After a long period of time I’ve finally wrestled Adam Bosworth to the floor and forced the microphone to his mouth. Adam of course is the software guru (he’s one of the originators of XML) who went to Google to[...]
By Maggie Mahar A frequent contributor to THCB, Maggie Mahar's work has appeared in the New York Times, Barron's and Institutional Investor. A fellow at the Century Foundation, Maggie is also the author the increasingly influential HealthBeat blog, one of[...]
By Sarah Arnquist After years of seeing decreasing numbers of uninsured children, California is poised to go the other direction. For years, child enrollment in private health insurance plans decreased as companies scaled back on health care costs by increasing[...]
By Robert Laszewski Barack Obama’s health care plan follows the Democratic template—an emphasis on dramatically and quickly increasing the number of people who have health insurance by spending significant money upfront. The Obama campaign estimates his health care reform plan[...]
Adam Bosworth, former VP of Google Health and CEO of his new start-up, Keas, Inc., will make a major announcement at a symposium next month called the "Current and Future Uses for Health Data Exchange" held by the Massachusetts Medical[...]
By THCB Staff The Century Foundation announced today the creation of a working group to create a blueprint for Medicare reform. Maggie Mahar, award winning journalist, author of the HealthBeatBlog and regular THCB contributor, will direct the group of prominent[...]
By Matthew Holt Due to poor planning on my part, this morning I was up scandalously early to talk with Gene Drabinksi, who runs the CareAdvance unit of Trizetto, and Alexander Drane, President of Eliza. Last week they announced a[...]
By John Halamka I spent yesterday in Washington with Major General Elder Granger, Deputy Director in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs. We discussed electronic health records, personal health records, decision support, and interoperability. Here's[...]
By Matthew Holt I’m up at Spot-On explaining the Ted Kennedy Medicare miracle to the masses and suggesting that there are some real long-term problems that won’t be so easy for the Dems to solve later. As ever come back[...]
Nearly two years ago Jay Mason called me telling me about his plan to create an appointment system whereby hospitals in Wisconsin could re-route their Medicaid patients to community and safety-net clinics. He told me that not only would it[...]
By Maggie Mahar Everyone understands why Congress was so reluctant to cut physicians’ fees. Reimbursements for primary care physicians are very low—so low that 30 percent of Medicare recipients who are looking for a new medical home can’t find one.[...]
By Robert Laszewski Crazy as it sounds an Associated Press story from Thursday reported that the California Department of Managed Care "didn't even try to enforce a million-dollar fine against health insurer Anthem Blue Cross because they feared they would[...]
By Charlie Baker Charlie Baker is the president and CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Inc., a nonprofit health plan that covers more than 1 million New Englanders. Baker blogs regularly at Let's Talk Health Care. One of the reasons[...]
By Matthew Holt In an attempt to put that messy options back-dating business behind it, yesterday United HealthGroup settled with CalPERS (the ever vigilant pension fund of California state employees) and other class action suit members. And settled for a[...]
By Sarah Arnquist The American Medical Association this week began a television ad campaign, lambasting Republican Senators who failed to prevent the July 1 automatic 10.6 percent Medicare physician fee cut. In the one-minute ad, AMA President Nancy Nielsen says,[...]
By Merrill Goozner The front page of the New York Times Sunday morning had a don't miss article on the financial incentives behind using CT scans to look for heart disease. Medicare's decided in March to begin paying for the[...]
By Matthew Holt Scott Gottlieb, who passes for what the right call a health economist these days, has an opinion piece in the WSJ singing the praises of Medicare Advantage plans. Anyone reading the article would think that Medicare Advantage[...]
Fun and games were had by all at the America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP)conference yesterday. (BTW Now I have a real journalist working with me on THCB she says I have to spell out those acronyms!!) Outside a couple of[...]
By Robert Laszweski Congressional Democrats tried to take a big bite out of private Medicare last week in an attempt to pay for an 18-month fix to the upcoming July 1 10.6 percent reduction in Medicare physician payments. The effort,[...]
Keith Schorsch is a busy boy. Not only did he write a much commented piece about Google Health and PHRs on this very station last week, but he also popped by last week to tell me about the new look[...]
By Robert Laszewski OK, maybe it's a stretch but bear with me. I heard a senior exec from a big health plan say the other day that it's hard to believe we will ever see the end of health insurance[...]
Kaiser Permanente put out a new survey updating one they did last year which says that more and more people are going online, and now a sizable minority had a preference for doctors using an EMR. (It’s not clear whether[...]
By Matthew Holt Paul Wallace, who is both Senior Medical Director at Kaiser Permanente and Chair of the Center for Information Therapy, has some sensible things to say about the transition from Health 0.0 to 1.0 and then including some[...]
By Robert Laszewski Two years ago lawmakers in Massachusetts made the state the first in the nation to mandate that residents purchase health insurance. The proposal quickly caught on, inspiring similar efforts on the state level and eventually becoming the[...]
By Matthew Holt Kaiser Permanente signed on this morning for a pretty extensive pilot with Microsoft, allowing its 159,000 employees to copy their online health records into HealthVault. This is a big coup for Microsoft and a fairly ambitious move[...]
