (who tends to avoid white flour, white rice, and white sugar)  is high fiber. I moved to soups and brown rice. A day before the procedure (really 36 hours), you move to a clear liquid diet – apple juice, broth, and tea. In my case I drank a cup of vegetable broth and apple juice every 3 hours. At 7pm the night before the procedure, the real challenge begins.  Read more.     Obesity: Global Public Health Challenge or Investment Opportunity? By MARION NESTLE Worried about the potential personal and economic costs of obesity?  Never mind.  It’s time to view obesity as a business opportunity. As the press release for a new research report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Globesity—The Global Fight Against Obesity, points out: “Increasing efforts to tackle obesity over the coming decades will form an important new investment theme for fund managers…Global obesity is a mega-investment theme for the next 25 years and beyond…The report…identifies that efforts to reduce obesity is a “megatrend” with a shelf-life of 25 to 50 years…BofA Merrill Lynch analysts across several sectors have collaborated to identify the sectors and companies developing long-term solutions.” Read more.   App-Happy Health Care Full of Optimism, Money By MICHAEL MILLENSON Welcome to the realm of Internet-enabled health apps. Politicians and profit-seeking entrepreneurs alike enthuse about the benefits of “liberating data” – the catch-phrase of U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park – to enable it to move from government databases to consumer-friendly uses. The potential for better information to promote better care is clear. The question that remains unanswered, however, is what role these consumer applications can play in prompting fundamental health system change. Read more.  THCB Marketplace The Health Care Handbook The American health care system is vast, complex and confusing. Books about it shouldn’t be. The Health Care Handbook is your one-stop guide to the people, organizations and industries that make up the U.S. health care system, and the major issues the system faces today. How to Live Forever *Results May Vary. Nominee Palm Springs International Film Festival. Nominee Hamptons International Film Festival. How to Live Forever Director Mark Wexler embarks on a worldwide trek to investigate just what it means to grow old and what it could mean to really live forever. But whose advice should he take? Does 94-year-old exercise guru Jack LaLanne have all the answers, or does Buster, a 101-year-old chain-smoking, beer-drinking marathoner? Why Nobody Believes the Numbers Ever wonder if those wellness, disease management, medical home and other programs imposed on your medical practices really work? Answer that question for yourself by reading Why Nobody Believes the Numbers, the first population health outcomes measurement book not infused with THC.   Copyright © 2012 THCB, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you signed up for the THCB email list. Our mailing address is: THCB 650 Delancey Street #221 San Francisco, CA 94107 update subscription preferences or unsubscribe from this list