Happy 25 million, MinuteClinic and CVS Health!
Call it a Silver Million Anniversary, if you will: The MinuteClinic just saw its 25 millionth patient. This is a milestone in the evolution and growth of retail health in America, a trend-marker in this growing health industry segment that will become increasingly used by consumers, patients, parents, and caregivers. CVS bought the MinuteClinic in 2006, when the organization treated seven illnesses. Today, MinuteClinic offers 65 services and vaccinations in nearly 1,000 clinics located in 31 states and Washington, DC. In addition, MinuteClinic will grow the number of clinic locations in both existing and new markets. The company will open
It’s a retail health world: consumers at the helm of health/care
Retail health v1.0 encompassed the pharmacy, then embraced urgent care and retail health clinics co-located in brick-and-mortar pharmacy chain stores. In v2.0, retail health encompasses all health/care, really, because people, patients and consumers are essentially self-insured up to the point when their health plan kicks in some cash. The high-deductible health plan era is ushering in the retail health era, broadly writ. Hospitals & Health Networks magazine (HHN) ran a story titled Think Like a Retailer to Engage Patients, covering founder of WEGO Health Jack Barrette‘s and my panel presentation at the 2015 HIMSS conference in Chicago last week. Writer
Health is where we live, work, and shop…at Walgreens
Alex Gourley, President of The Walgreen Company, addressed the capacity crowd at HIMSS15 in Chicago on 13th April 2015, saying his company’s goal is to “make good health easier.” Remember that HIMSS is the “Health Information and Management Systems Society” — in short, the mammoth health IT conference that this year has attracted over 41,000 health computerfolk from around the world. So what’s a nice pharmacy like you, Walgreens, doing in a Place like McCormick amidst 1,200+ health/tech vendors? If you believe that health is a product of lifstyle behaviors at least as much as health “care” services (what our
Consumers trust retailers to manage health as much as health providers
40% of U.S. consumers trust Big Retail to manage their health; 39% of U.S. consumers trust healthcare providers to manage their health. What’s wrong with this picture? The first chart shows the neck-and-neck tie in the horse race for consumer trust in personal health management. The Walmart primary care clinic vs. your doctor. The grocery pharmacy vis-a-vis the hospital or chain pharmacy. Costco compared to the chiropractor. Or Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung or UnderArmour, because “digitally-enabled companies” are virtually tied with health providers and large retailers as responsible health care managers. Welcome to The Birth of the Healthcare Consumer according
The Affordable Care Act As New-Business Creator
While there’s little evidence that the short-term impact of the Affordable Care Act has limited job growth or driven most employers to drop health insurance plans, the ACA has spawned a “cottage industry” of health companies since 2010, according to PwC. As the ACA turned five years of age, the PwC Health Research Institute led by Ceci Connolly identified at least 90 newcos addressing opportunities inspired by the ACA: Supporting telehealth platforms between patients and providers, such as Vivre Health Educating consumers, such as the transparency provider HealthSparq does Streamlining operations to enhance efficiency, the business of Cureate among others
Building the health ecosystem: new bedfellows coming together
2015 is already becoming a year where bedfellows of different stripes are joining together to build a health care ecosystem well beyond hospitals, doctors and health plans. Announcements launched last week at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and coming out this week at the J.P. Morgan Conference in San Francisco, the first two weeks of 2015 reveal that new entrants and legacy health stakeholders are crossing corporate and cultural chasms to (try and) solve challenges that prevent us from getting to that Holy Grail of The Triple Aim: improving health care outcomes, driving down per capita costs,
People don’t know much about patient portals: Xerox’s 5th EHR study
The Field of Dreams works in nostalgic plotlines about baseball, but as I’ve pointed out since the advent of consumer-facing health technologies, there’s no Field of Dreams effect in health care when it comes to consumer health engagement. U.S. health consumers aren’t using the patient portals that health care providers have built as part of their efforts to bolster health engagement via EHRs and health IT, Xerox found in the company’s 5th annual survey on electronic health records. I spoke with Tamara St. Claire to discuss the implications of the consumer poll, which was conducted among 2,017 U.S. adults in
Pharma industry update – drug spending, R&D costs, generics, and Botox
The U.S. leads in pharmaceutical drug spending. Global growth in pharmaceuticals will spike in 2014, according to the IMS Institute on Healthcare Informatics report on global pharma spending. The U.S. spends more per capita (per person) than any nation in the study, at about $1400 US dollars expected in pharmaceutical spending in 2018, owing to fewer patent expiries (the end, for now, of the patent cliff) and rising prices (think: specialty drugs like Sovaldi and oncology drugs). The next-biggest spender on Rx will be Japan, at just over $800 per person in pharmaceutical spending in 2018. The “EU5” (UK, Germany, France, Italy
Health-committed consumers look to food to be healthy, wealthy, and wise
There’s an emerging health-committed consumer, one of over 70% of people who believe they’re less healthy than the generations who came before them. 9 in 10 consumers overall believe that what you eat impacts how you feel. Those who are health-committed spend 70% of their grocery budgets on healthy products, read food labels, spend more and shop more frequently than low health-committed consumers, according to Healthy, Wealthy, & Wise, a survey report from Dunnhumby. The number of health-committed consumers globally grew by 38% since 2009. Most consumers look first to themselves to drive health, then to doctors, and third to food companies
Health care as a retail business
The health care industry is undergoing a retail transformation, according to Retail Reigns in Health Care: The rise of consumer power and its organization & workforce implications from Deloitte. Deloitte’s report published in October 2014 focuses on the health insurance business, which is newly-dealing with uninsured people largely unfamiliar with how to evaluate health plan options. This by any definition requires new muscles for both buyers and sellers on a health insurance exchange: new product access + uninformed consumer = retail challenge. Deloitte notes another supply and demand challenge, and that’s with the health insurance company workforce: while 93% of health
Specialty pharmaceuticals’ costs in the health economic bulls-eye
This past weekend, 60 Minutes’ Leslie Stahl asked John Castellani, the president of PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry’s advocacy (lobby) organization, why the cost of Gleevec, from Novartis, dramatically increased over the 13 years it’s been in the market, while other more expensive competitors have been launched in the period. (Here is the FDA’s announcement of the Gleevec approval from 2001). Mr. Castellani said he couldn’t respond to specific drug company’s pricing strategies, but in general, these products are “worth it.” Here is the entire transcript of the 60 Minutes’ piece. Today, Health Affairs, the policy journal, is hosting a discussion
Walgreens+WebMD: reinventing retail pharmacy
With the goal of driving a digital health platform for well-informed, effective self-care, the nation’s largest retail pharmacy chain and prominent consumer-facing health information portal are allying to move from serving up pills and information to health “care.” Walgreens and WebMD launched their joint effort on 2nd October 2014, a few weeks after CVS/pharmacy re-branded as CVS Health. Welcome to the reinvention of the retail pharmacy. I spoke for a few minutes with David Schlanger, CEO, WebMD, and Alex Gourlay, President, Customer Experience and Daily Living, Walgreens, the day of the launch, to get early insights into the vision for
Employers engaging in health engagement
Expecting health care cost increases of 5% in 2015, employers in the U.S. will focus on several tactics to control costs: greater offerings of consumer-directed health plans, increasing employee cost-sharing, narrowing provider networks, and serving up wellness and disease management programs. The National Business Group on Health’s Large Employers’ 2015 Health Plan Design Survey finds employers committed to health engagement in 2015 as a key strategy for health benefits. More granularly, addressing weight management, smoking cessation, physical activity, and stress reduction, will be top priorities, shown in the first chart. An underpinning of engagement is health care consumerism — which
Over-the-counter drugs – an asset in the collaborative, DIY health economy
