Matthew ’ s tidbits: Obesity Summer
Every time I get around to sending out the THCB READER I add a short & usually not to sweet commentary on some aspect of health care.–Matthew Holt
I saw the obesity crisis up close this week. And by that I’m not just referring to my addiction to Salted Caramel with Pretzel Ice Cream, bad though it is. Instead I felt thin because I went to Disneyland. But while I tip the scales at a BMI of 30 if I’m lucky, I genuinely felt that looking around Disneyland more than 50% of the crowd were obese and many morbidly so.
The rest of my trip to Southern California was quite a contrast because I’ve be...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 24, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Policy Matthew Holt obesity epidemic Ozempic Source Type: blogs
Truthfully, the Physician Shortage Doesn ’ t Exist!
Conclusion: For every hour physicians provide direct clinical face time to patients, nearly 2 additional hours is spent on EHR and desk work within the clinic day. Outside office hours, physicians spend another 1 to 2 hours of personal time each night doing additional computer and other clerical work. (Sinsky et al, 2016)
If we only had the tools and the administrative support that just about every one of us has been asking for, there wouldn’t be a doctor shortage.
The quote here is from 7 years ago and things have gotten even worse since then.
Major league baseball players don’t handle the scoring and the st...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 21, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Medical Practice Hans Duvefelt Physician Shortage Source Type: blogs
THCB Gang Episode 131, Thursday July 20
Joining Matthew Holt (@boltyboy) on #THCBGang on Thursday July 20 at 1pm PST 4pm EST are futurists Jeff Goldsmith; patient advocate Robin Farmanfarmaian (@Robinff3); Suntra Modern Recovery CEO JL Neptune (@JeanLucNeptune); and our special guest Investor at Bessemer Sofia Guerra (sofiaguerrar)
You can see the video below & if you’d rather listen than watch, the audio is preserved as a weekly podcast available on our iTunes & Spotify channels. (Source: The Health Care Blog)
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 20, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Abdul Ghafar Tags: THCB Gang Jeff Goldsmith JL Neptune Matthew Holt Robin Farmanfarmaian Sofia Guerra Source Type: blogs
Reviewing the all-in-pod heart health segment
BY ANISH KOKA
The All-in podcast is a fairly popular show that features successful silicon valley investors commenting about everything worth commenting on from politics to health. The group has good chemistry and interesting insights that breaks the mold of the usual tribal politics that controls legacy media analysis of current events.
Last week, the podcast touched on a topic I spend a fair amount of time on: Cardiology.
Brad Gerstner, who is actually a guest host for this particular episode starts off by referencing something called Heartflow to evaluate the heart that has been recommended by one of the o...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 20, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Medical Practice All-in Podcast Anish Koka Brad Gerstner cardiology Source Type: blogs
The Sweet Spot of Health Care Cost Containment
BY BEN WHEATLEY
As health care continues to move in the direction of unaffordability, policy makers are considering a range of options to bring down health care costs. The Health Affairs Committee on Health Care Spending and Value has identified four broad areas for reform, including administrative savings, price regulation and supports for competition, spending growth targets, and value-based payment. These measures appropriately target health care’s supply side and the excesses that exist in the health care system.
In this blog, I would like to highlight another avenue for savings: one that focuses on the demand ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 19, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Health Policy Ben Wheatley Health Care Cost Containment Health care spending Source Type: blogs
No, the Poor Don ’ t Always Have to Be With Us
BY KIM BELLARD
OK, for you amateur (or professional) epidemiologists among us: what are the leading causes of death in the U.S.? Let’s see, most of us would probably cite heart disease and cancer. After that, we might guess smoking, obesity, or, in recent years, COVID. But a new study has a surprising contender: poverty.
It’s the kind of thing you might expect to find in developing countries, not in the world’s leading economy, the most prosperous country in the world. But amidst all that prosperity, the U.S. has the highest rates of poverty among developed countries, which accounts in no small part ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 18, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Health Policy Anti-Poverty Medicine Kim Bellard TANF Source Type: blogs
Health Tech ’s Magic Wand: The Anti-Social Bent of Modern Medicine
BY MIKE MAGEE
In George Packer’s classic 2013 New Yorker article titled “Change the World: Silicon Valley transfers its slogans – and its money – to the realm of politics,” there is a passage worth a careful reread now a decade latter.
Packer shares an encounter with a 20-something techie critiquing his young colleagues who said, “Many see their social responsibility fulfilled by their businesses, not by social or political action. It’s remarkably convenient that they can achieve all their goals just by doing their start-up. They actually think that Facebook is going to be the panacea for many o...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 17, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Health Policy Health Tech Mike Magee Silicon Valley Solutionism Source Type: blogs
THCB Gang Episode 130, Thursday July 13
Joining Matthew Holt (@boltyboy) on #THCBGang on Thursday July 13 at 1pm PST 4pm EST are Queen of employer benefits Jennifer Benz (@Jenbenz); radiologist Saurabh Jha (@RogueRad), and policy expert consultant/author Rosemarie Day (@Rosemarie_Day1).
