Most people believe they have no opportunity to shop for the best price for their personal health care. However, UnitedHealthcare has developed a free app called Health4Me for iPhones and Android devices. The app provides a range of estimated costs for common health care procedures and services, allowing people to comparison shop. CHI Health also has a website at http://tp.chi.acelogicus.net/nesf that can give estimated costs at CHI Health St. Francis for a range of medical areas. The UnitedHealthcare app has been available since 2012.
Next week's closure of Novant Health's Franklin Medical Center is part of a larger trend among struggling rural hospitals that shows signs of accelerating, according to UNC's Dr. Mark Holmes. Efforts to keep the medical center have been happening for more than a year. Franklin Medical Center is projected to lose up to $6.7 million this year, a hospital spokeswoman said. There are 113 full time and 16 part time employees at the hospital. Dr. Holmes has been studying issues facing rural hospitals and notes 57 have closed nationwide since 2010, including three in North Carolina.
Connecticut's hospitals are embroiled in a battle with Gov. Dannel P. Malloy over Medicaid cuts, and they're not ruling out a path taken by their counterparts in New Hampshire: legal action. New Hampshire's hospital association last year settled a 2011 lawsuit it filed against the state after Medicaid funding was cut. At the same time, the state kept a tax on hospitals that was supposed to help the state gain matching federal money to pay for health care for the poor. Connecticut Hospital Association officials say they're now in the same situation.
Cerner Corp. president Zane Burke knows that topics such as "leveraging advanced analytics" and "optimizing medication management" don't resonate with the population at large. But as 14,000 people begin congregating in downtown Kansas City on Sunday at the annual Cerner Healthcare Conference, many of them are deeply entrenched in issues like that. And in Burke's view, they matter to people who have no idea what those words mean. "The consumer is going to become much more powerful in health care because they're paying for the bill," Burke said Friday. "Three years ago, consumers paid 15 percent of health care costs. Today, they're paying 25 percent. Three years from now, 38 percent will come out of the consumer's pocket."
A recent article in BMJ questioned the oft-held notion that most people prefer to die at home. Although public surveys commonly report that two-thirds of those asked say they prefer to die at home, "there is considerable variation between studies," wrote Kristian Pollock, of Nottingham University, in England. In addition, "A substantial number of people do not specify a preference, and there is rarely an option for 'it depends' or 'does not matter.'"
A nonpartisan panel of experts that advises Congress on Medicare issues battled to make sense of the reimbursement policy that will replace the hugely unpopular Sustainable Growth Rate Formula on Thursday.