Every week, MedCity News highlights the best of its MedCitizens: syndication partners and MedCity News readers who discuss life science current events on MedCityNews.com.
Now here’s the best of what YOU had to say:
Emerging Health IT trends to watch. “In healthcare and in many other industries, it’s increasingly common for users to ask IT for tools and resources to look beyond the data we enter during the course of our daily work. For one patient, I know the diagnosis, but what treatments were given to the last 1000 similar patients. I know the sales today, but how do they vary over the week, the month, and the year? Can I predict future resource needs before they happen?”
NIH budget cuts would decrease agency’s funding by $1.6 billion. “The past decade has seen a stagnation in U.S. biomedical research funding. Since 2003, there has been a trend of flat or below-inflation funding for the NIH (see graph, NIH appropriations in 2010 dollars [1]). In February 2009 under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the NIH received $10.4 billion in new funding, which temporarily revitalized the biomedical research community. Unfortunately, a continuing resolution has held NIH funding in 2011 at the $31 billion it had in 2010.”
Obamacare or Anycare will trigger austere times for healthcare. “Better for doctors to be part of health care delivery solution going forward. Hopefully, the many smaller voices of front-line doctors and other health care providers will serve as an army of Davids that constantly whittle away at the inefficient and overly costly Goliaths of our health care delivery complex while limiting the collateral damage to our patients.”
Boston Scientific layoffs coming in cardiology medical device area. “If true, the Natick, Mass.-based firm would be the second cardiac company in a week to announce layoffs. Medtronic Inc. (NYSE:MDT) said Feb. 22 it plans to eliminate about 2,000 jobs, paring its workforce by roughly 5 percent.”
Healthcare costs confusing to consumers. “Once businesses understand their true costs and profitability by customer segment they can take steps to improve profitability. For example, if customers recruited through advertising on Facebook are unprofitable, the company can advertise elsewhere. If some customers use a lot of service, the company can start charging for service explicitly. Health care is a lot weirder than that, as Ambulance-Bill Chasing in the Sunday Boston Globe Magazine illustrates.”
The Healthcare Payments Industry Has a Perception Problem
Healthcare payments are no longer about transactions. It’s about controlling the revenue cycle. And increasingly, that control is not sitting with ISOs.
Chris Seper runs MedCityNews.com and contributes regularly to the site. He is the vice president of healthcare for Breaking Media, MedCity's corporate owners. Reach him at [email protected].
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