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Americans are burned out on health risk information

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 2 December 2009 in Uncategorized

American health citizens are burned out on risk communication from pharmaceutical companies. They’d prefer simpler approaches through websites like WebMD and icons like the Consumer Reports‘ multishape “moons” to learn about health risks. ORC Guideline, an info GROUP company, identified a health risk information overload in their latest survey of American adults, conducted in late October 2009. The company presented data at the recent FDA meeting on promoting regulated medical products using the Internet and social media on November 13, 2009. The top-line finding is that there’s an increase in the percent of Americans who feel there’s too much emphasis

 

The Business Roundtable offers tips for restructuring the health market

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 30 November 2009 in Uncategorized

The health care market’s broken in the U.S., and it needs more help than Congress’s proposals are offering. What cost $10,743 for per-employee health care costs at large employers in 2009 will cost will nearly triple to $28,530 in 2019 if the status quo continues. If legislative proposals currently being discussed in Congress are implemented, that cost grow to $25,435. With greater restructuring for value, malpractice reform, and evidence-based medicine, the per-employee cost rises less, to $23,151 in 10 years. The menu of restructuring factors recommended by the Business Roundtable would soften per-employee cost growth to an annual rate of

 

How to Engage with Grace – discuss your end-of-life plans with loved ones this Thanksgiving

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 26 November 2009 in Uncategorized

We count our blessings for which we are thankful this Thanksgiving weekend. Our health, our families, peace in our lives and around the globe…Health, yes, if we’re lucky. Now, think the unthinkable: some time, you’re going to get sick. Die, eventually.Now, ask yourself a few questions…Would you prefer to die at home or in the hospital? Who will advocate for you when that time comes?Do you have a living will? We who are engaged with Engaged with Grace ask you to not only get engaged yourself…but add this slide to the end of your presentations to spread this important message.Health

 

Making health insurance affordable is Americans' #1 health reform priority – but elders seek status quo

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 24 November 2009 in Uncategorized

8 in 10 Americans say making sure affordable health insurance plans are available is Job 1 for health reform. The November 2009 Kaiser Family Foundation Tracking Poll finds that affordability, insurance reform (especially coverage of pre-existing conditions), and managing the Federal deficit are top priorities for health reform across all Americans polled. Other reform elements favored by over 50% of Americans are subsidizing health insurance for uninsured who can’t afford it on their own (65%), and an individual mandate for health insurance (56%). Underneath these numbers are big differences between demographic groups–in particular, among those over 65 who seek to

 

Will Verizon be the New American Well?

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 24 November 2009 in Uncategorized

With the announcement of Verizon Connected Health Services, the telecommunications company is following on the pioneering work of Dr. Jay Sanders, arguably one of the godfathers of telemedicine, and the contemporary pioneer, American Well. Datamonitor predicts that the telehealth market will growth from $2.4 billion in 2009 to $6.1 bn in 2012. Verizon announced the program in a press release yesterday, which said that the business unit will focus on facilitating remote consultations and other programs like continuing medical education through a consultancy, “Telehealth Collaboration Services.” Verizon already has about 500 staff serving customers in the health vertical. Verizon says

 

The new normal: government and business are out of touch with how U.S. families live and work

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 23 November 2009 in Uncategorized

In 1975, nearly one-half of American families had a sole wage-earner who was a husband. In 2008, those traditional families numbered only one in 5.Today, one-half of American workers are women, and one in five is a single working parent. 4 in 10 mothers is the primary bread-winner in her family.The Shriver Report, a study penned by Maria Shriver and The Center for American Progress, paints the picture of women in contemporary American society — New Breadwinners, Immigrants, Spiritual, Sharing the Load. At the end, the report finds that employers’ and government agencies’ policies don’t match up with what women

 

Retail clinics, stalled in 2010, will grow to 2014

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 19 November 2009 in Uncategorized

Reports on the demise of the retail health clinic aren’t reading the tea leaves right, says Deloitte’s Center for Health Solutions.While total retail clinics in operation numbered just over 1,000 in 2009, with modest growth since 2007, Deloitte forecasts growth exceeding 3,000 clinics by 2014. MinuteClinic and Take Care make up 72% of clinic market share in the U.S. The remainder of the clinic market is quite fragmented, with Wal-Mart taking on a hybrid model (both operating and sharing operations with local health systems). The majority of clinics are co-located in pharmacies. What’s going to drive accelerating growth of retail

 

Global wellness strategies: the U.S. is unique, but all regions' businesses disconnect strategies from priorities

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 17 November 2009 in Uncategorized

Employers across the world recognize the value of employee health and well-being, both to their organizations and to their individual workers. Buck Consultants surveyed over 1,000 organizations in 45 countries and found that, globally, health promotion that focuses on worker productivity is spreading.However, employers in the United States have different priorities and perceived risks than businesses in other regions of the world.The report on the survey, Working Well: A Global Survey of Health Promotion and Workplace Wellness Strategies, spells out the differences between the U.S. and the ROW.The chart details the top 3 priorities among employers by region; in the

 

Technology can help providers deal with cuts in Medicare, but many still waiting-and-seeing

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 17 November 2009 in Uncategorized

Health providers believe they’ll need to make better use of technology to offset proposed cuts in Medicare reimbursement, according to a survey by IVANS.IVANS, the IT solutions provider, conducted this survey to gauge health providers’ perspectives on health reform and the impact of proposed Medicare cuts on operations.About 1 in 3 health providers views technology as a way to deal with downward trends in Medicare reimbursement, as the chart illustrates. Thus, providers are connecting the dots between the role of health care IT to reduce operating expenses, especially administrative costs.In the conclusion of its survey summary report, IVANS, which competes

 

Americans Want Prevention in Health Reform

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 16 November 2009 in Uncategorized

One of few health reform topics all Americans agree on is the issue of prevention. The majority of Democrats, Independents and Republicans rank prevention ahead of most other health reform initiatives, according to a survey conducted for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.The top health reform priority among Americans is insurance reform: specifically, prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage because of age, medical history, or pre-existing condition, scoring 7.9 out of 10 based on the survey methodology.In second place in the survey among Americans’ health reform priorities were to invest in more prevention to help people stay healthy, and to provide

 

Will the FDA support or inhibit participatory health care when it comes to social media?

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 13 November 2009 in Uncategorized

Yesterday and today, the FDA is listening to stakeholders at the nexus of social media and health relate their perspectives on the benefits of social media in health. The topic in its full title is “Promotion of FDA-Regulated Medical Products Using the Internet and Social Media Tools.” This is a long-anticipated meeting that’s discussing the benefits, drawbacks and true stories about the Internet in health — in particular, related to pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Full coverage online has been provided by igniteHealth, a health marketing agency, that’s tracking all tweets and presentations from the event. Representatives testified from a range

 

Cost-effectiveness is not a harbinger of rationing health care

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 12 November 2009 in Uncategorized

Health care cost increases in the U.S. are unsustainable; there is universal agreement among U.S. health care stakeholders on this point. The uber-objective of “bending the cost curve” is a major sticking-point with the House-passed health reform bill.Some see cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) as one viable approach to managing health cost growth in the U.S. CEA balances health benefits of different clinical interventions for a specific condition and compares each intervention to their costs. A report from the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF), Value Proposition: The Role of Cost-Effectiveness in Coverage Decisions, clearly explains CEA and offers recommendations on how the method

 

Hospitals focus on quality, experience, and empowerment in patient portals

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 11 November 2009 in Uncategorized