Nations throughout the world are challenged by the cost of health care: from Brazil to China, India to the Philippines, and especially in the U.S., people are morphing into health care consumers. Three categories of health spending in the bulls-eye of countries’ Departments of Health are prescription drugs, and the costs of care in hospitals and doctors’ offices. In the U.S., one tactic for cost containment in health is “switching” certain prescription drugs to over-the-counter products – those deemed to be efficacious and safe for patients to take without seeking treatment from a doctor. Over-the-counter drugs (OTCs) are available every
World No Tobacco Day v2014 – let’s raise (more) taxes on tobacco
Tomorrow is World No Tobacco Day. The use of tobacco is one of the most preventable public health issues on the planet. And the global tobacco epidemic contributed to 100 million deaths around the world in the 20th century. 6 million people die every year due to tobacco use — including 600,000 deaths due to exposure to secondhand smoke. About 500 million people living today will be dead from the use of tobacco products if current smoking habits continue, the World Health Organization (WHO) expects. WHO sponsors the World No Tobacco Day every year on May 31. For this year’s
The retailization of digital health: Consumer Electronics Association mainstreams health
The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has formed a new Health and Fitness Technology Division, signalling the growing-up and mainstreaming of digital health in everyday life. The CEA represents companies that design, manufacture and market goods for people who pay for stuff that plugs into electric sockets and operate on batteries — like TVs, phones, music playing and listening, kitchen appliances, electronic games, and quite prominent at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show, e-cigarettes (rebranding “safe smoking” as “vaping” technology). In its press release announcing this news, CEA President and CEO Gary Shapiro says, “Technology innovations now offer unprecedented opportunities for consumers to
Consumers’ spending on medicine grows – the retailization of health care
People are spending more out of their own pockets on health care, and particularly for medications. There are two sides to the medicine-spending coin: there’s the low-end which are generic drugs, most of which carry a co-pay of $10 or less. Then there’s the high end of specialty pharmaceuticals, a fast-growing category of very expensive products for which many consumers dearly pay — if and when they choose to take their doctors’ recommendations. In Medicine use and shifting costs of healthcare, IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics reports that while (inexpensive) generic drugs comprise 86% of prescriptions in the U.S., it’s high
Affordable medicine: a preferred future
The price of medicines is a barrier for about one billion people on the planet, for citizens in developing countries as well as middle-class families in the richest country in the world, the United States. Today is World Health Day, when for 24 hours public health advocates (including me) are calling out key issues preventing people from fully living life. One obstacle for too many people is the cost of drugs and supplies that save lives and help people add life to years. For example, bug bites can be deadly if you’re talking about the 50% of the world’s population
The New Chief Patient Officer
There’s a new member in the C-suite in health care, and her name is the Chief Patient Officer (CPO). That new role in health-town is filled by Dr. Anne Beal, appointed by Sanofi, the global biopharma company, to fill this new job description. Here she is, shaking hands with Colin Powell in one of the many awards ceremonies where Dr. Beal’s work in public health has been lauded. But what is a CPO? Because it’s a new job, Dr. Beal can create the role, at least within the environment and mission of Sanofi and the larger life sciences world. Some
The new math for Rx: HSAs up, adherence down
A consumer who is faced with greater financial skin-in-the-healthcare game, cost-sharing, is expected to become a smart shopper for lower-priced health products and services. When it comes to patients given prescriptions for medicines, the theory is that patients will choose less expensive generic drugs over brand names it people think the cheaper meds are good substitutes. This is referred to as the generic-drug dispensing rate (GDR). But the theory doesn’t consistently hold true in real life, a study from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), Brand-Name and Generic Prescription Drug Use After Adoption of a Full-Replacement, Consumer-Directed Health Plan With a
People want to DIY with pharma
In our increasingly-DIY society, most consumers expect high levels of access and customer service from the organizations with whom we engage. With more consumers reaching into their pockets to pay for health services and products, the health industry is increasingly a retail-facing environment. So expect quality service levels from their healthcare touch points. The pharmaceutical and prescription drug touch point is not exempt from this expectation, as learned by an Accenture survey analyzed in Great Expectations: Why Pharma Companies Can’t Ignore Patient Services. As the first picture shows, 70% of patients think pharma companies are responsible for bundling information and services
Health care in a multiscreen world
In 2014, we are digital omnivores. Most people “consume” information and entertainment on more than one screen: 7 hours’ worth over a 5-hour period. You read that right: most people who watch TV, use a laptop or PC, smartphone or tablet are multitasking use of these devices in parallel. And above all, people are using smartphones as their primary screen. The AdReaction: Marketing in a multiscreen world report from Millward Brown paints a picture of global consumers who are cobbling together multiscreen experiences. The smartphone has become the “do it all” device if you don’t carry a laptop or tablet around, especially favored
Why a grocery chain supports health data liquidity
The CEO of a family-owned grocery store chain wrote a letter to New York State lawmakers to support $65 million worth of spending on a computer system for health information in the state. That grocer is Danny Wegman, and that project is the Statewide Health Information Network, aka SHIN-NY. In his letter beginning, “Dear New York Legislator,” Wegman identifies several benefits he expects would flow out of the health IT project: 1. Improve health care for all New Yorkers 2. Lower health care costs, through reducing hospital readmission rates and reducing duplicate testing. 3. Lead to health data “liquidity” (my
Risk-shift: employers continue to push more risk to employees and families for health costs
With health costs increase increasing at 4.4% in 2014, a slightly higher rate of growth than the 4.1% seen in 2013. While this is lower than the double-digit increases U.S. employers faced in 2001-2004, it’s still twice the rate of general consumer price inflation. That’s what the first graph shows, based on the The 19th Annual Towers Watson/National Business Group on Health Employer Survey on Purchasing Value in Health Care. Employers generally want to continue to provide health insurance…for the time being. 92% of companies expect to make changes in health plan provisions in 2014, with 1 in 2 anticipating “significant
Managing cost and utilization are top goals for specialty pharmacy buyers
While the prescription drug bill makes up about 10% of U.S. national health spending, the fastest-growing component of pharmacy spending is specialty medications. These are categorized as “specialty” drugs because they rarely have generic equivalents, and treat serious or life-threatening diseases (such as cancer, MS, and rheumatoid arthritis). They are also “special” because specialty pharmaceuticals average $3,000 per patient per month and can surpass $100,000 a year for certain products. As a result, the top two goals for managing specialty medications among employers are #1, to reduce inappropriate utilization, and #2, to reduce drug acquisition costs, based on a survey
What CVS going tobacco-free means for health and business
Bravo! to CVS/pharmacy who today announced it would pull tobacco products from store shelves by October 2014. “The sale of tobacco products is inconsistent with our purpose,” the company’s press release asserts. The move will cost CVS $1.5 billion in revenue annually, as the company seeks to consolidate its position as a health company. CVS/pharmacy is part of CVS Caremark, which includes the retail pharmacy chain (the second-largest in the U.S.), a pharmacy benefit management company (Caremark), and retail health clinics (Minute Clinics). CVS Caremark also participates in a healthy communities program issuing grants for projects that focus on health
U.S. families face medical financial burdens; health care in the SOTU
A growing proportion of American families are facing money problems related to health care, according to the report, Financial Burden of Medical Care: A Family Perspective, No. 142 in the NCHS Data Brief series from the CDC, published January 2014 and based on 2012 data. 1 in 4 families are dealing with some financial burden due to medical care. “Financial burdens” in health include problems paying medical bills in the past 12 months, shared by 16.5% of families; and medical bills being paid over time, faced by 21.4% of families. 1 in 10 families (9%) have medical bills they are
Pharma and the health industry: when will they finally meet us Where We Live?
