Health Care Industry

Overtreatment in Action: $30 Billion Wasted on Unnecessary MRI, CT Scans

David P. Hamilton — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:01:52 +0000

The news here is a few weeks old, but I was still struck by the fact that large insurers are apparently starting to crack down on the overuse of medical imaging. According to Bloomberg, companies like WellPoint and Magellan Health Services believe that expensive and unnecessary CT and MRI scans cost them roughly $30 billion [...]

Columbia Pacific: Exporting U.S.-Style Healthcare to Asia

David P. Hamilton — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:30:56 +0000

Hand this off to the Bureau of Questionable Ideas: Columbia Pacific, a Seattle investment firm has raised $325 million to bring “U.S.-style healthcare” to nations such as Malaysia, India, Indonesia and Vietnam. The fund’s current focus is India, where it hopes to own more than 26 facilities by the end of the decade, up from [...]

Are Hospitals Grabbing a Bigger Share of the Healthcare Pie?

David P. Hamilton — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 18:15:00 +0000

The U.S. healthcare system is sometimes best thought of as a three-way tug-of-war between payers (private insurers and the feds), providers (hospitals and doctors) and suppliers (drug and medical-device makers). No, patients don’t really figure into this analogy — at best, they’re trussed up in the middle somewhere. Most big changes in the system result when [...]

The Blues Still Have the Blues

David P. Hamilton — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 17:34:45 +0000

Times just aren't getting any better for nonprofit Blue Cross and Blue Shield health plans. Not only has operating income hit the skids, but pressures to merge or convert to for-profit status keep rising.

How Health Plans Stack Up, Dollar- and Membership-Wise

David P. Hamilton — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:15:05 +0000

Since American Medical News was kind enough to compile the data (subscription required), I thought I'd offer up this quick pair of tables on the nation's largest nonprofit and for-profit health insurers. These accompanied an article about the proposed merger of the Blues plans Highmark and Independence Blue Cross, and so treats them as a single entity.

Insurers to Employers: Hands Off Those High Deductibles

David P. Hamilton — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:50:35 +0000

Free-market medicine in the form of “consumer-directed healthcare” — typically involving health plans with high deductibles –has been tough for many people to swallow. But insurers aren’t happy with employers that have tried to limit the financial risks for their employers. The basic idea of high-deductible plans, which usually force people to pay several thousand dollars [...]

Frontiers in Hospital Management: Letting Patients Die of Neglect

David P. Hamilton — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:11:45 +0000

As we noted last week, some "safety net" hospitals are working to shed that label by building out expensive high-tech facilities in order to attract well-heeled -- and fully insured -- patients. Others, meanwhile, appear to be making do by ratcheting back services to the point that patients are simply dropping dead, often before they're even admitted.

The Self-Insured Healthcare Trifecta: Trim Expenses, Sidestep Regulation, Defund Insurers

David P. Hamilton — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:39:02 +0000

I was aware that self-insured health plans were popular with employers, but until recently I didn't know just how fast they're growing -- or why. Bottom line: The plans save employers money, allow them to sidestep state insurance regulation, and generally stick it to traditional health insurers. Here's how.

How Not to Analyze Health Insurers

David P. Hamilton — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 05:54:27 +0000

As a quick addendum to a recent post on whether health insurers are more properly viewed as health plans or transaction processors, I couldn't help noticing a recent research note by Zacks.com analyst Chris Kallos that underscores the blinkered way most financial analysts seem to view the healthcare industry.

Smiling for the Camera Just Isn’t Simple Anymore

BNET Member Craig Garner — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 01:21:39 +0000

In the world of medical imaging, picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) are computers or networks dedicated to the storage, retrieval, distribution and presentation of images. Typically PACS handles the gamut of medical imaging instruments, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs), which uses a powerful magnetic field, radio waves and a computer to produce detailed pictures of organs, soft tissues, bone and virtually all other internal body structures; positron emission tomography (PET) scans, which accurately image the cellular function of the human body, and computed tomography (CT) scans, which uses special x-ray equipment to produce multiple images or pictures of the inside of the body and a computer to join them together in cross-sectional views of the area being studied.