Hospitals generally see the value of patient portals. In these projects, their highest-value goals are improving the quality of health care, enhancing patient experiences, empowering health consumers, and personalizing information. Geonetric conducted their eHealth Insight survey in August 2009 to learn more about hospitals goals and priorities for patient-facing Internet portals. Over 60% of hospitals and clinics who responded to the survey understood the value of a patient portal. One in 4 respondents had already built such a portal, and one-third looked to develop one in the next year. Ironically, while goals for portals were highly consumer-focused, future functional priorities

 

Americans dying in hospitals cost more than those who are discharged, says AHRQ

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 11 November 2009 in Uncategorized

Some people believe they’re worth more dead than alive. When it comes to patient deaths in hospitals, that may indeed be the case. At least patients who die in hospitals cost more than inpatients who survive their stays. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), patient deaths in hospitals cost about $20 billion, based on AHRQ’s analysis of 765,651 hospital patient deaths in 2007. The average cost of a patient death in hospital was $26,035 over the course of 8.8 days. The average cost of an inpatient stay in 2007 was $9,447 generated over the course of

 

Still a long road to EHR implementation:in U.S. hospitals

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 9 November 2009 in Uncategorized

When it comes to the adoption of electronic health records, it’s good to be urban, large, and teach. According to the latest report on EHR adoption, Health Information Technology in the United States: On the Cusp of Change, 2009, fewer than 2% of American hospitals used a comprehensive electronic health record (EHR) in 2008, 7.6% had a “basic” EHR based on the definition generated by an expert panel conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Massachusetts General Hospital, and the George Washington University — the team that developed this full report on the state of EHRs in U.S. hospitals.The

 

America's primary health care backbone needs reinvestment and re-imagining

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 5 November 2009 in Uncategorized

59% of U.S. physicians say their patients have difficulty paying for health care and medicines. The foot soldiers of American health care are front-line primary care physicians (PCPs). Compared to their colleagues in ten other developed countries, American PCPs say their nation is far behind other countries’ health systems in at least three ways: Patients’ access to health care The use of financial incentives to improve quality The use of health information technology, where U.S. physicians say 46% of doctors use EMRs versus over 90% of doctors in Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the U.K. The

 

Americans want to use email for all sorts of health apps

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 5 November 2009 in Uncategorized

59% of Americans want to receive test results via email. 1 in 2 would like to use email to request prescription refills, confirming appointments, telling doctors about their conditions, and asking questions about new conditions. Email is now the preferred communications medium for consumers in health. Second to email, using doctors’ websites would also be welcomed by many health consumers, especially for prescriptions and appointments. Physicians’ websites are somewhat less desirable communications platforms for communicating about personal health conditions. It is still too early for consumers en masse to embrace text messaging in health. Women were more likely than men

 

CDHP and HDHP Plan Enrollment Still Tiny in 2009

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 4 November 2009 in Uncategorized

On one hand, it can be said that enrollment in consumer-directed and high-deductible health plans in 2009 grew by 33% in the past year. On the other hand, the total proportion of Americans enrolled in private plans who was in a CDHP or HDHP was 4%. While this represents growth by definition, it’s instructive to look at the chart and note that 34% of employers did not offer employees an HDHP or CDHP in 2009 — up from 28%. That is, substantially fewer employers offered a consumer-directed plan this year compared to the previous 3 years this survey has been

 

How do less empowered American health citizens get through the flu season?

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 3 November 2009 in Uncategorized

As I nurse my flu symptoms, I’m struck in real-time by being a sick patient in a sick health system. Last Friday 30th October, I was suffering classic flu symptoms and after 2 days of trying to muddle through with home remedies, homeopathic products and OTCs, I contacted my doctor’s office first thing in the morning. I was told that my doctor was out for the day, and was referred to another physician in the practice. By noon, that doctor had phoned in a prescription for Tamiflu to my pharmacy. The office told me to follow up with my doctor

 

In 14 states, over 1 in 5 women is uninsured

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 2 November 2009 in Uncategorized

Between 2007 and 2008, 18% of American women between 18 and 64 years of age were uninsured. 1 in 10 women in this age group were enrolled in Medicaid. Two-thirds of women were covered by either employer-sponsored plans or public insurance such as Medicare and military-related plans, or ESI (employer-sponsored insurance). Kaiser Family Foundation has published the latest data from the Urban Institute which pooled 2008 and 2009 iterations of the Current Population Surveys, based on the March 2009 Survey from the Bureau of the Census. The proportion of women covered by employer-sponsored insurance varies substantially across the 50 United

 

Opening access to primary care, IBM drops copays

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 29 October 2009 in Uncategorized

IBM is dropping the $20 co-payment for employees’ visits to primary care doctors. The Wall Street Journal covers this story today. The “no co-pay” scheme will cover employees enrolled in IBM’s self-insured health plan — excluding workers enrolled in HMOs. Overall, IBM has 115,000 employees and spends $1.3 billion on health care. The WSJ quotes SVP of IBM’s human resources Randy MacDonald, who said that emphasizing primary care is part of an overall “wellness” strategy that tries to keep costs low by preventing illness. Health Populi’s Hot Points: The data point of one U.S. company dropping a $20 payment for

 

Web-based health programs can save money and improve outcomes

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 28 October 2009 in Uncategorized

There’s more evidence that linking patients online to targeted programs that help them manage chronic conditions not only results in better patient outcomes — the process results in lowering costs for care. The DASH for Health program is an online tool that helps health consumers change nutrition and exercise behaviors. A pilot program to test the cost-effectiveness of DASH was offered by EMC Corporation, an employer based in Massachusetts, to its employees as a free, opt-in benefit. Data generated through employees’ use of the program was gathered and analyzed by researchers from Boston University’s Schools of Medicine and Public Health.

 

Small business is the working poor in U.S. industry

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 26 October 2009 in Uncategorized

Small business is the working poor of American industry when it comes to health insurance access: they simply cannot afford to pay for it. This means that workers in small businesses — which is where most new jobs are created — probably won’t have access to health insurance at work. Workers who don’t receive health coverage from employers are unlikely to get coverage on the individual market or from any other source, according to Insurance at Risk: Small Business Employees Risk Losing Coverage. This report was compiled by a team from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), synthesizing

 

Can Medicaid absorb the newly-uninsured?

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 23 October 2009 in Uncategorized

Over one-quarter of a million jobs were lost in the U.S. in September 2009. Because unemployment quickly morphs into uninsurance, a question for the 263,000 workers and their families is: “Will Medicaid be able to cover me and my family if I cannot afford COBRA?” There are three pieces of arithmetic that can help us connect the dots to answer this question: 1. On average, the monthly cost of COBRA consumes 84% of the average monthly unemployment payment in the U.S. The ARRA stimulus package included a 65% subsidy to help newly-laid off people pay for COBRA if they elected

 

The state of U.S. health care quality is flat – and varies across America

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 22 October 2009 in Uncategorized

Managing health care costs and achieving a high quality health system aren’t parallel goals – they’re inter-related and two sides of one coin. Adding more enrollees to existing poorly integrated health delivery organizations will simply increase costs while delivering sub-optimal outcomes to patients. In its 13th annual report card on the U.S. health system, the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA)’s The State of Health Care Quality 2009 adds more statistical evidence to the argument for health reform in America. 2009 has seen “meager progress” according to the President of NCQA, Margaret O’Kane. In her introduction to the report, O’Kane

 

The New Era of Participatory Medicine and Connected Health: building the evidence base

