The Price for Life, The Universe, and Everything
One of the hardest things to understand in healthcare is pricing. Look at any health service bill (or more appropriately “This is NOT a Bill”) that you receive. You will see a price, the discount, the allowed amount, fractionalization of the services you received, endless itemizations, and my personal favorite “Lunar Monday Adjustment” (JK). Pricing
The Pricing Black Box – Let the light in!
A couple of weeks ago, I came across a blog post from Physician’s Practice on pricing transparency. This short article had some high-level recommendations to help physicians prepare for a new era of pricing transparency, as a follow-on to CMS requirements for health systems to adopt such practices in 2021. Then it struck me: the […]
Interview: Nate Murray, Part 1 – Do the right thing
We recently caught up with Nate Murray, one of the three co-founders at Crossover Health, alongside Scott Shreeve, MD and Rich Patragnoni, MD. Unlike Scott and Rich, Nate is not an MD, but he knows more about the business and experience of healthcare than just about any physician. In this, the first of two posts, […]
Freedom Edition—Triumph over Tyranny (of the Visit)
When you consider primary care as a “practice” concept, it is so strange to see how the “office visit” became the center of gravity. Beginning with billing codes, which naturally led to payment models, that were then reinforced by performance incentives, and ultimately encoded into “the way it is,” the physical visit with your provider […]
Extirpating the “Health Insurance” myth
Extirpating (ĕk’stər-pāt’) v. To pull up by the roots. To destroy totally; exterminate. To remove by surgery. I recently took a great road trip with my two boys. We rented one of the new Kia Soul’s which my boys recognized from a very funny commercial developed to highlight its hipster (hamster?) vibe. The commercial reminded […]
Microcapitation: Prometheus Catches Fire
Prometheus (prə-mē’thē-əs) n. A Titan who stole fire from Olympus and gave it to humankind, for which Zeus chained him to a rock and sent an eagle to eat his liver, which grew back daily. A personification of the unconquerable will opposing greater power, forever chained and suffering but confident of the ultimate triumph of […]
Transcript to Transformation: Twitterview with @Berci
Twitterview (twĭt’ər vyū) n. A twitterview is a combination of the terms Twitter and interview. The Twitter medium of 140 characters forces a concise style of interviewing and response. The public can join in on the conversation and become participants themselves by following along or tracking hashtags. On March 26, 2009 the leading health care [&he
Recap: Building Health 2.0 Into The Delivery System
Recap (rē-kăp) n. To replace a cap or caplike covering on: recapped the bottle. To restore (a used tire of a motor vehicle) to usable condition by bonding new rubber onto the worn tread and lateral surface. We had a busy session yesterday during my panel. Besides the irritating AV problems (in/out sound, survey probs, […]
Return of Microcapitation: Condition Specific Capitation Payments
Microcapitation (mī‘kro kăp’ĭ-tā‘sh en) n. A health care delivery mechanism wherein a service provider contracts with an administrator to provide health care services on a per capita basis. A financing mechanism wherein a service provider assumes financial risk, is compensated at a fixed per capita rate for predetermined services, and is evaluated