Econoclasm continued: What's this pre-existing conditions deal?
Since I interrupted this series, I will remind you that previously, we discussed the problem of adverse selection -- that people who are unhealthy are more likely to buy health insurance in a hypothetical Free Market. ™ But sellers of health insurance must find ways of predicting and limiting their losses. The problem of adverse selection would not exist if we had a universal system, as all other wealthy countries and some not-so-wealthy do. Everybody would pay into the system, preferably according to their mea ns. That way people who are healthy today subsidize the costs for people who are not. If that strikes you as un...
Source: Stayin' Alive - January 1, 2024 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, January 1st 2024
Discussion of What is Need to Speed the Pace at which Drugs to Treat Aging Arrive in the Clinic Cellular Senescence in the Aging Brain, a Contributing Cause of Cognitive Decline Reviewing What is Known of the Mechanisms of Taurine Supplementation Relevant to Aging and Metabolism Blunt Thoughts on Calculating the Revealed Value of Human Life A Look Back at 2023: Progress Towards the Treatment of Aging as a Medical Condition Towards Adjustment of the Gut Microbiome to Slow Aging Gene Therapy Enhances Object Recognition Memory in Young and Old Mice Benefits of Sem...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 31, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

To address youth mental health, we must address insurance barriers
It’s been two years since the American Academy of Pediatrics declared a national state of emergency in children’s mental health. Yet sadly, very little has changed. This year, 25 percent of youth have been diagnosed with a mental health condition. More than 20 percent of teens have seriously considered suicide, and more than 40 percent of high school Read more… To address youth mental health, we must address insurance barriers originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - December 30, 2023 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Policy Psychiatry Public Health & Policy Source Type: blogs

Blunt Thoughts on Calculating the Revealed Value of Human Life
Bloodless, heartless calculations of the value of your life are constantly taking place behind the curtains that society politely draws over some of the uglier realities of the human condition. Interactions with insurance companies might be the most visible signs of these calculations, but this is the tip of the iceberg. Humans assign value instinctively; to value is to be human. We don't just value objects, we value our lives, we value the lives of others. Based on an analysis of our actions, i.e. revealed preferences, one can estimate monetary equivalents to those life valuations and how they shift with time and circumst...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 28, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Preserving Patient Trust: Navigating Healthcare ’ s Identity Challenge
The following is a guest article by Dan Yerushalmi, CEO at AU10TIX In the ever-evolving world of healthcare, the shift from traditional paper records to digital systems has triggered a substantial transformation. This metamorphosis has not only redefined the way healthcare is delivered, documented, and accessed but has also heightened the significance of precise patient identity verification. Within this dynamic landscape, where data flows like a vital life force, patient identity is the keystone. Accurate identity verification is essential to ensure patients receive proper care, as errors can lead to incorrect diagnoses o...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - December 28, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Guest Author Tags: Analytics/Big Data Health IT Company Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System Interoperability Security and Privacy AU10TIX Dan Yerushalmi Data Breach Healthcare Identity Management Identity Verification patient data Patient Trust Source Type: blogs

Econoclasm Chapter Two, continued: " Insurance "
 Health insurance – again I’m using the term because everybody else does, not because I think it’s accurate – can work in many ways. One of the most important broad dimensions is how the benefit gets delivered. ·Indemnity plans are the most like fire insurance. They pay money when the beneficiary incurs medical expenses. (The money could be paid to the beneficiary, or directly to the provider. That doesn ’t much matter.)·Service benefit plans have negotiated arrangements with providers to pay them a certain amount for a given service, when it is provided.·Service delivery plans actually provide the s...
Source: Stayin' Alive - December 28, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

LexisNexis Risk Solutions Takes Social Determinants of Health to New Heights
During the past decade, finally, health care is starting to deal in a structured, measurable manner with the life factors and environments that play the biggest role in their patients’ health. A recent offering from LexisNexis Risk Solutions promises to greatly expand access to this data, called social determinants of health (SDoH), for payers, clinicians, public health agencies, pharma companies, and other researchers. The company LexisNexis Risk Solutions is almost synonymous with the data banks of consumer data that financial firms and other businesses consult for identity verification and outreach. The company...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - December 27, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andy Oram Tags: Analytics/Big Data C-Suite Leadership Health IT Company Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System Regulations Diana Zuskov Health Data Diversity Health Equity Healthcare AI Bias LexisNexis LexisNexis Risk Solutions McKenzie Funk Pub Source Type: blogs

poem
 Train StationThe game ofLifedidn ’t age well. No one plays it anymore. Half the pieces are missing. Half the family’s dead. Its gilded suburbia a Potemkin sham. Fake money all gone. Besides, it ' s too much like real life. Insurance premiums going up, escrow shortages. Estate taxes on the bachelor uncle everyone hated so he left it all to you. When life itself is just a game, the game itself stops being any fun.Riskis more of the same. A strategy distilled down to the heaviest gas. Domination, manipulation. Betrayal and degradation. But it ’s all just roll of the dice luck. And much less fun when there’s abso...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - December 27, 2023 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs

Discover the hidden world of state medical board complaints
In a world of 24/7 news coverage often highlighting high-verdict medical malpractice cases, few physicians know about thousands of complaints that undergo review by state medical boards each year. Most complaints are filed by patients and/or family members, malpractice payment reports by insurance companies, and actions by other state medical boards. In North Carolina, where Read more… Discover the hidden world of state medical board complaints originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - December 26, 2023 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Physician Malpractice Source Type: blogs

Econoclasm Chapter Two, continued: Medical externalities
 I ' ve had a request to say more about inflation. That ' s a bit off topic for the time being, but I ' ll get to it.Medicine is also unlike most other goods and services in the extent to which it has important positive externalities – that is, benefits for people outside of the transaction, who are not the providers or consumers. (Of course it has negative externalities as well, including carbon emissions and notably, a huge quantity of plastic waste.) A straightforward positive externality is infectious disease control. Prev enting or curing infectious diseases prevents them from being transmitted to others. This ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - December 26, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

Weekly Roundup – December 23, 2023
Welcome to our Healthcare IT Today Weekly Roundup. Each week, we’ll be providing a look back at the articles we posted and why they’re important to the healthcare IT community. We hope this gives you a chance to catch up on anything you may have missed during the week. New HIPAA Security Rule – and Enforcement – Is Coming in 2024. Mike Semel said updates to the HIPAA Security Rule should be in place by the end of next year, as ONC plans to release a draft rule in the spring. Along the same lines, we can expect HHS to ask for additional enforcement authority for OCR so the agency can clear its backlog of HIP...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - December 23, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Brian Eastwood Tags: Healthcare IT Healthcare IT Today Weekly Roundup Source Type: blogs

Econoclasm: Lesson four
I will interrupt myself here to note that yes, there are people who are pursuing economics as an empirical science, and they have indeed demonstrated that the so-called neo-classical economic theory as taught to first-year college students is not a description of the real world. My point in this presentation is that many people, including journalists and politicians, believe that it is. This pernicious falsehood horribly contaminates public discourse. So yes, it does require debunking. There are a couple of additional problems with the concept of the free market that don ’t stem directly from the faulty assumptions....
Source: Stayin' Alive - December 22, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

Experian Health Acquires Wave HDC, Immediately Enabling Real-Time, Single Inquiry Insurance Discovery/Verification at the Point of Patient Registration
The Companies’ Combined Capabilities will Deliver Previously Unattainable Efficiencies, Contributing to Increased Staff Productivity and much Faster Collection of Millions in Payer Reimbursements Experian, the global information services company, announces it has acquired Wave HDC, a healthcare technology leader that offers AI-enhanced data curation solutions to identify unknown insurance benefits coverage and critical patient demographics at the start of a patient’s healthcare journey. The acquisition bolsters the Experian Health business portfolio with more comprehensive and faster healthcare coverage identificatio...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - December 22, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Healthcare IT News Tags: Health IT Company Healthcare IT Experian Experian Health Health IT Acquisitions Healthcare M&A Jordan Levitt Tom Cox Wave HDC Source Type: blogs

Mitigating Risk and Reducing Costs with Smart Healthcare Records Management
The following is a guest article by Mitchell Perry, VP Compliance & Security at Access In the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare IT in US healthcare frameworks, integrating electronic health records (EHRs) has become a cornerstone for providers. However, the transition from traditional paper records to digital formats presents a challenge that extends beyond a simple “scan all” approach. Healthcare providers researching all the modern options must learn how to navigate the maze of security, regulatory compliance, and digital strategy to remain compliant with HIPAA (The Health Insurance Portability and Ac...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - December 21, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Guest Author Tags: Ambulatory EMR-EHR Health IT Company Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System LTPAC Regulations Security and Privacy Access Improving Patient Needs Medical Records Mitchell Perry Reducing Costs Risk Mitigation Smart Healthcare Do Source Type: blogs

Season Health Announces Strategic Asset Acquisition from Wellory to Expand Clinical Network of Registered Dietitians and Insurance Coverage
Season Health, the leading integrated food-as-medicine platform, today announced the closing of a strategic acquisition of clinical assets from Wellory, one of the largest networks of registered dietitians in the country providing medical nutrition therapy to patients nationwide. This accelerates Season’s growth by significantly expanding its provider network and its ability to offer comprehensive, personalized nutrition care to more patients, including those looking for in-network benefits. Since its founding in 2019 by Emily Hochman and Jeni Fahy, Wellory has focused on unlocking access to quality nutrition care se...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - December 21, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Healthcare IT News Tags: Health IT Company Healthcare IT 8VC Andreessen Horowitz Emily Hochman Health IT Acquisitions Healthcare M&A Jeni Fahy Josh Hix LRVHealth Season Season Health Wellory Source Type: blogs