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 21 October 2009 in Uncategorized

Today marks the launch of the Journal of Participatory Medicine. The inaugural issue coincides with the kickoff of the Connected Health symposium today in Boston. In the first issue of the Journal, Esther Dyson asks and answers the question, “Why Participatory Medicine?” She talks about the need for evidence that demonstrates what works in collaborative health care. “We are just at the beginning,” Esther says, “not of a brave new experiment that could end in disaster, but of multiple experiments, by thousands and ultimately millions of people, with variations in every parameter imaginable.” Thoughtful perspectives are offered through the lenses

 

Internet use among the elderly reduces depression

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 19 October 2009 in Uncategorized

Use of the Internet by older Americans leads to a reduction in the prevalence of depression, according to a study published by the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies. This research highlights the macro-benefit of deploying broadband to all health citizens. Internet Use and Depression Among the Elderly analyzed a data sample of 7,000 Americans age 55 and older from the University of Michigan’s Health and Retirement Study household survey. This survey instrument polls over 22,000 older Americans every two years. The data used by Dr. George S. Ford and Dr. Sherry G. Ford in the

 

From Here to Maternity: How to Effectively Market Health Services Online

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 15 October 2009 in Uncategorized

The proliferation of health care report cards has not seen an uptake by the majority of health citizens in the U.S. In fact, there are more than 200 health quality ratings programs accounted for by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), yet few consumers use them to make choices about providers or health services.Since maternity services are among the most consumer-facing health services that people might use in the course of their lifetime, the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) wondered how to “nudge” people to use quality ratings to inform their choices. The Issue Brief, From Here to Maternity:

 

Revisiting NPR’s story on "Modern Patients" driving up health costs; time for the Journal of Participatory Medicine

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 13 October 2009 in Uncategorized

NPR featured a story called, “How the Modern Patient Drives Up Health Care Costs” on October 12, 2009. The theme connected dots between so-called consumer-driven health care and patients who demand the latest in health technology which may not be appropriate or even useful, thus driving up costs unnecessarily. NPR attributes three driving forces in building The Modern Patient: 1. Direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription drugs, beginning in the middle-1980s; this exposed health citizens to medication names and conditions which motivated some consumers to ask for specific medications and question physicians’ choice of other meds. 2. The adoption of the Internet,

 

Americans are spending more for health care and getting less, says Consumers Union

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 8 October 2009 in Uncategorized

More consumers are cutting back on health care, according to a survey from Consumers Union.CU is the organization that helps Americans seek the best buys in cars, computers, and home theatres. They’re also growinug their opinion base in the health care market, oping on everything from “Best Buy Drugs” to health plan quality.Now, CU is the latest organization coming out in favor of a health care overhaul. In a poll conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center, CU concludes that, “Americans are paying more for less health care.”Here are a few of their findings that deonstrate a declining value-for-money

 

Consumers and online health information aggregators: whose missing from this picture?

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 7 October 2009 in Uncategorized

Today I’m at the Health 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, where I’ll be moderating a panel of the “consumer aggregators” in health care. “Say what?” those of you who don’t speak Health 2.0? Consumer aggregators are the places online where lots of health citizens go en masse for health information, support, advice, and tools. Today’s panel brings Google Health, Microsoft and WebMD together to talk about trends in health care consumers online. I’ll set the context describing the “N” of health citizens going online using data from the 9th Cybercitizen Health Study from Manhattan Research coupled with Susannah Fox’s data

 

Kicking off the Health 2.0 Conference: Keas Makes the New York Times

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 6 October 2009 in Uncategorized

A New Tool to Take Care of Your Life is an article in today’s New York Times written by Steve Lohr. The article features Keas, Adam Bosworth’s start-up that empowers people to intimately, actively participate in managing their own health. This is significant because (1) a start-up Health 2.0 company is prominently featured on the front page of the NYT’s Business Day section, and (2) Keas is off the ground. Welcome to The Health 2.0 Conference, version 3.0, number 5. The initial conference (known on Twitter as #health2con) was held in San Francisco in October 2007. Two years later, at

 

Most American adults are ePatients

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 5 October 2009 in Uncategorized

The number of Americans seeking health information online reached 157.5 million people — 1.6 times the number of online health seekers found in 2005. The number of Americans seeking online information about prescription drugs grew to 102.3 million people — double the number of Americans researching Rx’s online in 2005.Manhattan Research’s 9th and latest Cybercitizen Health survey, released on October 2, 2009, firmly establishes the fact that mainstream Americans are becoming ePatients. These findings support what Susannah Fox found earlier this year in her Pew Internet & American Life survey, The Social Life of Health Information. That poll estimated that

 

The importance of data liquidity – PwC's report on transforming health through data

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 2 October 2009 in Uncategorized

It’s not the data, stupid; it’s what you do with it. That’s the value of investing in health information technology. The end-game is data liquidity. Or, put more elegantly by Dr. Charles Kennedy of Wellpoint, “Taking data from a system – a piece of data from system A to system B – is very analogous to a transaction, and that’s really not where we need to go. Where we need to go is to repurpose raw clinical transactional data into an electronic understanding of the patient that easily and quickly allows doctors and patients to make ideal care management decisions.”

 

Americans believe in health information technology

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 1 October 2009 in Uncategorized

Health information technology (HIT) will prove positive for health quality and expanded access to health care, according to 3 in 4 American adults. 64% of Americans believe HIT implementation will help to reduce health care costs.A poll supported by the Career College Association and TechAmerica found broad-based support for HIT. While many health reform alternatives appear to be splitting American sentiment, HIT seems to be a unifying force for health improvement in the U.S.The positive sentiment toward HIT crosses age, gender, and socioeconomic status. Most health citizens see HIT as a personal health enabler, as well: 3 in 5 Americans

 

Americans Are Limiting Visits to PCPs, Dentists and Eye Doctors

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 30 September 2009 in Uncategorized

Primary care and illness prevention are victims of the recession. The recession is causing Americans to delay visits to primary care providers including physicians, dentists and eye doctors. The American Optometric Association’s fourth annual American Eye-Q survey focuses primarily on eye health, but dives into a range of preventive health issues as well. The key finding for Health Populi readers is that preventive health is getting short shrift due to the recession. Americans worry most about losing their vision (43%), losing their memory (32%) and their ability to walk (12%). Women (38%) tend to limit visits to practitioners more than

 

Health costs per employee will be $28,530 in 2019

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 28 September 2009 in Uncategorized

Today the cost of health for each health-insured employee in the U.S. is $10,743. In 10 years, the cost will nearly triple to $28,530, if the status quo continues. The status quo here is a 10.2% average annual rate of health cost increase, which was the rate experienced between 2001 and 2009. Hewitt has worked with the Business Roundtable analyzing the ‘costs of inaction’ relating to health reform. They asked the unthinkable question: ‘what if the U.S. does nothing to change the health system?”The report bears the yin/yang title, The Perils of Inaction and the Promise of Effective Action, with

 

It's time for a chronic care bailout

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 24 September 2009 in Uncategorized

The Federal government spent $600 billion on chronic care through Medicare and Medicaid last year. They spent about $700 billion on the banking bailout. Overall, the U.S. allocates 75% of health spending each year toward chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and asthma. How can we get to a chronic care bailout? Read my column in today’s Kaiser Health News to learn more about how we got here, and how we can bend the health cost curve by focusing on reengineering how we pay for chronic care. Health Populi’s Hot Points: The answer is…global payments. Read more on KHN, keeping