Millions of health citizens, consumers, patients and caregivers flock to Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia every day the world over to seek health information, advocate for patients’ access to a cancer therapy on a health blog, engage in peer-to-peer health care in a social network, and bolster each others’ management of chronic medical conditions in a chat community. Yet the pharmaceutical and medical device industries rank well behind other industries vis-à-vis the use of social media, asserts Engaging patients through social media, with the punchline question: is healthcare ready for empowered and digitally demanding patients? from the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, published on
Doctor respect, nurse trust – the yin/yang of team-based care
7 in 10 people in the U.S. see a doctor for their health care, and prefer seeing a doctor over a nurse practitioner, based on a poll Ipsos conducted on behalf of the American Academy of Family Physicians. What do people seek in a doctor? Knowledge, state-of-the-art treatments, experience and trustworthiness are the top traits people seek in health providers overall. Ipsos probed further into various traits for clinicians (including doctors, nurses and NPs), asking which of these factors were embodied in the health professional people want to receive care from. The most important attributes for doctors were: Who I want
Supermarkets and hospitals most-trusted industries in the U.S.
See the yellow highlighted rows? That single yellow bar at the top, that’s hospitals; at the bottom, you’ll see pharma, health insurance, and managed care. Hospitals, trusted; pharma, insurance, managed care? Down south on the trust barometer with oil, tobacco, phone companies and social media. The Harris Poll has gauged U.S. consumers’ views on honesty and trustworthiness across industries for the past ten years. Over those ten years, trust in these industries has eroded, from huge falls-from-grace for banks (a 17 point fall), packaged food (falling 12 points), and computer hardware and software substantially falling, as well. Hospitals are
Nurses are the most-trusted professionals in America
Who do you trust? If you’re a member of the middle of the U.S. normal bell curve, you’re thinking “nurses.” 8 in 10 Americans put nurses at the top of the ethics list, a question that Gallup has frequently surveyed since 1976. Nurses have ranked highest in honesty and ethics in America since Gallup began included the profession in the poll in 1999 (except for 2001, when firefighters were #1 post 9/11). Tied for second place this year are pharmacists and grade school teachers (with 70% of U.S. adults ranking them with high ethical standards), closely followed by doctors and
A certain forecast: health consumers will be more cost-squeezed in 2014 for Rx and insurance
Gird your wallets, U.S. consumers: watch the dollars flow out-of-pocket for prescription drugs in 2014, as predicted by the 2013-2014 Prescription Drug Benefit Cost and Plan Design Report published by the Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute (PBMI) this week. Constraints covering most plan members are: Step therapy Prior authorization (to get approvals to fill high-cost drugs, notably growth hormones, injectables, controlled substances, Retin-A, and medications for sleep disorders, and Compulsory 90 day refills at retail (90-day dispensing for chronic meds). This Report, sponsored by Takeda, is the gold standard of drug benefit trends, having been published since 1995. Average 30-day copayments
When health care costs are a side effect
4 in 5 U.S. patients – 81% of them – want an equal say in health care decisions with their care provider, according to a 2013 Institute of Medicine study. At the same time, patients choose to take “drug holidays,” opting out of taking three or more doses of medicines in a row, or adopt “trail mix” approaches to taking prescriptions, casually and inappropriately mixing Rx drugs. Welcome to your world, pharma industry: where people say they want control, but somehow don’t exercise it in the way you — drug companies — define as “compliance” or “adherence.” Customer experience in
Mobile health apps – opportunity for patients and doctors to co-create the evidence
There are thousands of downloadable apps that people can use that touch on health. But among the 40,000+ mobile health apps available in iTunes, which most effectively drive health and efficient care? To answer that question, the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics analyzed 43,689 health, fitness and medical apps in the Apple iTunes store as of June 2013. These split into what IMS categorized as 23,682 “genuine” health care apps, and 20,007 falling into miscellaneous categories such as product-specific apps, fashion and beauty, fertility, veterinary, and apps with “gimmicks” (IMS’s word) with no obvious health benefit. Among the 23,682 so-called
Innovating and thriving in value-based health – collaboration required
In health care, when money is tight, labor inputs like nurses and doctors stretched, and patients wanting to be treated like beloved Amazon consumers, what do you do? Why, innovate and thrive. This audacious Holy Grail was the topic for a panel II moderated today at the Connected Health Symposium, sponsored by Partners Heathcare, the Boston health system that includes Harvard’s hospitals and other blue chip health providers around the region. My panelists were 3 health ecosystem players who were not your typical discussants at this sort of meeting: none wore bow ties, and all were very entrepreneurial: Jeremy Delinsky
Consumers trust and welcome health and insurance providers to go DTC with communications
Consumers embrace ongoing dialog with the companies they do business with, Varolii Corporation toplines in a survey report, What Do Customers Want? A Growing Appetite for Customer Communications. Across all vertical industries consumers trust for this dialogue, health care organizations – specifically doctors, pharmacists, and insurance companies – are the most trusted. Examples of “welcome-comms” would be reminders about upcoming appointments or vaccinations (among 69% of people), notices to reorder or pick up a prescription (57%), and messages encouraging scheduling an appointment (39%). In banking, notices about fraudulent activity on one’s account is the most welcomed message beating out appointment
The new era of consumer health risk management: employers “migrate” risk
The current role of health insurance at work is that it’s the “benefits” part of “compensation and benefits.” Soon, benefits will simply be integrated into “compensation and compensation.” That is, employers will be transferring risk to employees for health care. This will translate into growing defined contribution and cost-shifting to employees. Health care sponsorship by employers is changing quite quickly, according to the 2013 Aon Hewitt Health Care Survey published in October 2013. Aon found that companies are shifting to individualized consumer-focused approaches that emphasize wellness and “health ownership” by workers to bolster behavior change and, ultimately, outcomes. The most
A new medical side-effect: out-of-pocket health care costs
When we say the phrase “side effects,” what do we think of? The FDA says that “all medicines have benefits and risks. The risks of medicines are the chances that something unwanted or unexpected could happen to you when you use them. Risks could be less serious things, such as an upset stomach, or more serious things, such as liver damage.” There’s a new risk in town in health care, and it’s the equivalent of an upset stomach when it comes to a co-pay for a branded on-formulary drug, or liver damage if it involves a coinsurance percent of “retail”
Economics of obesity and heart disease: We, the People, can bend the curves
The “O” word drives health costs in America ever-upward. Without bending the obesity curve downward toward healthy BMIs, America won’t be able to bend that stubborn cost curve, either. The Economic Impacts of Obesity report from Alere Wellbeing accounts for the costs of chronic diseases and how high obesity rates play out in the forms of absenteeism, presenteeism, and direct health care costs to employers, workers and society-at-large. Among the 10 costliest physical health conditions, the top 3 are angina, hypertension and diabetes — all related to obesity and amenable to lifestyle behavior change. The top-line numbers set the context:
Health care and survey taking at the Big Box Store
