Emdeon moving forward with cost-savings index
Posted on November 13, 2009 at 7:53 am
The U.S. Healthcare Efficiency Index, set up a year ago by local e-payment heavyweight Emdeon to call attention to administrative waste in health care, has launched the data-gathering phase of its endeavor.
“This is a critical time as Congress struggles with how to design and fund healthcare reform. By serving as a central reference for tracking healthcare administrative efficiency, the Index provides a roadmap for additional healthcare cost savings that can help pay for reform. We are delighted to have such an experienced group of thought leaders join us in overseeing this important effort,” said Miriam Paramore, senior vice president of corporate strategy for Emdeon, the founding sponsor for the Index.
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Biz groups on health reformers: They’ll come around
Posted on November 10, 2009 at 9:34 amHealth care trade associations are betting the Senate version of the health reform will win out in the tussle to come.
Many of the House-passed provisions may end up missing from the version being spearheaded by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat. If the Senate passes a separate bill, it will have to be merged with the House plan, giving industries weeks or months to whittle away at policies they don’t like.
“Passage of the House bill is historic,” said Paul Heldman, a health-policy analyst with Potomac Research Group in Washington. “But there’s a whole other chapter in the debate yet to be written.”
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Why you’re not hearing from hospitals in the reform debate
Posted on November 5, 2009 at 12:07 pm
A former CMS boss tells Blake Farmer they’re quite satisfied, thank you, with the lukewarm, wishy-washy way things appear to be going.
“If you really want to do the right thing and finance this thing and pay for it, hospitals should probably be taking a bigger hit as should probably a lot of the providers, but that’s not likely to happen.”
Putting health care reform in its place
Posted on November 2, 2009 at 10:22 amBehind job creation policies, that is. Robert Reich says the president has spent his political capital on the wrong priority.
The optimist in me says Obama can pivot off a health-care victory and launch some new initiatives that palpably and quickly spur job growth. The realist says there aren’t any such initiatives — at least none that can work fast enough to reverse the tide of unemployment before the midterm elections.
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Think it’s too late to have your say in the health reform debate?
Posted on October 30, 2009 at 7:23 amIt’s anticipated that the outcry we heard from the public in August will be nothing compared to November and early December. We’ll see.
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‘Priced for maximum pessimism’
Posted on October 20, 2009 at 7:39 amHealth insurance investors are still nervous as all get out about the effect of the reform bill making its way through Capitol Hill. Still, you don’t have to go far to find portfolio managers who are upbeat about their long-term prospects even though the group’s biggest names are trailing the S&P by more than 20 percentage points this year.
“While the end result of the reform process is likely to have a negative impact on the insurers, the present discount is overpricing the risk,” the Barclays analysts said in a report.
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Now this would be meaningful health reform
Posted on October 7, 2009 at 1:38 pmOutlining an idea that would move health insurance “away from spending other people’s money and shifting the burden to others,” Owen management professor Larry Van Horn writes in Modern Healthcare on how the auto insurance model wouldn’t be half bad if applied to health care, if only because it would get us to change our behavior.
What if I purchased auto insurance the way I receive health insurance — priced independently of conduct, with a true premium cost hidden from view that covered all preventive maintenance? I would drive like a bat out of hell. The insurance also would be so costly that I wouldn’t be able to afford it.
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Bredesen: State’s health reform tab could top $1 billion by 2015
Posted on October 6, 2009 at 3:21 pmOn a conference call today, Gov. Phil Bredesen said the latest version of health reform being discussed in D.C. looks like it will cost Tennessee between $570 million and $1.2 billion over the next five and a half years.
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Latest Senate health plan a winner for hospitals
Posted on at 1:40 pmThe nation’s hospital companies – a large number of whom call Middle Tennessee home – are set to come out ahead if the latest version of the Senate’s plan to reform health insurance becomes law. That’s in large part because a previous deal in which hospitals pledged to produce $155 billion in savings by 2019 still stands. In terms of sheer dollars, local players HCA and Community Health Systems would benefit most.
On the flip side, pharmacy benefit managers such as Caremark don’t have much to like from this new version: They’ll be required to disclose the incentives drug makers are paying them.