 

$1 in $3 in health spending goes to clinical waste

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 23 September 2009 in Uncategorized

In a meeting yesterday in Boston, I was reminded by the CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Cleve Killingsworth, the great work of the New England Healthcare Institute (NEHI) on clinical waste. NEHI’s magnum opus on clinical waste shines a light on hundreds of studies which illustrate standards of care that, goether, could eliminate the 30% of health spending that is clinically wasteful and often deleterious to Americans’ health. These include using beta-blockers for patients with high blood pressure, measuring hemoglobin A1c for diabetics, among the many other evidence-based health tactics. The definition of “clinical waste” =

 

Most Americans are dazed and confused about health reform

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 21 September 2009 in Uncategorized

While President Obama has spoken more in public about health reform than any other topic in his tenure as president to-date, and health care is a much-covered subject in mass media outlets, most Americans remain confused about the President’s health plan. Ironically, the wealthy support the plan more than people with lower incomes. Yet the President’s plan provides for universal coverage and a public option designed, in theory, to promote competition and lower costs to health citizens. Only 1 in 3 Americans say they understand the plan, according to a poll from Siegel+Gale conducted online by WEGO Health the weekend

 

9 in 10 employers will reduce benefits if health reform increases their costs

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 18 September 2009 in Uncategorized

It’s cost above everything when it comes to U.S. employers and health reform.Employers are key stakeholders in health reform, and 80% say they’re closely watching Congress’s movements on the subject. 9 in 10 employers say that if the final health plan passed increases their costs, they’ll likely reduce benefits to employees.In addition, 4 in 10 businesses would pass increased health care costs onto their customers in the form of higher prices, and 3 would reduce jobs as well as reduce compensation to workers.The Towers Perrin Health Care Reform Pulse Survey was conducted online in July 2009 among 433 human resource

 

While health plans are blamed for health system ills, Americans still confused about the public plan option

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 16 September 2009 in Uncategorized

Health plans and pharmaceutical companies at most to blame for the problems facing the U.S. health system, according to Americans surveyed in the latest Harris Poll. But while 9 in 10 Americans blame health insurers, and 8 in 10 blame pharmas, there’s also plenty of blame to go around to politicians on both sides of the aisle, business, hospitals, and doctors. These health care players, however, don’t deserve as much blame — not the ‘great deal of blame’ that most Americans ascribe to either health insurers or drug companies. Least to blame, according to the Poll? Presidents Clinton and Obama.

 

Health care is the core civil rights issue of our time

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 15 September 2009 in Uncategorized

Without health insurance, too many sick kids can’t attend school, learn, and get themselves out of poverty. Without health insurance, a single mother with kids can’t get the job she needs to pay taxes, take care of her kids, and give them a role model whom her daughters can emulate. Without health care insurance, Americans lose their economic security. That was the message of Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Council on Civil Rights. He spoke at a plenary session of the annual meeting of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) today, on a panel dealing with the

 

Americans feel dis-empowered when it comes to health information technology

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 14 September 2009 in Uncategorized

“It should be done in the beginning. We should be in the design. I want to know from the get-go.” “I think by the time you’re getting involved in the process, it’s already leaped over you and gone down the highway, and you’re behind.” “We all know that it is going to steamroll over all of us.” These three comments represent the continuum of consumer perspectives on health IT design. These real-life statements come out of the results of 20 focus groups conducted by the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality on the topic of Consumer Engagement in Development

 

Health plan illiteracy has morphed into health reform illiteracy

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 11 September 2009 in Uncategorized

Most Americans with health insurance say the health system works for ‘me.’ On the other hand, these same health citizens don’t really understand how their health plans work. As a corollary, they don’t really ‘get’ the fundamental issues of health reform, either. CIGNA surveyed 1,001 American adults in July 2009 in conjunction with its online educational portal, learn4yourhealth.The health plan found that: – 79% of Americans with health insurance say the current system “works for them.” – Most Americans understand their mortgages, cell phones, cable TV, retirement plans, and car warranties ahead of understand their health plan. – Most Americans

 

The Ballad of President Obama, inspired by the Beatles – the long version

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 10 September 2009 in Uncategorized

The abbreviated version of this Ballad appeared in today’s Washington Post’s Healthcare Rx panel. This original version was too long for the site, so I’m posting here in Health Populi for those of you die-hard Beatles and health reform fans…enjoy! Good morning, good morning. I want to tell you that I find myself in a mash-up this week of health politics and The Beatles….please, please me by indulging me in my recap of President Obama’s speech through the lens of The Beatles, remastered… Yesterday, I saw him standing there, in the joint session of Congress, where I saw more than

 

Trust, control, simplicity, playfulness, and trading down – the new consumer paradigm and what it means for health

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 8 September 2009 in Uncategorized

The health industry should pay attention to Mintel’s latest insights into consumers’ mindsets. The long and winding downturn in the economy has inspired five consumer trends… Trust. With FDA recalls of sick food, banks’ lack of liquidity for consumer lending, and governments the world over breaking faith with citizens, peoples’ trust in institutions continues to erode. 66% of Americans say they have less trust in financial services companies due to the economy. 6 in 10 Americans continue to worry about food safety. Control. Among the most affluent Americans, 2 in 5 say that spending less will become their new household

 

The burden of disease in the U.S. is a drain on the fiscal health of the nation

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 3 September 2009 in Uncategorized

The total drain on the U.S. GDP for eleven of the most prominent chronic health conditions is over $1 trillion annually.The other side of that coin is that by improving treatment and earlier diagnosis of these conditions, productivity, tax revenues and GDP could grow. The Burden of Disease: The Economic Case for Investment in Quality Improvement and Medical Progress from United Bioscience’s Center for Health Economics and Science Policy looks at 11 chronic and 2 acute conditions and quantifies the cost to the U.S. economy. The chart illustrates the upper end of the costs that the Center found, based on

 

How to bend the health cost curve in 4 simple steps, according to 10 very smart people

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 2 September 2009 in Uncategorized

There are four pillars that, together, provide the foundation to Bending the Curve on health costs in the U.S.: 1. Invest in better information and tools (including incentives and comparative effectiveness). 2. Transition to accountable payment systems that reward lower-cost, higher quality care (i.e., make fee-for-service ‘less attractive over time’). 3. Restructure insurance markets to pool risk outside of employment and promote on quality and cost (including scaling back employer subsidies in favor of value-based benefit design). 4. Support and encourage better choices among health citizens (e.g., nudge through copays and tiering and measure outcomes along the way). Bending the

 

You can't address what you don't effectively measure: IOM's recommendations on the role of standardizing data for health disparities

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 1 September 2009 in Uncategorized

Health disparities persist in the U.S., notwithstanding the fact that America spends more per capita and in aggregate than any other nation on the planet.An example of a health disparity is that in the U.S., patients receive needed care less than 60% of the time. For example, in 2005, African-American women were 10% less likely to have been diagnosed with breast cancer, however, they were 34% more likely to die from breast cancer compared to non-Hispanic white women, according to The Office of Minority Health in the US Dept. of Health and Human Services. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) finds

 

Conflicting evidence on consumers' confidence in health spending

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 31 August 2009 in Uncategorized