Where can you shop the health and beauty aisles, pick up some groceries and a prescription, get a flu vaccine, and weigh in on Obamacare and what digital health tools you like? Why, at one of several thousand retail stores where you can find a SoloHealth kiosk. As of yesterday afternoon, over 32 million encounters were recorded on SoloHealth kiosks, based on an app I saw on the company CEO Bart Foster’s smartphone. Kiosks are locatted around the United States in retailers including Walmart and Sam’s Clubs, along with major grocery chains like Schnuck’s and Publix, and the CVS pharmacy
A tale of vaccines, public school, and family medical rights
This is a personal post about a very personal idea: medical rights and freedom of choice. When it has to do with your child, especially when she is a minor, then it’s ever-the-more personal. I have permission to use my daughter’s name, Anna, for this post. Anna’s public high school hosted a flu vaccine clinic this week. As I believe and live the mantra that health is where we live, work, play and pray — that health is not locked up isolated in a doctor’s office or hospital bed — I embrace the role that schools can play to bolster
Consumers’ out-of-pocket health costs rising faster than wages – and a surprising hit from generic drug prices
U.S. health consumers faced greater out-of-pocket health care costs in 2012, especially for outpatient services (think: doctors’ visits) and generic drugs, as presented in The 2012 Health Care Cost and Utilization Report from the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) published in September 2013. At the same time between 2011 and 2012, wages grew about 3%, remaining fairly flat over the past decade as health care costs continued to grow much faster. HCCI found that per capita (per person) out-of-pocket growth for outpatient visits amounted to an average of $118 between 2011 and 2012. But the biggest share of out-of-pocket costs for
Consumers don’t get as much satisfaction with high-deductible health plans
Since the advent of the so-called consumer-directed health care era in the mid-2000s, there’s been a love-gap between health plan members of traditional plans, living in Health Plan World 1.0, and people enrolled in newer consumer-driven plans – high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) and consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs). That gap in plan satisfaction continues, according to the Employee Benefits Research Institute (EBRI)’s poll of Americans’ consumer engagement in health care. The survey was conducted with the Commonwealth Fund. As the bar chart illustrates, some 62% of members in traditional plans were satisfied (very or extremely) with their health insurance in 2012.
People with doctors interested in EMRs, but where’s the easy button?
1 in two people who are insured and have a regular doctor are interested in trying out an electronic medical record. But they need a doctor or nurse to suggest this, and they need it to be easy to use. The EMR Impact survey was conducted by Aeffect and 88 Brand Partners to assess 1,000 U.S. online consumers’ views on electronic medical records (EMRs): specifically, how do insured American adults (age 25 to 55 who have seen their regular physician in the past 3 years) view accessing their personal health information via EMRs? Among this population segment, 1 in 4 people (24%)
People not up-close-and-personal about personalized medicine…yet
Only 1 in 4 U.S. adults over 30 know what “personalized medicine” (PM) really is, and only 8% of people feel very knowledgeable about the concept based on Consumer Perspectives on Personalized Medicine from GfK, published online in August 2013. GfK surveyed 602 online adults 30 years and over between February and March 2013 drawn from the company’s KnowledgePanel sample of U.S. adults. Only 4% of people who have heard of personalized medicine describe it accurately as “medicine based on genome/genetic make up.” About one-half of people (52%) defined PM as medical care, treatment, or medicine geared toward individual needs. The poll
Chief Health Officers, Women, Are In Pain
Women are the Chief Health Officers of their families and in their communities. But stress is on the rise for women. Taking an inventory on several health risks for American women in 2013 paints a picture of pain: of overdosing, caregiver burnout, health disparities, financial stress, and over-drinking. Overdosing on opioids. Opioids are strong drugs prescribed for pain management such as hydrocodone, morphine, and oxycodone. The number of opioid prescriptions grew in the U.S. by over 300% between 1999 and 2010. Deaths from prescription painkiller overdoses among women have increased more than 400% since 1999, compared to 265% among men.
Eat fruits and vegetables: it’s worth $11 trillion to you and the U.S. economy
More than 127,000 people die every year in America from cardiovascular disease, accruing $17 billion in medical spending. Heart disease is a “costly killer,” according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, who has calculated The $11 trillion reward: how simple dietary changes can save lives and money, and how we get there, published in August 2013. That $11 trillion opportunity is equal to the present value of lives saved. The solution to bolstering heart (and overall health) and saving money (medical spending and personal productivity) is in food. We’re not talking about genetically engineering anything special or out-of-the-ordinary. We are talking
10 Reasons Why ObamaCare is Good for US
When Secretary Sebelius calls, I listen. It’s a sort of “Help Wanted” ad from the Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius that prompted me to write this post. The Secretary called for female bloggers to talk about the benefits of The Affordable Care Act last week when she spoke in Chicago at the BlogHer conference. Secretary Sebelius’s request was discussed in this story from the Associated Press published July 25, 2013. “I bet you more people could tell you the name of the new prince of England than could tell you that the health market opens October 1st,” the
Health and wellness, the economy and the grocery store
Consumers in America are spending more, and especially at the grocery store. Most people say they want to eat healthy — but, although they’re spending more at the food store, one-half of supermarket shoppers say cost is the main obstacle for healthy eating. 2 in 3 U.S. grocery shoppers define health and wellness as being physically fit and active, and over half believe that feeling good about yourself is another facet of health. Not being overweight equals health for about one-half of U.S. shoppers. The Why? Behind the Buy, from Acosta Sales & Marketing, explores buying patterns among U.S. consumers
What to expect from health care between now and 2018
Employers who provide health insurance are getting much more aggressive in 2013 and beyond in terms of increasing employees’ responsibilities for staying well and taking our meds, shopping for services based on cost and value, and paying doctors based on their success with patients’ health outcomes and quality of care. Furthermore, nearly one-half expect that technologies like telemedicine, mobile health apps, and health kiosks in the back of grocery stores and pharmacies are expected to change the way people regularly receive health care. What’s behind this? Increasing health care costs, to be sure, explains the 18th annual survey from the National
As health cost increases moderate, consumers will pay more: will they seek less expensive care?
While there is big uncertainty about how health reform will roll out in 2014, and who will opt into the new (and improved?) system, health cost growth will slow to 6.5% signalling a trend of moderating medical costs in America. Even though more newly-insured people may seek care in 2014, the costs per “unit” (visit, pill, therapy encounter) should stay fairly level – at some of the lowest levels since the U.S. started to gauge national health spending in 1960. That’s due to “the imperative to do more with less has paved the way for a true transformation of the
The emerging economy for consumer health and wellness
The notion of consumers’ greater skin in the game of U.S. health care — and the underlying theory of rational economic men and women that would drive people to greater self-care — permeated the agenda of the 2nd annual Consumer Health & Wellness Innovation Summit, chaired by Lisa Suennen of Psilos Ventures. Lisa kicked off the meeting providing a wellness market landscape, describing the opportunity that is the ‘real’ consumer-driven health care: people getting and staying well, and increasing participation in self-management of chronic conditions. The U.S. health system is transforming, she explained, with payors beginning to look like computer
The decline and fall of pharmaceutical spending…short- or long-term phenomenon?
