As of January 1st insurers and health plans are required to provide online tools to help enrollees estimate the cost of common medical services and procedures. As an aside, a future iteration of the law should also discourage medical professionals who work in hospitals or large practices controlled by private equity from only referring inside their systems without giving patients an opportunity to use the tools to shop elsewhere. I’ve never had a problem with doctors steering me to hospital-based services. Yet, I’ve heard horror stories about doctors being compensated or punish based on so-called keepage and leakage. This from Kaiser Health News:
Category: Public Insurance
CA Lawsuit Seeks to Enforce Ban on Corporate Practice of Medicine
Private equity investors have been buying up thousands of health care businesses across the country. This includes everything from dermatology practices, to gastroenterology, to air ambulance services. If you seek care at an emergency room, there is a good chance that you will be treated by a physician employed by a staffing firm backed by private equity. Physicians…
Wednesday Links
- Man harassed by collection agencies over an unpaid $2.57 hospital bill.
- Socialized medicine in Oregon: Measure 111 amends the state constitution to establish “the obligation of the state to ensure that every resident of Oregon has access to cost-effective, clinically appropriate and affordable health care as a fundamental right.” (WSJ)
- How colleges deceive students about the real cost of their enrollment.
- Paul Ryan’s plan to save America’s finances. Social Security reform is bold. Health care reforms are Meh.
Does Grandma Need a roommate? (Alternatives to Long Term Care)
Nearly 70% of seniors will need long-term care at some point in their lives. There are nearly 66,000 long-term care (LTC) facilities in the United States, with a total of about 1 million licensed beds. That will not be nearly enough as the Baby Boomer generation approaches the period in their lives of declining health. The average LTC resident is a woman, accounting for two-thirds of residents. Women stay an average of 3.7 years, compared to men who stay 2.2 years, on average. The reason women outnumber men two-to-one and spend more time in nursing homes is due to women outliving their husbands.