Americans’ confidence in health care is up, according to Thomson Reuters’ latest Healthcare Indexes: Consumer Confidence. Overall, Thomson Reuters finds that healthcare confidence rose 12% between March and July 2009.Americans’ confidence in their ability to pay for health care in the “next three months” increased by 18% in the four month period. Furthermore, more Americans believe they’ll be able to access necesary health services such as routine and urgent care in the next 3 months.Healthcare confidence is highest amongst the population over 65, and lowest in the youngest age cohort. Health confidence increases with income and education, although significantly increased

 

Americans' worries about paying for future health costs are rising

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 28 August 2009 in Uncategorized

Americans are growing increasingly concerned about covering health care costs in the future. Those people age 55-64 are most concerned, with rising concerns among seniors. Furthermore, women are more concerned about health costs (recent and future) than men, as are people with lower education, income, and fair or poor health status. Not surprisingly, uninsured people had the lowest health care consumer confidence in July 2009. Those are the bottom-lines of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Care Consumer Confidence Index (RWJF Index), just published for July 2009. The Index measures how U.S. adults feel about their financial access to health

 

Edward Moore Kennedy, Friend of Health for All: Peace be with you

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 27 August 2009 in Uncategorized

“The cause of my life,” he said, was health care ensured for all Americans. His health care legislative passion began in 1966 as he learned about the challenges facing Boston residents in public housing and their lack of access to health care. These residents were meant to receive health care at the city’s teaching hospitals, which were located some four miles away from the housing project. This distance and the logistics within the hospitals and clinics took some of the residents many hours to access care. Since then, there’s a long list of health care legislation that Senator Kennedy shepherded

 

Health plan cost trend will increase over 13% in 2010, 4x the annual American worker's wage increase

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 26 August 2009 in Uncategorized

Health plan cost trends will increase more than four times more than the annual increase in the average hourly wage of American workers in 2010. It’s the same ol’ song into 2010 as health cost trends for plans will see double-digit increases as high as 13.3% for fee-for-service (FFS) plans. Even the most tightly managed plans in HMOs expect over 10% cost trend in 2010. Prescription drug cost trend will be moderately bent back, with drug plans expected to increase by an average of 9.1% for retail. This is a drop from 2009, when Rx trend costs at retail rose

 

The risks of leaving Quality out of health reform

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 24 August 2009 in Uncategorized

There is no hard evidence supporting that health care delivered in the U.S. is “truly exceptional,” according to an analysis of available quantitative sources on health quality from the Urban Institute.The issue of access barriers to health care is given some deep consideration. The U.S. is one of three countries which has a ‘sizable’ portion of citizens lacking health insurance coverage, along with Mexico and Turkey. For many quality measures, the report finds, “quality and access are intrinsically linked.”Specifically, both uninsurance and under-insurance can lead to health consumers skipping medicines, suggested lab tests, and appointments with physicians — due to

 

Ads and town hall acrimony contribute to waning support for health reform

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 21 August 2009 in Uncategorized

53% of Americans believe that health reform is more important than ever to take on at this moment in U.S. history — a percentage that has eroded from a majority of 62% in October 2008 (pre-Presidential election). At the same time, those Americans who say that we can’t afford to take on health reform right now grew from 34% to 42% between October ’08 and August ’09. According to the August 2009 Health Tracking Poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), the decline in support for health reform comes from “all parts of hte political spectrum,” with Independents’ support fairly

 

Health providers likely to experience slower economic recovery as recession bottoms out

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 19 August 2009 in Uncategorized

Some hospitals’ margins improved in the first quarter of 2009 according to data from Thomson Reuters. However, Fitch and Moody’s, the credit ratings agencies, expect continued declines through 2009.Thomson Reuters does report that while total margin improved for all types of hospitals, there was a wide variation in Q1 of 2009. Compare the top quartile, bringing at least 7% margins, versus the bottom quartile, reporting total margins of -1% or less. Smaller and larger community hospitals had the largest margins, and major teaching hospitals among the lowest margins.In August 2009, Moody’s finds that most U.S. hospitals are still experiencing declines

 

Health reform and the Great Recession: an RWJF conversation with stakeholders

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 18 August 2009 in Uncategorized

Health care in the U.S. is directly shaped, financed and delivered in the context of the national economy. The recession in America impacts health care in many ways that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) recently explored in an off-the-record meeting in June 2009 including representatives from health care, the public sector, business, insurance, policy and research. The results of this meeting are synthesized in an issue brief from RWJF, Impact of the Economy on Health Care, published in August 2009. This report describes the economy’s impact on the structure of health delivery, providers, public health, and utilization. Insurance coverage.

 

People without a connection to a primary care doctor don’t proactively manage health

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 17 August 2009 in Prevention and wellness, Primary care, Uncategorized

The relationship between patients and their physicians is a key driver in how and if people proactively manage their health. But cost often gets in the way of that relationship between a patient-consumer and a primary care doctor. The #1 reason why Americans deter proactive health care is cost. No American, whether insured and unemployed or working and covered, is immune from postponing or otherwise actively managing care when they are still well, according to a survey from IBM on health consumers in the U.S. 55% of Americans say they can’t afford the cost of wellness visits out-of-pocket. This is

 

Living well, the best revenge: the 4 keys to avoiding chronic disease

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 14 August 2009 in Uncategorized

The four ‘health don’ts’ are never to smoke, lose weight, move around, and eat well.A new study, Healthy Living is the Best Revenge, appears in the August 10/24 2009 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine which addresses the roots of chronic disease. The researchers, a cross-Atlantic team from the CDC and the German Institute of Human Nutrition, find that the four ‘don’ts’ lead to a reduced incidence of cancer, heart disease and diabetes. The four specific statistics that lead to better health are: Body Mass Index (BMI) less than 30 3.5 hours a week of exercise, minimum Never smoking

 

Health reform poll fever; and a cure from Blendon and Benson

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 13 August 2009 in Uncategorized

If you read Health Populi then you’re as confounded as I am by the plethora of polls on Americans’ views on health reform. In the past month, I have received a press release (or two or three) from Rasmussen, ABC-Washington Post, CBS-NY Times, Fox News, Gallup-USA Today, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Kaiser Family Foundation, NBC-Wall Street Journal, NPR, Pew, and Quinnipiac, among other pollsters, measuring the changing temperature of Americans on health reform.I’ve wrestled with how to handle the conflicting, confounding, wide-ranging statistics yielded by these surveys. My solution to this challenge comes tailor-made in this week’s New England Journal

 

Physicians most challenged by money problems in 2009

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 12 August 2009 in Uncategorized

Money and modernization are the roots of the main challenges facing physicians in 2009. Among the top ten most challenging issues facing American doctors, 7 in 10 directly involve economics, two involve data and reporting, and one–recruiting physicians–fell two places since last year’s survey.According to the 2009 survey of physicians by the Medical Group Management Association, physicians are most concerned with: Dealing with operating costs increasing faster than practice revenues, Maintaining income as reimbursement is declining, and Selecting and implementing an electronic health records (EHR) system. Medical Practice Today, 2009 details the results of MGMA’s survey of 2,007 physicians conducted

 

The challenge of putting the patient at the center of health reform while controlling costs

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 11 August 2009 in Uncategorized

Today’s Los Angeles Times features a story in their health beat called, “In healthcare debate, ‘reality’ is in dispute.” All-comers have arrived on the ever-more populated health reform opinion stage, from Sarah Palin (calling President Obama’s plan “downright evil”) to Nancy Pelosi calling town hall protestors “unAmerican.” To counter the disses and naysayers, the White House has put online its own reality-checking website at http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/. Two perspectives must tether said ‘reality’ and our underlying principles for health reform: putting and keeping the patient/citizen in the center, and getting real about health care costs. Well-timed and highly relevant as usual, the

