Some people look at the figure below, and say that too few insurance companies have too much of the market for Medicare Advantage (a program that allows Medicare recipients to get private coverage). But I look at it and think it looks like a pretty robust market:
What do you think?
Here is a Kaiser Health News/NPR story on our research on healthcare cost conversations in doctor’s offices. Talking about money is never easy. But when doctors are reluctant to talk about medical costs, patients’ health can be undermined. A study published Monday in the journal Health Affairs explores the opportunities that are often missed in the exam room. Patients…
It used to be that hospitals billed Medicare for the services they provided, and Medicare – I know this is crazy! – simply paid the bills. Those days are rapidly receding into history. Soon, a significant chunk of hospital revenue will be at risk, under a series of Medicare pay-for-performance programs. The idea behind P4P…
I had the great pleasure of talking about out-of-pocket healthcare costs at Periodic Tables: Durham’s Science Café, a speaker series run by The Program for Science and Society at Duke University. The crowd was absolutely awesome, and much larger than I expected, given that I was speaking at the same time that Duke’s number one…
I blog frequently about obesity. I think the most important thing we can do, as a nation, to combat obesity is to try to prevent our next generation of children from becoming obese. Once people become obese, almost no diet in the world will consistently help them lose weight and maintain that weight loss. But…
In a minute, I’m going to ask you what the most expensive medical condition is in the American healthcare system. Before you guess, however, I’m going to explain what I mean by “most expensive.” I’m not talking about cost per patient. Some people with cancer receive hundreds of thousands of dollars of chemotherapy per year,…
Happiness doesn’t always come easily. Some people seem naturally happy, like they inherited the right gene or were born into the right circumstances. Many other people struggle to find happiness. Perhaps even more people hope to become happier than they already are. But what kind of plan should people follow if they are hoping to…