The prescription drug cost curve is bending…for the time being. Spending on medicines fell by 3.5% in 2012 and will continue to fall below overall health spending over the next five years to 2017. But different from general health spending, there’s a new game in town called specialty medicines, and they cost a whole lot more than the generics and the aging brands that bent the cost curve in 2012. The declining Rx spending story is only part of a complicated tale told in great detail in a comprehensive report from the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, Declining Medicine Use
Marketing Digital Health to Mom 2.0 on Mother’s Day 2013
Mainstream media, both print and online, peppered their 2013 Mother’s Day gift suggestions including pod coffeemakers, bangle bracelets, candy-colored accessories and digital health devices. Say, what? In Parade magazine, Mother’s Day 2013 gift ideas included the Fitbit “smart pedometer,” linked to a “buy” site at REI. You can’t get much more mainstream than Parade. In Entertainment Weekly, Bronwyn Barnes, style maven for the magazine, wrote a one-page “Get Ready for Mom 2.0” and her recommendations included the Pebble Smartwatch, the Jawbone Up wristband, and the HoodieBuddie with earbuds built into the drawstrings. Men’s Health told sons and husbands to check
Call it DTH, direct to home: Pfizer is shipping Viagra direct to consume
While the blockbuster erectile dysfunction (ED) drug has been shipped directly to consumer’s homes for years via pharmacy benefits management companies and specialty pharmacy retailers catering to the ED segment, Pfizer wants in on the transaction and has decided to get into the Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) distribution business for a prescription drug. Call this market development Direct-to-Home, or DTH. This is a kind of sentinel event signaling a pharmaceutical manufacturer cutting out the middle-man (read: retail pharmacy), and in this case getting up-close-and-personal with users of a drug that represents quality of life. Another motivation for Pfizer is trying to stem
Dietitians provide a health bridge between food and pharmacy
The registered dietitian is an in-demand labor resource for grocery stores around the U.S. Advertising Age covered the phenomenon of the growing clout of dietitians in food chains (April 14, 2013). Let’s dig further into this phenomenon through the Health Populi lens on healthcareDIY and peoples’ ability to bend their personal health care cost curves. Stores such as Giant Eagle, Hy-Vee, Safeway and Wegmans are morphing into wellness destinations, with pharmacies and natural food aisles taking up valuable square footage to meet consumers’ growing demands for healthy choices. Some stores are formalizing their approach to food = health by formulating a
Health cost transparency comes to Cummins Engine
I can think of 3 reasons why workers at Cummins Engine are blessed: They are employed. They receive health insurance from their employer. They are about to be able to access a tool designed to help them become better health care consumers. Cummins, based in Columbus, Indiana (far from Silicon Valley), has 24,000 employees and dependents who will be covered by this plan. The company ranked 186 on the Fortune list and has 46,000 employees worldwide. So the firm’s health spending would be in the range of many millions of dollars. I found the company’s employee health plan HealthSpan offering
Food = Health for employers, hospitals, health plans and consumers
Food is inextricably bound up with health whether we are well or not. Several key area of the Food=Health ecosystem made the news this week which, together, will impact public and personal health. On the employer health benefits front, more media are covering the story on CVS strongly incentivizing employees to drop body mass index (BMI) through behavioral economics-inspired health plan design of a $50 peer month penalty. Michelin, whose bulky advertising icon Bibendum has more than one “spare tire,” introduced a program to combat health issues, including but not limited to BMI and high blood pressure, according to the
1 in 5 US consumers asks a doctor for a lower-cost Rx
With U.S. health consumers spending $45 billion out-of-pocket for prescription drugs in 2011, pharmaceutical products are morphing into retail health products. As such, as they do with any other consumer good, consumers can vote with their feet by walking away from a product purchase or making the spend based on the price of the product and its attributes, along with whether there are substitutes available in the marketplace. When it comes to prescription drugs, it’s not as clear-cut, according to the Centers for Disease Control‘s analysis of data from the 2011 National Health Interview Survey titled Strategies Used by
The need for a Zagat and TripAdvisor in health care
Patient satisfaction survey scores have begun to directly impact Medicare payment for health providers. Health plan members are morphing into health consumers spending “real money” in high-deductible health plans. Newly-diagnosed patients with chronic conditions look online for information to sort out whether a generic drug is equivalent to a branded Rx that costs five-times the out-of-pocket cost of the cheaper substitute. While health care report cards have been around for many years, consumers’ need to get their arms around relevant and accessible information on quality and value is driving a new market for a Yelp, Travelocity, or Zagat in
The value of big data in health care = $450 billion
Exploiting Big Data in industry is Big News these days, and nowhere is the potential for leveraging the concept greater than in health care. McKinsey & Company estimates that harnessing big data across five dimensions of health care could yield nearly one-half trillion dollars’ worth of value in The ‘big data’ revolution in healthcare. The chart summarizes McKinsey’s calculations on the value of Big Data in health care at its maximum. Before digging into the value potential, just what is Big Data in health care? Statistics and information are generated in the health care system about patients: say, during visits
Walgreens Steps with Balance program rewards both consumers and the store
Consumers who patronize Walgreens can get rewarded for tracking their physical activity For the Steps with Balance program kickoff, self-tracking consumers can earn 20 points for every mile walked or run and 20 points for tracking weight. Walgreens implemented the Walk with Walgreens program in 2012. The program won an Effie Award for an outstanding marketing program. With the success of Walk with Walgreens, the retail pharmacy company has expanded the program beyond simple steps to include weight tracking and health goals for earning loyalty points. The program enables a few of the most popular self-tracking devices to sync so
U.S. Health Costs vs. The World: Is It Still The Prices, and Are We Still Stupid?
Comparing health care prices in the U.S. with those in other developed countries is an exercise in sticker shock. The cost of a hospital day in the U.S. was, on average, $4,287 in 2012. It was $853 in France, a nation often lauded for its excellent health system and patient outcomes but with a health system that’s financially strapped. A routine office visit to a doctor cost an average of $95 in the U.S. in 2012. The same visit was priced at $30 in Canada and $30 in France, as well. A hip replacement cost $40,364 on average in the
Arianna and Lupe and Deepak and Sanjay – will the cool factor drive mobile health adoption?
Digital health is attracting the likes of Bill Clinton, Lupe Fiasco, Deepak Chopra, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Arianna Huffington, and numerous famous athletes who rep a growing array of activity trackers, wearable sensors, and mobile health apps. Will this diverse cadre of popular celebs drive consumer adoption of mobile health? Can a “cool factor” motivate people to try out mobile health tools that, over time, help people sustain healthy behaviors? Mobile and digital health is a fast-growing, good-news segment in the U.S. macroeconomy. The industry attracted more venture capital in 2012 than other health sectors, based on Rock Health’s analysis of the year-in-review. Digital health
The flu shot economy
4 in 10 Americans got flu shots in this epidemic season, and most of these didn’t receive their immunization in their doctor’s office. The Flu Vaccination Survey from Ipsos Public Affairs, conducted in January 2013, paints a picture of U.S. health consumers who are project managing their personal approaches to preventing the flu in this historically hard-hitting flu season. The most expressed demand for flu shots has been among people 55 and over, one-half of whom have received vaccinations, with the lowest use been in the 25-35 year age group. Geographically, the most covered health citizens live in New England
Retail and work-site clinics – medical homes for younger adults?