You can see the video below & if you’d rather listen than watch, the audio is preserved as a weekly podcast available on our iTunes & Spotify channels. (Source: The Health Care Blog)
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 13, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Abdul Ghafar Tags: THCB Gang jennifer benz Matthew Holt rosemarie day Saurabh Jha Source Type: blogs
HHS Again Suspends Disbelief: The Medicaid Program Will Ignore the Greatest Health Threat to Medicaid Beneficiaries
BY DAVID INTROCASO
In May the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) simultaneously published two proposed Medicaid rules (here and here) intended to improve moreover access and quality. Both discussed at length the agency’s commitment to “addressing health equity.” The first sentence in both identified health equity as a Medicaid program priority. The proposed “ensuring access” rule stated CMS “takes a comprehensive approach to . . . better addressing health equity issues in the Medicaid program.” CMS went on to state “we are working to advance health equity by designing, implementing,...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 12, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Health Policy Biden Administration Centers for Medicare and Social Services Climate Change David Introcaso Source Type: blogs
The Heat is On
BY KIM BELLARD
Attention must be paid: the world is now hotter than it has been in 125,000 years.
A week ago, we broke the record for average global temperature. That record was broken the next day. Later in the week it was broken yet again. Yeah, I know; weather records are broken all the time, so what’s the big deal?
Well, it is a big deal, and we should all be worried. “It’s not a record to celebrate and it won’t be a record for long,” Friederike Otto, senior lecturer in climate science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, told CNN.
Bill Maguire, a professor a...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 11, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Data Democracy! ‘Dr. Google’ (2023) Vs. ‘Every Man His Own Physician’ (1767)
BY MICHAEL MILLENSON
In the 18th-century, a pre-Google guide offered democratization of medical information
In 1767, as American colonists’ protestations against “taxation without representation” intensified, a Boston publisher reprinted a book by a British doctor seemingly tailor-made for the growing spirit of independence.
Talk about “democratization of health care information,” “participatory medicine” and “health citizens”! Every Man His Own Physician, by Dr. John Theobald, bore an impressive subtitle: Being a complete collection of efficacious and approved remedies for every disease...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 7, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Medical Practice Democritization of Care Healthcare Michael Millenson Participatory medicine Source Type: blogs
THCB Gang Episode 129, Thursday July 6
Joining Matthew Holt (@boltyboy) on #THCBGang on Thursday July 6 at 1pm PST 4pm EST were futurist Ian Morrison (@seccurve); writer Kim Bellard (@kimbbellard); health economist Jane Sarasohn-Kahn (@healthythinker); & patient advocate Robin Farmanfarmaian (@Robinff3);
Two special guests joined us today, Bob Rebitzer, these days at Manatt Health & brother Jim Rebitzer Professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. We discussed their new book “Why Not Better & Cheaper“
The video is below. If you’d rather listen to the episode, the audio is preserved from Friday as a weekly podc...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 6, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Abdul Ghafar Tags: THCB Gang #THCBGang #Why Not Better & Cheaper Ian Morrison Jane Sarasohn-Kahn Jim Rebitzer Kim Bellard Matthew Holt Robert Rebitzer Robin Farmanfarmaian Source Type: blogs
Medicare Advantage Plans Can Leverage Virtual Cardiometabolic Care
BY RICHARD FRANK
By relying on virtual cardiometabolic solutions for continuous care, Medicare Advantage can produce better outcomes, curb costs, enhance member satisfaction — and improve Star ratings in the process.
By Richard Frank, MD, Chief Medical Officer Vida Health
Medicare Advantage is a hot market. Enrollment is steadily climbing and Medicare Advantage (MA) members now make up half the Medicare population. Though members keep rolling in, competition among MA plans is tight and turnover remains high. Nearly 16% of MA members switch plans at least once during their first year, while over a third end up sw...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 5, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Health Policy Cariometabolic conditions Medicare Advantage Richard Frank Source Type: blogs
The Business Reality of Healthcare AI
BY KIM BELLARD
I was at the barbershop the other day and overheard one barber talking with his senior citizen customer about when – not if – robot AIs would become barbers. I kid you not.
Now, I don’t usually expect to heard conversations about technology at the barber, but it illustrates that I think we are at the point with AI that we were with the Internet in the late ‘90’s/early ‘00s: people’s lives were just starting to change because of it, new companies were jumping in with ideas about how to use it, and existing companies knew they were going to have to figure out ways to incorporate it if they ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 4, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Health Tech Healthcare AI healthcare delivery Kim Bellard Source Type: blogs
“Sons of Liberty” Flea Into King George’s (or Donald’s) Open Arms.
BY MIKE MAGEE
If there is a silver lining to the Trump assault on decency and civility, it is our majority response to this “stress test” of our Democracy, and the sturdiness (thus far) of our Founders’ vision.
It was, after all, a long shot when Alexander Hamilton, under the pen name Publius, published Federalist No. 1 on October 27, 1787, writing: “It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflec...
Source: The Health Care Blog - June 29, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Health Policy Donald Trump Mike Magee Roe v. Wade Source Type: blogs