 

Health reform shouldn't add to the deficit, most Americans say, as support erodes

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 6 August 2009 in Uncategorized

It’s still all-economy, all-the-time for most Americans in August 2009. When it comes to health reform plans, if a new scheme’s costs will add to the U.S. deficit, then most Americans say, ‘no go.’ In the Quinnipiac Poll of August 5 2009, 55% of U.S. voters were concerned that Congress’s health plan would add to the deficit, and 57% said that health reform should not go forward if a plan adds “significantly” to the deficit. Still, there are areas of agreement within the voting public: 2 in 3 Americans like the option of a government insurance plan 61% of Americans

 

The doubling of depression meds, and hope in web and mobile platforms for talk therapy

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 4 August 2009 in Uncategorized

The use of anti-depressant medications nearly doubled between 1996 and 2005, according to an analysis published in the August issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry. In 2005, 10.1% of Americans used anti-depressant meds, compared with 5.8% in 1996. A key trend underneath the dramatically increased use of anti-depressant meds was the decline in talk therapy (psychotherapy). Nearly 1 in 3 people who used anti-depressants in 1996 were engaged in psychotherapy, but in 2005, only 1 in 5 participated in talk therapy. Researchers used data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ’s) Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys (MEPS), which

 

Health and prevention are in green grocers, jungle gyms, and walkable towns

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 3 August 2009 in Uncategorized

A health reform bill coming out of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension (HELP) Committee includes a few billion dollars for health prevention. The bill will, “pave sidewalks, build jungle gyms and open grocery stores, but it won’t bring down health care costs or make quality coverage more affordable,” Senator Michael Enzi (R-WY) told the press. But paving sidewalks for sedentary Americans to walk on, building jungle gyms for overweight kids to play on, and adding greengrocers to urban centers would go a long way to improving health and health care in the U.S. The HELP bill has earmarked

 

Electronics and cameras are more innovative than pharmaceuticals, according to most Americans

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 31 July 2009 in Uncategorized

iPods and iPhones, Flip videos and pocket-sized digital cameras are way-cool and innovative. Pharmaceuticals? Not so much. According to Ipsos’s survey into global consumers’ perceptions of what’s innovative, the top which at least 1 in 2 Americans find innovative are electronic media, computers, cameras and video equipment. Household products are ranked innovative by about 1 in 3 Americans. Pharmaceuticals? Fewer than 1 in 3 Americans. In fact, pharmaceuticals are pretty close in terms of innovation in the mind of consumers falling between household products and food and beverages. The good news for pharma? Banks and deodorant are seen as less

 

Are health info seekers sharing less with doctors?

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 29 July 2009 in Uncategorized

“Internet provides public with health care information that they value and trust and which often stimulates discussion with their doctors,” concludes the latest Harris Poll into cyberchondria, a term that the organization began using in 2002. But Harris Poll’s survey yields a different conclusion for me that I think is a sign of the times: the proportion of health info seekers sharing information with physicians is declining. Take a look at the graph that I constructed from Harris’s data asking the question, “In the past year, have you ever discussed with your doctor the information you found online?” The propotion

 

Beyond the pill – comparative-effectiveness is about people, too

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 28 July 2009 in Uncategorized

Comparative-effectiveness is a cornerstone in President Obama’s vision of health reform, and is a component of the ARRA stimulus package. But if it’s just about a pill-to-pill comparison, it won’t do Americans’ public health much good.In an insightful perspective in the July 23rd 2009 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Kevin Volpp and Anup Das of the University of Pennsylvania urge us to, “think beyond Medication A versus Medication B.”Diving deep into the example of smoking cessation – still a major public health challenge in the U.S. – the researchers compare the odds ratios of various quit-smoking

 

More costs, less filling: health care coverage and the middle class

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 27 July 2009 in Uncategorized

Middle-class Americans – those with incomes from $44,000 to $88,000 — face mounting out-of-pocket costs that are eroding household disposable income available for food, shelter, and energy line items.While most of the uninsured are from lower-income families, 11 million of the uninsured live in middle class working families. Most of the growth of the uninsured between 2004 and 2007 — 70% — is in the middle class. The chart tells the tale: the gap between health premium increases and workers’ wages continues to widen, making health insurance unaffordable for more working families. Health Care and the Middle Class: More Costs

 

American Support for Health Reform Erodes a Bit; "Sin Taxes" Are Among Favorite Tax Proposals

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 24 July 2009 in Uncategorized

In October 2008, about one month before the presidential election, 62% of Americans said it was “more important than ever to take on health care reform.” By July 2009, 56% of Americans agreed with that statement.Thus, more than one-half of Americans still believe in passing health reform in 2009, although the majority is somewhat eroding. The Kaiser Health Tracking Poll of July 2009 from the Kaiser Family Foundation continues to monitor Americans’ collective temperature on issues shaping health reform.Still, twice as many Americans say that the U.S. will be better off than worse off if Congress passes health reform —

 

Health engagement is a key driver to accessing health care

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 23 July 2009 in Uncategorized

How to “widen the front door to health care?” asks PricewaterhouseCoopers in a report on alternatives to universal coverage.PwC describes the crisis of U.S. health care as having “jammed access.” Their multi-pronged solution includes getting efficient, innovating with new care models, aligning incentives, and greater teamwork among providers.PwC points to the emergency department as the most jammed entry point in the U.S. health system, noting that health citizens having trouble accessing providers – primary care, specialists and mental health providers alike.But this isn’t just a supply-side problem: it’s also about patient engagement before people get sick, as the chart above

 

A shaky foundation beneath 'rising health confidence'

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 22 July 2009 in Uncategorized

4 in 5 Americans believe that it is important for President Obama to include health reform in addressing the economic crisis in the U.S., according to The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Care Consumer Confidence Index based on data gathered in June 2009.While the mass media headlines on this survey in the past 24 hours have generally been, “health confidence is rising in America,” the data underneath this pronouncement is not nearly as sanguine as that headline implies. Women, people with lower health status, less education, and Baby Boomers of pre-retirement age are most likely to feel “health insecure” according

 

Employers like health care status quo, with more consumer-directed and evidence-based care

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 21 July 2009 in Uncategorized

Notwithstanding a weak economy and global competitive pressures on U.S. business, American employers prefer a status quo scenario with a complement of wellness, chronic care management and evidence-based care combined with greater consumer-direction in the form of tax credits to buy private health insurance.Aon Consulting surveyed 1,100 employers in June 2009 and found that 93% of employer benefits managers favor continuing with an employer-based health care system. At the same time, 81% reject a Canadian-style national health plan replacing the current system. And two-thirds of employers oppose an employer mandate.According to Aon Consulting’s Health Care Reform Survey Report, the top

 

Health care and insurance are local: a pace-of-change uninsurance report from Families USA

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 20 July 2009 in Uncategorized

The news that Michigan’s unemployment rate passed 15% ushers in the next depressing phase of joblessness in America. As of mid-July 2009, 15 states have unemployment rates of 10% or higher. In the U.S., unemployment quickly leads to uninsurance. According to The Clock is Ticking: More Americans Losing Health Coverage, 44,230 more people are losing health coverage every week. This report, published by Families USA in July 2009, provides state-by-state statistics of unemployment. By detailing state-specific insurance losses on a weekly, monthly and annual basis, the report provides a pace-of-change profile of health care as a local phenomenon. The data

 

