Health Wonk Review: Ideas of March Edition
"Beware the Ides of March" --Soothsayer to Julius Caesar"Fear not the Ideas of March" --Health Business Blog to the wonkosphere
Your friendly neighborhood drug dealerCount on Drug Channels to make sense of even the most convoluted pharmacy business models --and convoluted they are. This time the topic is the emerging trend of point-of-sale (POS) rebates. Did you know that many pharmacy benefit plans act like reverse insurance, with the sickest members subsidizing the healthiest? POS rebates start to right this wrong and bring forth uncomfortable questions such as: Where have the rebates been going until now?Crocodile tearsManaged Care Matters shares its perspective that the Administration's efforts to undermine the ACA have yielded bitter fruit on the marketplaces. Some premiums are up by 30% and meanwhile Congress is doing little or nothing. Two years ago you couldn’t read the news without hearing about the disastrous premium increases due to “Obamacare," but the media is silent now.
So what's going on? Our blogger has a theory: The media is being manipulated and chasing bright, shiny objects.
Skimpy is as skimpy doesInsureBlog likes CMS's proposal to restore the maximum policy length of short-term medical plans to 12 months from three. That's even though some news outlets call the plans "skimpy" and some healthcare policy analysts consider such plans to be leeches on Obamacare, because they may siphon the healthiest people out of the marketplace risk pool and drive up premiums.Location location locationWhen my son was a toddler, we trained him to say "location location location" when asked, 'what are the three most important things about real estate?' I still remember him driving a realtor crazy when one tried to pitch us on a house we didn't like.Now, Workers Comp Insider has decided that location is destiny in healthcare, too, declaring 'It's the Zip Code Stupid.' Insider cites a recent JAMA Internal Medicine study that shows geography is "the biggest X-Factor in today's American Hellzapoppin version of healthcare."Location: Wonk zoneThe Hospital Leader (not to be confused with the Dear Leader) helpfully explains that "We need creative solutions" really means "the problem we are trying to solve has no answer." Case study: Hospitals, hospice and SNFs - The big deceit.A pending bill seeks to establish a state-based individual mandate in New Jersey. But a provision targeting employees of small businesses could inhibit Association Health Plans from selling insurance that does not comply with small group rules. Xpostfactoid explains.Who knew? Health Care Renewal informs us that the ostensibly libertarian Washington Legal Foundation has become a front for healthcare corporate leaders --and leaders from other fields--- to operate with impunity. The foundation's campaign to abolish the Responsible Corporate Officer Doctrine failed, but the damage was done. (Hat tip to Health Care Renewal for anticipating today's theme by including "methinks" in its cover note.)Local talentThe Health Business Blog is now a teenager. I ran the annual round-up of favorite posts by month.CareCentrix CEO John Driscoll and I rant and rave about Amazon and innovation in the latest monthly episode of #CareTalk.[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyEHliGRYAo[/embed]Singing from the himmnalHealth System Ed shares results from the 2018 US HIMSS Leadership and Workforce Survey, a survey of providers and vendors.
Top themes: privacy and security, process improvement and workflow, data analytics, business intelligence to inform clinical decision-making remain top of mind.
Well that's it for the Ideas of March edition. Watch your back today!--By healthcare business consultant David E. Williams, president of Health Business Group.