Reimbursement
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As public insurance exchanges get off to a very rocky start, U.S. insurers and policy makers could learn from some European countries' recent experiences -- and problems -- in requiring and subsidizing citizens to purchase private insurance.
As more insurance companies adopt mobile strategies, Google's payer guru says health insurance as a whole has a lot of work to do following the modern mobile, internet-based consumer.
Hospitals are increasingly adding retail clinics to their array of services because they can help to reduce some costs. A recent national study by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) found that the proportion of retail clinics owned by hospital systems doubled (from 9 percent to 18 percent) between 2007 and 2010.
Consumers are not alone in finding retail clinics an attractive option. Increasingly, hospitals are adding them to their array of services.
Physicians across a number of specialties are taking the lead to test developing new payment and delivery models. A few of them described their projects at a Brookings Institution forum on physician payment reform.
Physicians across a number of specialties are taking the lead to test developing new payment and delivery models. But they need more support from commercial and public payers to make them more widely adopted.
UnitedHealthcare is making available an online and mobile cost and quality estimator tool for inpatient medical services, including for knee replacement, spinal surgery and childbirth.
Some 5,800 physicians at Anthem Blue Cross of California are being notified that their Social Security or tax identification numbers were posted online by mistake.
Fee-for-service methodologies, especially relative-value units (RVUs), keep creeping back into alternative payment models like capitation. Maybe we should take the hint and adapt RVUs to the new environment rather than throwing them out the window.