The use of retail and work-site health clinics is up, and their consumers skew young. Overall, 27% of all U.S. adults have stepped into a walk-in clinic in the past two years. But only 15% of people 65 and over have used such a clinic. This begs the question: are retail and on-site clinics at the workplace filling the role of medical homes for younger adult Americans? The Harris Interactive/HealthDay poll published in January 2013 discovered that use of retail clinics grew from 7% in 2008 to 27% in 2012. The largest age cohort using walk-in clinics is people between
Health and consumer spending may be flat, but consumers hard hit due to wage stagnation & self-rationing
There’s good news on the macro-health economics front: the growth rate in national health spending in the U.S. fell in 2011, according to an analysis published in Health Affairs January 2013 issue. Furthermore, this study found that consumers’ spending on health has fallen to 27.7% of health spending, down from 32% in 2000, based on three spending categories: 1. Insurance premiums through the workplace or self-paid 2. Out-of-pocket deductibles and co-pays 3. Medicare payroll taxes. A key factor driving down health spending is the growth of generic drug substitution for more expensive Rx brands. Generics now comprise 80% of prescribed
Nurses, pharmacists and doctors rank top in honesty, says Gallup poll
Nurses, pharmacists and doctors rank tops with Americans when it comes to honesty and ethics. Most people also rate engineers, dentists, police officers, clergy and college teachers as high on honesty metrics. Lawmakers (THINK: Congress) and car salesman fall to the bottom of the honesty-and-trust roster, who only 1 in 10 Americans believe act with honesty and integrity. Other low-ranking professions on this list are HMO managers, stockbrokers, and folks in the advertising business. Welcome to this year’s Gallup Poll on consumers’ perceptions of honesty and ethics in 22 professions in the U.S. Gallup measures six health care professions
Prescription brand drug prices grew 6x the rate of inflation in past year
Consumer price inflation grew 2% between September 2011 and September 2011. The price of branded drugs increased over 13% in the same period according to the Express Scripts 2012 Q3 Drug Trend Quarterly report, issued in November 2012. But the overall trend, including generics, was flat — 0.1%. This, due to the use of generics, now comprising 80% of prescription drug utilization. Since 2008, the brand prescription price index grew from a base of 100 to 163; the generic index fell from 100 to 61. The CPI index grew from the 100 base to 110. Generics have proven to be a
Food and health: information is not doing the job as the U.S. continues its obesity march
Notwithstanding the fact that most phones on U.S. streets are “smart” ones, most adults surf the net for health information, and most people try to change a health habit each year, Americans haven’t adopted healthier long-term relationships with food. The International Food Information Council has conducted the Food & Health Survey: Consumer Attitudes Toward Food, Safety, Nutrition & Health poll since 2006, thus enabling us to track peoples’ attitudes and behaviors over the past several years. The latest polling results appear in Is it Time to Rethink Nutrition Communications? A 5-Year Retrospective of Americans’ Attitude toward Food, Nutrition, and Health online in
Consumers seek emotional connections with health care
83% of consumers would pay more for a product or service from a company they feel puts them first, finds rbb Public Relations in their 2012 Nationwide Breakout Brand Survey. Emotional connections matter most in health care, say 76% of U.S. consumers, followed by banks (63%), professional services (62% – think: accountant, financial planner, estate lawyer), travel (56%), insurance (55%) and autos (52%). Interestingly, apparel and beauty rank the lowest in the poll – with only 18% and 19% of consumers looking for emotional connections from those industries. The top 10 breakout brands on the emotional front are Apple Amazon
Wired health: living by numbers – a review of the event
Wired magazine, longtime evangelist for all-things-tech, has played a growing role in serving up health-tech content over the past several years, especially through the work of Thomas Goetz. This month, Wired featured an informative section on living by numbers — the theme of a new Wired conference held 15-16 October 2012 in New York City. This feels like the week of digital health on the east coast of the U.S.: several major meetings have convened that highlight the role of technology — especially, the Internet, mobile platforms, and Big Data — on health. Among the meetings were the NYeC Digital Health conference, Digital
What Jerry the Bear means for Health 2.0
A teddy bear in the arms of a child with diabetes can change health care. At least, Jerry the Bear can. Yesterday kicked off the sixth autumn mega-version of the Health 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. Co-founded by Matthew Holt and Indu Subaiya, a long-time health analyst and physician, respectively, this meeting features new-new tools, apps and devices aimed at improving individual and population health, as well as health processes and workflows for physicians, hospitals, pharma, and other stakeholders in the health care ecosystem – even health lawyers, who met on October 7 to discuss up-to-the-minute e-health law issues. Yesterday was
Pharmacists are a valuable member of the primary care team
It’s American Pharmacist Month, so let’s celebrate that key member of the health care team. Most Americans live quite close to a pharmacy, compared with peoples’ proximity to doctors, hospitals and emergency rooms. The pharmacist is not only a trusted health professional in the eyes of consumers: he/she is a key influencer on peoples’ health. And seeing as the #1 barrier to people taking prescription drugs is cost, the community-based pharmacist is in a prime position to educate, influence and motivate people to become more informed and activated health consumers. CVS Caremark’s survey of pharmacists is discussed in the company’s
Americans self-ration prescription meds: how much does this actually “save?”
U.S. health consumers continue their self-rationing behavior, forgoing prescription drug fills and doctor’s appointments due to cost. Consumer Reports annual prescription drug poll echoes the news, consistent with other surveys finding Americans skipping necessary care from Kaiser Family Foundation and the American Osteopathic Association. I’ve discussed the trend of health self-rationing identified in these polls in past Health Populi posts, here and here. Since 2011, nearly 1 in 2 health citizens younger than 65 — that is, those people without Medicare which carries the Part D prescription drug benefit — did not fill a prescription due to cost. This proportion
More primary care office hours, lower health care costs
It’s become evident that more health care does not often lead to better health: Shannon Brownlee’s seminal book, Overtreated, uncovered the negative relationship between more health care and worse outcomes. However, when it comes to accessing primary care, more may be a good thing. In Extended Office Hours and Health Care Expenditures: A National Study, published this week in the Annals of Family Medicine, researchers found that offering longer office hours, into evenings and weekends, leads to lower total health care expenditures for patients than practices without extended hours. Extended hours are also associated with lower prescription drug and office visit
Free statins at the grocery: retail health update
I spotted this sign yesterday at my local Wegmans, the family-owned grocery chain founded in upstate NY and growing down the northeast corridor of the U.S. Many months ago, a similar sign promoted “free antibiotics” at the store. What does a grocery chain’s pharmacy doling out “Free” [asterisked] generic Lipitor mean to the larger health ecosystem? On the upside, health is where we live, work, play and pray, as Dr. Regina Benjamin, the Surgeon General, has said. This has become a mantra for us at THINK-Health, and regular Health Populi readers may be tiring of my repeated use of this
Men get more attention in health marketing
As women are generally thought of by marketers as the Chief Health Officers of their families, images of men in health advertising and media have been fewer than their female counterparts. In 1998, Pfizer promoted Viagra through Bob Dole. In 2003, Magic Johnson represented GSK’s HIV treatment Combivir. That same year, Mike Ditka, football coach, hawked Levitra, the ED drug, for GSK. Dr. Robert Jarvik has repped Lipitor (controversially), and Bobby Labonte, a NASCAR driver, endorsed Wellbutrin XL. But since the advent of direct-to-consumer health advertising, there haven’t been as many celebrity men promoting health as there have been women. Now, it’s the
Target gets into the Quantified Self biz: could this be the mainstreaming of self-monitoring?