Is health care a human right? A rift between women and citizens of the world vs. "Americans"

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 17 July 2009 in Uncategorized

53.1% of Americans believe that health care is a human right, according to a poll from Zogby International done in June 2009.This was one of a very long list of questions Zogby asked Americans during the week of 6/18 through 6/22/09. I’ve waded through 242 pages of a PDF file available from Zogby describing every kind of permutation of feeling among Americans and health reform. Zogby explored how Americans view employer mandates for health insurance, tax proposals for levying a tax on households earning $250K and over, capping prescription drug prices, cutting costs for home care, among many other tactics.Of

 

Econo-chondria or empowerment? The role of the Internet in the recession

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 16 July 2009 in Uncategorized

“This is the most significant economic crisis in the Internet era and a unique period of information seeking and communication.” This sentence sets the stage for the latest report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project which finds that 2 in 3 Americans have used the Internet in the past year to cope with the recession. Pew calls this 69% of Americans, “online economic users.” If information is power, then the Internet is providing Americans with the ammunition to deal with both personal financial challenges as well as general understanding of the economic downturn. The most important searches online

 

Environmental factors and food are compromising kids' health

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 14 July 2009 in Uncategorized

A snapshot of children’s health in America would reveal what all snapshots do: positive and negative spaces.On the positive side of the kids’ health ledger, the percent of children covered by health insurance increased from 87% in 2007 to 89% in 2008. Furthermore, the number of kids receiving recommended vaccines increased since 2002. And, heavy drinking among kids is down. On the downside, environmental hazards are increasingly compromising kids’ health. First, the proportion of children living in counties in which one or more air pollutants were above allowable levels has grown. Second, housing problems have dramatically grown: in 2007, 43%

 

As employers' health costs will grow 9% in 2010, the gap in employee wages vs. health costs will widen

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 14 July 2009 in Uncategorized

Health care costs for employers who cover health insurance for workers will increase 9% in 2010 — well ahead of general price inflation and workers’ earnings. However, the recession will, “temper medical costs,” according to PricewaterhouseCoopers‘ Behind the numbers: Medical cost trends for 2010. With employers — that is, business and profits — taking it on the chin in 2009, employees can expect even greater cost burdens for health benefits in 2010, PwC says. 42% of employers will increase employees’ contributions to benefits, and 41% will also increase medical cost sharing. At the same time, over 2 in 3 employers

 

Hospitals ration spending on health IT in the downturn

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 13 July 2009 in Uncategorized

Notwithstanding the promise of nearly $20 billion in stimulus funding to support the adoption of electronic health records, hospitals are between a rock and a hard place when it comes to laying out capital for HIT investments. Based on the latest Most Wired Hospitals survey, even the Most Wired among American hospitals have had to suspend and/or cut back planned HIT projects. Where they can calculate an ROI, hospitals are focusing on projects with higher rates of return. As I opined in my write-up for iHealthBeat on the 2009 HIMSS conference, Connectedness, Communities, Capital: Putting HITECH in Context, this year,

 

User generated health content is useful, according to most Americans

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 9 July 2009 in Uncategorized

55% of Americans search user-generated health content, including: 36% who look for health information on Wikipedia 36% who read online health forums and message boards 27% who read health blogs. The content is useful, too: 57% of people who used it said their online searching led to productive conversations with their physicians. So finds the survey on Consumer Reaction to DTC Advertising of Prescription Drugs, the 12th annual study from Rodale‘s publications Prevention, Men’s Health and Women’s Health magazines. The Food and Drug Administration’s Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising, and Communication (DDMAC) also provides technical support for this study. The

 

Walmart may support comprehensive health reform, but not all employers do

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 7 July 2009 in Uncategorized

Most employers aren’t in a hurry to rush Big Health Reform, according to a survey from Mercer, the benefits consultants. Walmart is the exception, only one of the 11% of employers who support broad-based reform, based on the company’s statement of July 1, 2009.Walmart surprised many analysts with its strong endorsement of Big Reform, which began, As health care reform enters the next phase, we came together at this point in the debate to add our combined voices to the momentum building behind reform. We believe the time for comprehensive reform is now. The present system is not sustainable. The

 

Are Americans willing to pay for health reform? It depends how you put it…

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 2 July 2009 in Uncategorized

There are many surveys that are looking at whether Americans are willing to pay for health reforms: in particular, to cover the uninsured. This is a conceptual question: we don’t really know how people will really feel once they are mandated by tax law or other mechanism to reach into their pockets. Still, it’s instructive to take a look at the range of possibilities. The Kaiser Public Opinion Data Note of July 2009 looks at “Footing the Bill” for health reform. KFF examines the plethora of polls’ questions on willingness to pay for expanding coverage, from CBS/New York Times, Quinnipiac

 

The Other health reform – cutting through the red tape

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 1 July 2009 in Uncategorized

There’s another, complementary track to take to reform American health care that will streamline workflow, cut down on paperwork and save money: administrative simplification. While not a sexy phrase, it’s a very attractive option that will help to contain costs. The UnitedHealth Center for Health Reform & Modernization (UHC), part of UnitedHealth Group, issued its report into this topic, Health Care Cost Containment – How Technology Can Cut Red Tape and Simplify Health Care Administration. UHC found $332 billion in medical cost savings through 12 proposals that group into the following themes:1. For patients, go electronic: use automated cards for

 

Health care is local, according to Secretary Sebelius. It's also personal.

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 30 June 2009 in Uncategorized

Health care is, broadly speaking a local good, just like Senator Tip O’Neill used to say about politics: that “all politics is local.” Secretary of Health and Human Kathlees Sebelius launched the website The Heatlh Care Status Quo on the HealthReform.Gov portal, profiling each of the 50 States and their current level of health care and “need for health reform,” according to the Secretary. We learn about a medical bankruptcy case in South Florida through the eyes of Dorothy Carmone, a self-employed cancer patient. Health care for Dorothy, and for all of us, is personal. Each state profile details level

 

The 99% End-Game: Health Care Is All of Us in 2082

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 29 June 2009 in Uncategorized

I was reminded by a short story in the Kansas City Star over the weekend about a report from the Congressional Budget Office published in November 2007. In The Long-Term Outlook for Health Care Spending, the CBO forecasts that health spending – including Medicare, Medicaid, and all other spending — will consume the entire U.S. gross domestic product in 2082 projected health care spending cost continues at historical averages. The chart illustrates this trajectory.The Obama Administration’s focus on cost containment is aiming squarely at this future state. For their part, industry stakeholders have been ante’ing up their bets on how

 

P4P4P – paying patients to be healthy, and the best cos. for health

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 25 June 2009 in Uncategorized

A powerful, simple, nudge has been discovered by researchers at Wharton’s Leonard Davis Institute — it’s directly paying people to be healthy. Readers of Health Populi should already know about P4P, pay-for-performance, being adopted in Medicare and by other payers to incent health providers to provide health care that demonstrates health outcomes. In this health citizen-facing version, call it “pay-for-performance-for-patients,” P4P4P. Kevin Volpp is the Wharton professor who’s been studying how to move health consumers toward healthier behaviors. He’s written articles for journals like, “Asymmetric Paternalism to Improve Health Behaviors” in JAMA. His logic trail follows the Sunstein and Thaler

 

Getting people to use health-y tools

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 24 June 2009 in Uncategorized