Why health reform should be like the civil rights movement
Posted on October 4, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Kim Fox at Jarrard Phillips Cate & Hancock relays some thoughts from a prominent industry conference, where political analyst Paul Begala made the case for incrementalism in health reform.
SEE ALSO: Bob Corker’s thoughts on this idea from a month ago
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CHS’ Smith: More M&A opportunities coming
Posted on October 2, 2009 at 2:58 pm
The president and CEO of Community Health Systems spoke today to the Vanderbilt University’s Health Care Business Alliance Conference about his company’s strategies and the hospital market as a whole. Since Smith joined the company in 1997, it has posted a compounded annual growth rate of 28 percent and is on track for revenues of $12 billion in 2009. The company employs 85,000 people across the country and about 2,000 in the Nashville area. Here are some excerpts from this talk:
• On the benefit of CHS’ national footprint: “We are spread out, We don’t have any one hospital or any one state where we have a disproportionate share of our revenue or earnings. The importance of that is risk and avoiding risk.”
• On why centralized administration works: Smith said CHS’ centralized services – for everything from facility management to billing, customer service and insurance programs – has helped it improve hospital operations and quickly implement new programs and technology.
It also helps bring acquired hospitals into the fold more quickly. In the past year, CHS has acquired three facilities with a combined 632 beds and $430 million in revenue. Having the systems in place to absorb those facilities has helped CHS hold its own after acquisitions. The company’s share of the markets where it operates stands at about 43 percent – $12 billion of the $28 billion in hospital revenue.
• On the M&A market: Moving forward, there will be a lot of opportunities for hospital acquisitions as many of the smaller, independent hospitals continue to struggle, Smith said. Prices are now at 40 percent to 60 percent of net revenue, as opposed to the 70 percent to 80 percent of net revenue of several years ago. (For more on this topic, check this coming Monday’s City Paper.)
• On the prospect/cloud of health care reform: Regardless of what shape reform takes, Smith said the focus of health care will continue to be on patient care.
“I don’t care what the legislators do, they can’t screw this up that bad.”
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Tennessee’s worst-case health care tab
Posted on September 30, 2009 at 2:36 pm
A new study commissioned by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation sketches just how the health care system could deteriorate over the next decade if income growth lags and the cost of care rises at a decent clip. Here are some teasers for the country as a whole.
• In 29 states, the number of those without insurance would grow by more than 30%
• Nationally, spending by American businesses for their workers’ health care would double.
In Tennessee, costs under the worst-case scenario would rise by two-thirds by 2019, faster than all but three of its neighboring states. Even in the study’s best possible outcome, uncompensated care in Tennessee will rise by 69 percent to almost $2.2 billion a year and business will have to shell out $6 billion more than they are this year. For more state numbers, go to page 56 of the report.
Moms feel left out of health care debate
Posted on at 1:49 pmMost moms think health care reform is necessary, but they’re worried about what it will cost and they feel voiceless in the debate, according to results of a national survey released today that was conducted by Bohan Advertising/Marketing’s WhyMomsRule.com blog.
The online poll of nearly 700 mothers shows 78 percent think reform is needed. Not surprisingly, 68 percent are worried about reform increasing costs, and 40 percent are afraid of being forced to buy insurance. Only 7 percent said they think Congress “is attuned to the situations of women like them,” and a third feel like they have no voice in Washington’s discussion at all.
Join the club.
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The 50/50 chance there will be no health reform
Posted on September 28, 2009 at 12:23 pmKevin Phillips at Jarrard Phillips Cate & Hancock handicaps the different paths the health care reform debate could take from here. Playing an important role these days is a nearly-all-or-nothing approach by many in the process who say they’ve learned their lessons from 1993.
What still remains clear is that everyone wants something to happen. The “something” may be different, but there is desire for action, for that lingering buzzword to occur: change. That wasn’t true during HillaryCare. The snag is, the GOP and some conservative Democrats (enough of them, likely) won’t vote for any of the current options on the table.
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BlueCross: Reform yes, but not this way
Posted on September 24, 2009 at 7:53 amAndy Sher talks to representatives from BlueCross BlueShield and Cigna, who say that they’re all in favor of bringing more people into the insurance system, but don’t think they should have to pay new taxes and fees in return.
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