duffpkg

13 ms·

91.
by duffpkg 3y ago
There is not one silver bullet or even hundred or thousands of bullets that are going to magically re-engineer 1/5 of the US economy. Measuring costs is really hard, measuring outcomes is even that much harder -- maybe more or less imp
92.
by duffpkg 3y ago
I don't mean this to offer any political commentary one way or another but as someone who has worked at length with Medicare, HHS, CMS, VA, HRSA, and more or less every alphabet soup federal appendage remotely related to healthcare and
93.
by duffpkg 3y ago
I wrote Hacking Healthcare for O'Reilly, I've managed hospital systems and group practices, I've been a patient with a life threatening illness. This is a really low effort article, it doesn't even really define what it
94.
by duffpkg 3y ago
Several people have raised the point that if the discounts are automatic why not just change the pricing? Pharmaceutical pricing and a lot of healthcare pricing in general are strange in the sense that they are organized to capture what cer
95.
by duffpkg 3y ago
First do no harm
96.
by duffpkg 3y ago
This is reminiscent of an experience we had at ClearHealth with managed hospital aesthetics. Not a scientific study in any sense, but as part of rebranding a hospital group, the color scheme was changed from a neutral green to a much bright
97.
by duffpkg 3y ago
Wrote Hacking Healthcare, healthcare executive for 20+ years... About 10 years into my career we had already been managing some very large hospital groups but ended up with a mangement contract for a diverse group health system that through
98.
by duffpkg 3y ago
I think there are valid questions about the medical efficacy of annual checkups that are heavily weighted by individual patient characteristics such as existing conditions, age, weight, etc. Seperate from medical efficacy there are a lot of
99.
by duffpkg 3y ago
I'm sorry to say but there is a lot of nonsense in the other comments here. I wrote Hacking Healthcare for O'Reilly, created the ClearHealth/HealthCloud Open Source EMR system, and most importantly I have, amongst other thing
100.
by duffpkg 3y ago
I am frequently asked about why systems in institutional healthcare are so hard to modernize, this has come up a lot related to pricing transparency. While HL7 is in theory a standard, in practice it is a semi-parseable "email" be
101.
by duffpkg 4y ago
There are a few relatively commodity items you have mentioned, flu shots for one, mammogram possibly another, but for > 65% of patients those are already covered at extremely low/no cost. Yes, there is room to help the remaining 35
102.
by duffpkg 4y ago
Wrote Hacking Healthcare for O'Reilly, long time health/tech exec, yada, yada... I'm really glad this pricing transparency information has become available but unfortunately so far I don't think it has provided a lot tan
103.
by duffpkg 4y ago
Typically it is something you do in addition to insurance, though there is not a one size fits all model to it. Different providers and systems offer different levels and types of it. Atlas MD in kansas is an interesting one which is aimed
104.
by duffpkg 4y ago
Wrote Hacking Healthcare for O'Reilly, created ClearHealth/HealthCould open source EMR, built and operated ~90 acute care management services organizations (MSO) (the "things" that operate the non-medical aspects of many
105.
by duffpkg 4y ago
There is the classic triangle of patients, providers and insurance. I think in any path you choose you have to think about which leg of the tripod you want to put forward. There is this wealth of new pricing data but I haven't yet seen
106.
by duffpkg 4y ago
My personal opinion is that human nature and relatively complex rules about what is and isn't HSA acceptable, tends to make it difficult to reap the tax savings that the system is possible of providing. I have worked with a number of s
107.
by duffpkg 4y ago
I don't think I know enough about it to offer a meaningful opinion. It appears to be an offering that is employee sponsored so without understanding the costs to the employer it is difficult to compare it with anything. A point that I
108.
by duffpkg 4y ago
I am in agreement that it is reasonable for most patients most of the time to be able to receive some sort of useful estimate to make decisions with. The passage of the "No Surprises Act" was a very positive development in my opin
109.
by duffpkg 4y ago
There are. In fact this is a quickly growing segment. Often these folks cater to richer patients and are called "Concierge Doctors". Atlas MD in Kansas is a very interesting system aimed at all levels of income and they call it &q
110.
by duffpkg 4y ago
I'm not sure the short answer is adequate but a few things: 1) US healthcare is absolutely huge, it's perhaps 20% of the total macro economy. Changing anything in 20% of the entire economy is going to take a long time. 2) There ha
111.
by duffpkg 4y ago
Something that is very little known to most lay people but has profound implications on how the industry is structured are laws loosely called "Corporate Practice of Medicine" (CPOM). A little more than half the states have some v
112.
by duffpkg 4y ago
I hope your daughter is doing well now. I wrote Hacking Healthcare for O'Reilly, yada, yada. If you still have these bills and would consent to sharing them with me they may make a good example to share publicly (redacting any private
113.
by duffpkg 4y ago
I wrote Hacking Healthcare for O'Reilly and I've spent the bulk of my career as a CEO and senior executive operating large health systems. It is a meaningful step forward to have most of this data in the public sphere but I think
114.
by duffpkg 4y ago
An ICU unit isn't exactly a single room. There are different configurations but they typically involve some sort of centralized monitoring station and 5-20 ICU "beds". Total cost of that / number of beds. Everything in h
115.
by duffpkg 4y ago
Author of Hacking Health for O'Reilly, managed operating companies for hundreds of hospital facilities, etc... One widely under realized aspect to healthcare costs in the US (there are many) is the very high number of ICU beds per capi
116.
by duffpkg 4y ago
Healthcare executive 20 years, wrote Hacking Healthcare for O'Reilly... So long as this is used for routine filling of routine medications with low risks I think this can work. However it is also my opinion that Walgreens is a very, ve
117.
by duffpkg 4y ago
I have been a strong supporter of free software (GPL) and open source since Linux was created and remain so. The company I started and system we created, ClearHealth, was the only open source EMR to receive the necessary federal certificati
118.
by duffpkg 4y ago
There is not a universal practice. Predominantly just excel, a lot of emails, conference calls and meetings. Different institutions have distinct personalities and that reflects in how things are done between them. Some people still have ac
119.
by duffpkg 4y ago
People are rarely satisfied with this answer but its demonstrably true and was proven time and time again at the facilities ClearHealth managed. 1) Feverent, almost religious, adherence to hand washing. 2) No neck ties or dangly sleves what
120.
by duffpkg 4y ago
Healthcare is such a base layer of the economy, I find comparisons to be extraordinaly difficult between countries. On the most basic level our pathway to becoming a healthcare provider of all sorts is dramatically more expensive and limite

More ›