Here’s the recipe for making a health-oriented consumer-facing health decision tool that gets traction: the secrets in the sauce that get health citizens to use self-care tools are trust, usability, and branding. It also takes luck in timing and, by the way, helps to come from outside of the health industry. For sustained success, the tools must reach a national audience and the developer should continue to invest in, innovate and market the tool. That’s it. Now you can bake that health decision-support cake. The Center for Advancing Health (CFAH) has done an important service in publishing the paper, Getting

 

Our bodies, our health information, ourselves – A Declaration of Health Data Rights

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 23 June 2009 in Uncategorized

There are a million stories in the naked city when it comes to personal health information…many of which end up very badly. At the very point in our lives when when we’re fighting for our life, or for the life or ‘good death’ of our loved one, we too-often find ourselves also fighting to access our health data. This absurd, appalling scenario steals a basic right away from health citizens: our ability to fully participate in our own health decisions and care. A Declaration of Health Data Rights has been launched on four simple, elegant, personal precepts: that We the

 

Economic pressures facing average Americans are increasing pressure for health reform

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 22 June 2009 in Uncategorized

55% of Americans have taken at least one action to delay medical care because of cost in the past year, according to the June 2009 Kaiser Health Tracking Poll.Most prevalent strategies for health cost avoidance include relying on home remedies and over-the-counter drugs instead of seeing a doctor, skipping dental care, postponing getting health care people think they need, skipping a recommended test or treatment, and not filling a prescription — all shown in the chart. A steady 61% of Americans believe it is “more important than ever to take on health care reform now,” about the same percentage of

 

Advertising and retail health – ad clutter expands its footprint

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 19 June 2009 in Uncategorized

“Advertising carried on blood pressure monitors at 20,000 stores reaches more than 1 million users a day,” a press release from Lifeclinic International boasted this week. According to the Lifeclinic website, “the blood pressure monitor is free for consumers to use. So it’s no surprise that our blood pressure monitors are a recognized consumer destination, attracting customers and building store traffic daily by offering shoppers an important service. Lifeclinic said that because 52 customers per store use its Health Stations every day.” Let’s hearken back to the sage words of economist Milton Friedman: there is no such thing as a

 

Health care costs for dummies: some costs you might not have thought about

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 17 June 2009 in Uncategorized

This week, a report from the Congressional Budget Office tells us that if Senator Kennedy’s health care plan were to be implemented, 16 million Americans might still be uninsured even after the nation spent $1 trillion for a package meant to deliver universal coverage. CBO budget director Douglas Elmendorf told USA Today, “It’s going to be a long, hard slog” to find savings in U.S. health delivery without “harming health.” Here are some areas to consider…without harming health… 1. Administrative waste costs. Estimates for the cost of paper and inefficiency reach as high as 30% of U.S. health costs. Check

 

WaPo hosts diverse panel of health reform pundits…including me

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 16 June 2009 in Uncategorized

What newspaper is better positioned than the Washington Post to host a bunch of people who observe health to respond to Big Questions facing health reformers and citizens in 2009? It’s the Washington Post’s Healthcare Rx series. On a weekly basis, you can read what these people have to stay about a broad range of health reform issues with which President Obama, Congress, and health citizens are wrestling: Angela Glover Blackwell, CEO and Founder of PolicyLink Ceci Connolly, WaPo’s own national health policy analyst. Chisara N. Asomugha, a pediatrician and Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at Yale University Chris T.

 

Health information is social, and is everywhere

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 11 June 2009 in Uncategorized

Like the Grateful Dead and global warming, health information is everywhere. The proliferating platforms, online and mobile, and the multiplying volume of content and opinions, drive the very social life of health information. Susannah Fox’s latest research on behalf of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, in collaboration with the California HealthCare Foundation, illustrates this phenomenon through many fascinating lenses. The Social Life of Health Information is a deep dive into the phenomenon of Americans’ online searches of health by information category and demographics. Fox has a long-view on Americans’ use of information, on- and off-line. She’s been studying

 

Health Care Costs Will Increase at Double-Digit Rates in 2010

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 10 June 2009 in Uncategorized

Peter Orszag, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, believes that health costs are the #1 driver of America’s long-term deficit. The inexorable increase of health costs are plaguing the Federal budget, Governors’ state budgets, employers’ bottom-lines and ability to compete globally, and household budgets. Things are looking up for next year when it comes to health costs in 2010 – they’ll continue to grow at double-digit rates, according to Buck Consultants, the employer benefits consultancy. Buck’s 2009 National Health Care Trend Survey finds that costs for all flavors of health plans – including PPOs, POS, HMO and

 

The mortality risks of talking on cell-phones and driving = 2,600 deaths a year

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 9 June 2009 in Uncategorized

Health risks are part of our daily lives. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2002 Annual Report focused on Reducing Risks, Promoting Health Lives. According to WHO, risk is defined as a probability of an adverse health outcome, or a factor that raises this probability. The probability is that more people will die in car accidents caused by talking on cell phones and driving-while-texting. The latest Harris Poll, Large Majority of Drivers Who Own Cell Phones Use Them While Driving, Even Though They Know This Is Dangerous, finds that 9 in 10 cell phone users know that using cell phones while

 

Most health citizens search on illness, but Microsoft finds people are open to tech-enabled health coaching

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 8 June 2009 in Uncategorized

Health engagement helps to bolster health citizens’ positive health outcomes. Microsoft has released the 2009 Health Engagement Survey, focusing on health plan enrollees’ online behaviors and perceptions of the U.S. health system. Microsoft found that 1 in 2 Americans view the U.S. health system as ‘fragmented,’ which creates challenges in helping people manage their health care and health behaviors. These people tend more to look online for health information, versus turning to health professionals or health plans. Furthermore, when seeking health information online, people make more reactive than proactive decisions. As the chart illustrates, 2/3 of people search topics on

 

The cost of sleeplessness = $42 billion

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 5 June 2009 in Uncategorized

Two categories of prescription drugs are growing faster than most others in this second quarter of 2009: anti-depressants and sleep aids, according to IMS Health. Can you spell “R-E-C-E-S-S-I-O-N?” Sleeplessness is up in 2009, and people are kept up with anxiety about the economy along with other factors driving the prescription drug market for sleep. The cost of insomnia is $42 billion annually in the U.S. The numbers on sleeplessness are epidemic: some 70 million Americans have some sort of insomnia. About 1 in 3 American adults use some form of sleep aid at least a few nights a week,

 

The world is flat when it comes to health care consumerism

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 3 June 2009 in Uncategorized

The recession around the world is having a negative impact on health citizens’ purchases of over-the-counter drugs. The economy is changing the way they will use non-prescription drugs, as well as the kind of drugs they will use. To the first point, OTC consumption will decline for some; for people who continue to demand OTC meds, they will increasingly seek lower-priced products. Globally, 46% of the world’s citizens believe that economic decline will have an impact on their demand for over-the-counter drugs. The chart illustrates that, from China (CN) down to Belgium and the US, the world’s citizens feel negatively

 

Workers appreciate health benefits more than ever – but for how long?

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 2 June 2009 in Uncategorized

Two reports come at the issue of workplace benefits with different perspectives. Together, they combine to find that workers value benefits in 2009 more than they have in the past — and especially as the economic pressures on workers’ households is increasing. Workscape’s Annual Benefits Study for 2009 illustrates several impacts of the economy on health benefits. 3 in 4 human resources professionals see employees’ having a heightened appreciation of benefits. The declining economy clearly has increased awareness and appreciation of workplace benefits. With respect to health benefits, roughly one-half of small and mid-size employers now offer employees at least