Money Category
Patient Ratings by Providers – the next act.
Several lines of the page in all sorts of media have been devoted to the evaluative concepts of healthcare organization ratings and physician provider ratings. Many websites dot the web with such databases for patients of all types to delve into and either look for a new provider or submit a subjective evaluation based on their most recent healthcare experience.
The high cost of care, this is where it begins.
Some potentially great news for patients with hypertension some time down the road as long as the clinical trials go off without a hitch. Investors seem to be pleased with the preliminary results and so does the stock market. However this is what healthcare has become, this is the beginning of one of the many ailments with our current healthcare delivery system - Investor interests.
Retail Clinic Treating Mostly Uninsured
Wal-Mart jumped into the healthcare arena with their retail clinic program called Convenient Clinics to provide improved access to care earlier this year and towards the end of last year when many media headlines broke the story of retail clinics. There was an immediate flurry of activity with store chains such as CVS in the Boston, MA area where some 2000 of these clinics were to be established over the coming months and year (2008).
No Benefits, No Thanks
In the age of an ill healthcare system can small business owners survive without offering health benefits? Small businesses have been hit hard by rising healthcare benefit costs, with more and more small business owners canceling their health benefit coverage for employees because of the added costs. SurePayroll conducted a survey of small businesses recently in the Midwest which outlined the disparaging numbers of small business that can’t afford to offer health benefits to employees.
Non-profit Health Insurance, mmmmmmm
Establishing health insurance providers as non-profit entities is an interesting concept in today’s healthcare system. What would happen if the multitude of health insurance companies switched status from for profit to a non-profit status? Putting away multi-million dollar compensation packages for industry executives and replacing them with premium dividends and improved coverage for members, could it really happen?
Healthcare expenditures create “silo-vision”
Institutional costs are always top of mind for healthcare administrators and pose a constant challenge. While non-labor expenditures increased approximately 24 percent in recent years, labor costs are the largest component of healthcare expenditures. 1 Out of a total 44 percent increase in healthcare costs between 2001 and 2003, labor costs accounted for the majority at 38 percent. 1 Avenues where hospitals may use their labor resources most effectively are key in this era of cost sensitivity.
Healthcare: Now more than ever it is becoming a privilege.
How do we as a country solve the problem of escalating costs associated with healthcare? I have written several pieces regarding the business aspects of healthcare and how in some cases the business portion of providing care is killing us. Reports have been in the news of late listing the death rates per state of people that die prematurely because they don’t have adequate health insurance. We have all read ad nauseam article after article about the reimbursement problems providers and hospitals are having, the mounting bad debt that healthcare organizations are carrying, and many such stories. At this point even for a healthcare provider the news makes me weary, and to read yet another story or blog entry is becoming difficult. Many times I just want to ignore it all and go and put on Sponge Bob on Nickelodeon.
Nursing: Many opportunities, but recession proof may be stretching it.
Nursing: the recession-proof job market lies across an article from CNNMoney.com. A brief bit about the opportunities in nursing and how other career professionals that are experiencing layoffs and troubled times in their present career field are now jumping ship and entering nursing.
The Cost of Life: Shall we start the bidding at $……., Do I hear $…..
Perusing the abyssal of medial bogs this morning I came across yet another winning accolade for healthcare that involves a young man [17 year old Nick Colombo] who lives in the Los Angeles area that is fighting a battle with metastatic cancer. His insurance provider Pacific Care had initially denied his claim for advanced radiation treatment it appears due to the cost of the therapy – some $100,000.00. Family and friends were predictably outraged and disappointed.