Target, the beloved retail channel for many design-minded value-conscious consumers, has opted in to mobile health through its purchase of SMARTCOACH mobile health coaching devices. SMARTCOACH is part of a growing category of wearable devices that monitor health behaviors like walking and calories consumed. What differentiates SMARTCOACH is the “coach” element, which provides real-time feedback throughout the day. Most other devices in the market simply track and record data. And it’s feedback loops that more experts say are key to sustaining health behavior change. Target will bring the device into stores for purchase in the fall. Like some other wearable
Employees will bear more health costs to 2017 – certainty in an uncertain future
Amidst uncertainties and wild cards about health care’s future in the U.S., there’s one certainty forecasters and marketers should incorporate into their scenarios: consumers will bear more costs and more responsibility for decision making. The 2012 Deloitte Survey of U.S. Employers finds them, mostly, planning to subsidize health benefits for workers over the next few years, while placing greater financial and clinical burdens on the insured and moving more quickly toward high-deductible health plans and consumer-directed plans. In addition, wellness, prevention and targeted population health programs will be adopted by most employers staying in the health care game, shown in
Converging for health care: how collaborating is breaking down silos to achieve the Triple Aim
On Tuesday, 9 July 2012, health industry stakeholders are convening in Philadelphia for the first CONVERGE conference, seeking to ignite conversation across siloed organizations to solve seemingly intractable problems in health care, together. Why “converge?” Because suppliers, providers, payers, health plans, and consumers have been fragmented for far too long based on arcane incentives that cause the U.S. health system to be stuck in a Rube Goldbergian knot of inefficiency, ineffectiveness and fragmentation of access….not to mention cost increases leading us to devote nearly one-fifth of national GDP on health care at a cost of nearly $3 trillion…and going up.
The gender gap in U.S. health economics
50% more women than men are worried about health care affordability and access in the U.S., revealed in a new Kaiser Opinion Poll, the Health Security Watch, based on interviews from May 2012. Overall, about the same proportion of men and women had problems paying medical bills in the past year — 26% vs. 27%, respectively. However, when it comes to self-rationing health care — delaying or skipping treatment due to cost — gender gap shows, with 52% of men and 64% of women delaying or skipping health care. Underneath these numbers are even greater gaps between men and women.
Antidepressant Nation – and how computerized CBT can help primary care in America
The antidepressant market is worth $20 billion in the U.S. Antidepressants were the third most common prescription drug taken by Americans of all ages in 2005-2008 and the most frequently used by people age 18-44 (according to the National Center for Health Statistics). About one in 10 Americans age 12 and over takes an antidepressant medication. But there is little evidence that pharmacotherapy should be used as a first line of treatment for mild to moderate depression. Why are anti-depressants the first line of treatment for mild to moderate depression in the U.S.? The answer lies in the fact that
Self-service healthcare: patients like online and mobile access, but still want F2F time
The supply-side of healthcare DIY is growing, with the advancement of Castlight Health through its $100mm VC influx and Cakehealth’s new version for managing health spending online. Consumer demand is growing, too, for these services. But don’t get over-hyped by the healthcare, everywhere, scenario. Health citizens also demand face-to-face time with their physicians and clinicians, evidenced by a survey from Accenture titled, Is healthcare self-service online enough to satisfy patients? The answer is a clear, “no.” 90% of U.S. adults like the idea of digital health self-service, 83% want online access to personal health information, 72% want to book appointments
Thinking about Dad as Digital “Mom”
What is a Mom, and especially, who is a “Digital Mom?” I’ve been asked to consider this question in a webinar today hosted by Enspektos, who published the report Digging Beneath the Surface: Understanding the Digital Health Mom in May 2012. I wrote my review of that study in Health Populi here on May 15. In today’s webinar, my remarks are couched as “Caveats About the Digital Mom: a multiple persona.” Look at the graphic. On the left, the first persona is a mother with children under 18. Most “mom segmentations” in market research focus on this segment. But what
Patients in emerging countries value mHealth, but sustaining mHealth behaviors is tough
Half of patients globally expect that mobile health will improve health care. These health citizens expect that mobile health will help them manage their overall health, chronic conditions, how they manage their medications and measure and share their vital health information. Welcome to the new mobile health world, a picture captured in PwC’s report, Emerging mHealth: Paths for growth, published in June 2012 and written by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Patients’ views on mHealth are bullish, and while most doctors and payors share that vision, they also expect mHealth to come into focus more slowly, recognizing the institutional, cultural and
Statins, food and a mobile app: Pfizer and Eating Well partner up as generic Lipitor hits the market
On May 23, 2012, Pfizer announced its teaming with EatingWell magazine to launch a mobile app for patients on Lipitor. Eight days later, on May 31, 2012, generic versions of Lipitor will hit the market. Lipitor is the best-selling drug in pharmaceutical history, to-date. Sales of the product top $125 billion. While generic atorvastatin has been available in the U.S. since November 2011 from two manufacturers, low prices for the generic will drop to $10 or less for a month’s supply at the end of May. This is Pfizer’s first foray into a prescription drug-affiliated app. The free mHealth app,
The pharmaceutical landscape for 2012 and beyond: balancing cost with care, and incentives for health behaviors
Transparency, data-based pharmacy decisions, incentivizing patient behavior, and outcomes-based payments will reshape the environment for marketing pharmaceutical drugs in and beyond 2012. Two reports published this week, from Express Scripts–Medco and PwC, explain these forces, which will severely challenge Pharma’s mood of market ennui. Express-Scripts Medco’s report on 9 Leading Trends in Rx Plan Management presents findings from a survey of 318 pharmacy benefit decision makers in public and private sector organizations. About one-half of the respondents represented smaller organizations with fewer than 5,000 employees; about 20% represented jumbo companies with over 25,000 workers. The survey was conducted in the
A health plan or a car: health insurance for a family of four exceeds $20K in 2012
The saying goes, “you pays your money and you makes your choice.” In 2012, if you have a bolus of $20,700 to spend, you can choose between a health plan for a family of four, or a sedan for the same family. That’s the calculation from the actuaries at Milliman, whose annual Milliman Medical Index is the go-to analysis on health care costs for a family of four covered by a preferred provider organization plan (PPO). While the 6.9% annual average cost increase is lower than the 7.3% in 2011, it is nonetheless, a record $1,335 real dollar increase at
Improving health care through Big Data: a meeting of the minds at SAS
Some 500 data analytics gurus representing the health care ecosystem including hospitals, physician practices, life science companies, academia and consulting came together on the lush campus of SAS in Cary, North Carolina, this week to discuss how Big Data could solve health care’s Triple Aim, as coined by keynote speaker Dr. Donald Berwick: improve the care experience, improve health outcomes, and reduce costs. Before Dr. Berwick, appointed as President Obama’s first head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Clayton Christensen of the Harvard Business School, godfather of the theory of disruptive innovation in business, spokee about his journey
It’s the prices and the technology, stupid: why U.S. health costs are higher than anywhere in the world
The price of physician services, proliferation of clinical technology and the cost of obesity are the key drivers of higher health spending in the U.S., according to The Commonwealth Fund‘s latest analysis in their Issues of International Health Policy titled, Explaining High Health Care Spending in the United States: An International Comparison of Supply, Utilization, Prices, and Quality, published in May 2012. The U.S. devotes 17.4% of the national economy to health spending, amounting to about $8,000 per person. The UK devotes about 10%, Germany 11.6%, France, 11.8%, Australia 8.7%, and Japan, 8.5%. On the physician pay front, primary care
Americans continue to self-ration health care in the economic recovery
Even though Inside-the-Beltway economists have said The Great Recession of 2007 is officially over, it doesn’t look that way when you ask consumers about health spending in 2012, based on results from a survey conducted on behalf of the American Osteopathic Association (AOA). One in 5 U.S. adults is trying to lower their personal health spending. One in four is seeking free or alternate sources of health care. Overall, 1 in 5 people says their health has been negatively impacted by the economy. The AOA discovered that people in the U.S. whose health has been negatively impacted by the economic downturn were
What the FDA needs to know about Rx health consumers: most Americans see value in pharma-sponsored health social networks
In PwC‘s landmark report, Social Media “Likes” Healthcare, there’s a data point obscured by lots of great information generated by the firm’s survey of 1,060 U.S. adults: that over one-half of people value patient support groups and social networks with other patients that are offered by drug companies. Not surprisingly, U.S. consumers. who are taking on increasing financial responsibility to pay for health care products and services, also highly value discounts and coupons, and access to information that helps them find the “cheapest” medications — both favored by two-thirds of people. The report found, overall, that over one-third of U.S. adults
Leverage the American DIY attitude for health
As I leave Asia, where I’ve been for the past two weeks, for the U.S. today, I am reading the daily newspaper, the Korea Joongang News. On today’s op-Ed age is The Fountain column titled, Embracing the do-it-yourself attitude. In it, Lee Na-ree writes, “Making something with your own hands is part of the American pioneer spirit.” He describes the Maker Faire events and the project of Caine’s Arcade, a game developed by a Los Angeles boy who used auto parts from his dad’s shop. Na-ree observes that Americans are ‘regretting’ mass consumption. Health Populi’s Hot Points: I happened upon
Wellness Ignited! Edelman panel talks about how to build a health culture in the U.S.
Dr. Andrew Weil, the iconic guru of all-things-health, was joined by a panel of health stakeholders at this morning’s Edelman salon discussing Wellness Ignited – Now and Next. Representatives from the American Heart Association, Columbia University, Walgreens, Google, Harvard Business School, and urban media mavens Quincy Jones III and Shawn Ullman, who lead Feel Rich, a health media organization, were joined by Nancy Turett, Edelman’s Chief Strategist of Health & Society, in the mix. Each participant offered a statement about what they do related to health and wellness, encapsulating a trend identified by Jennifer Pfahler, EVP of Edelman. Trend 1: Integrative
Food = health: JWT foodspotting
35% of consumers who have been altering their food intake to lose weight are eating fewer processed foods, according to a recent Nielsen Global Survey. This percentage has grown from 29% in 2008. Health and wellness is one of three driving forces shaping food in 2012, according to JWT‘s What’s Cooking: Trends in Food. The other two forces, technology and foodie culture, combine with health/wellness and yield some interesting consumer trends in the milieu of food. JWT’s top food issues to watch are: – Fooducate – Nutrition scores – Fat taxes – Health and fresh vending machines – Gluten-free –
On the road to retail health: healthcareDIY and primary care, everywhere
At the ConvUrgent Care Symposium in Orlando, attendees from the worlds of clinics, ambulatory care, hospital beds, pharmacies, medical devices, life sciences, health information, health IT, health plans, academic medical centers and professional medical societies came together to share and learn about the morphing landscape of retail health. The topline message: primary care is everywhere, and based on the response to my keynote talk this morning, every stakeholder segment gets it. My mantra, courtesy of the U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin: don’t look at health in isolation, that is, where the doctor and hospital are. Health happens wherever the person
help comes to health care: well-designed front-of-pharmacy DIY health products
Less is more when it comes to health care utilization and outcomes. The U.S. allocates too many resources to a huge line item of waste in the health system – administrative (in terms of too many paper processes and staff to deal with them) and clinically (especially involving duplicated tests and ineffective treatments that aren’t based on evidence based medicine). “Take less” is the tagline of the company called help which is found at the URL http://www.helpineedhelp.com/. This is a consumer-facing over-the-counter drug supplier. Their product line counts 7 mature products each packaged with the health complaint they target: “Help,” I have
Retail health is hot, especially for the young, affluent and not particularly sick
Walmart issued a Request for Information to expand its retail health footprint in the communities in which the world’s largest company operates. That was a strong sign that retail health has surpassed a tipping point. Now, there are hard data to support this observation from a RAND Corporation research team. Trends in Retail Clinic Use Among the Commercially Insured, published in the November 25, 2011, issue of The American Journal of Managed Care, quantifies retail clinic utilization among a group of Aetna health plan enrollees between 2007 and 2009. In those two years, use of retail clinics grew 10-fold. RAND looked
Prescription drug spend in 2012: moving from “educating” patients to empowering them
The growth in prescription drug costs covered by employers and Rx plan sponsors are driving them to adopt a long list of utilization management and price-tiering strategies looking to 2012, according to the 2011-2012 Prescription Drug Benefit Cost and Plan Design Report, sponsored by Takeda Pharmaceuticals. The average drug trend for 2011 — that is, the average annual percentage increase in drug cost spending — was 5.5%, 1.5 percentage points greater than general price inflation of about 4%. The generic fill rate was 73% of prescription drugs purchased at retail. While drug price inflation is expected to increase in 2012, plan
Thank you, Jared Johnson, for including me on the list of the "Top Voices of Consumer-Centered Healthcare." Your curated community includes some of my closest colleagues and friends in the field to whom I also turn for that health consumer-focused lens. The patient - consumer, caregiver, health citizen - is the primary noun in health/care and self-care is primary care. My thanks for this call-out, JJ!
I am so grateful to Tom Lawry for asking me to pen the foreword for his book, Health Care Nation, which will be published in late March 2025. Tom, known for his pioneering leadership in AI, has rediscovered his voice for health policy -- and health citizenship. He is asking Big Questions and asking us to do the same -- and act on those insights for our own health, the health of people we love, and the health of our fellow health citizens. The uplifting subtitle: "The future is calling and it's better than you think." Onward!
Thanks to Feedspot for naming this blog, Health Populi, as a top 100 best healthcare technology blogs and websites in 2025. It's gratifying to be in such great company with KevinMD, The Health Care Blog, the Journal of AHIMA and other online resources that inform my health-tech views.