News You Can Use
This week we are starting a new feature on the Incrementalist and taking at look at recent news in healthcare, some perspectives on current problems keeping an eye on security and any noteworthy technology innovation and
I was joined by my friend, colleague and HealthcareNowRadio Host Fred Goldstein (@fsgoldstein) who has his own show Pop Health Week.
This week we talk about the sorry experience of a young adult who fractured her ankle and ended up with a $130,000 hospital bill. You can read more about that here and discuss the issue of in-network and out of network billing and this recent article in JAMA: “Assessment of Out-of-Network Billing for Privately Insured Patients Receiving Care in In-Network Hospitals”.
Stanford School of Medicine study finds that privately insured patients are billed out-of-network charges in 43% of ED visits, 42% of inpatient admissions, and 86% of ambulance rides. Admitted inpatients faced a median surprise bill of $2,040, well beyond the financial resources of most of them.
The study looked at claims data through 2016, so reasonable to assume it has gotten a lot worse than that.
We also discuss the recent series “Chasing the Cure” and the troubling concept of using disease and patients misery in a live television spectacle that reminds me of the Bachelor, Survivor and Shark Tank than a way of compassionately guiding people to real knowledge and science as they navigate health issues.
We talk about the recent news of the Anura App and the innovation of passive acquisition of Blood Pressure
Security is hot this month with BlackHat and DefCon 27 just finishing up that included the Big Digital Health Hacking Pavilion at the BioHacking Village and a presentation by Andrea Downing (@BraveBosom) on the Facebook vulnerability of closed group patient data being used without consent
And finish with a discussion on the paper recently published “First-year Analysis of the Operating Room Black Box Study” that put a Blackbox into the Operating Room much like the concept found on airplanes
Let me know what you think and if this format and content is useful
All episodes go on-demand after their week of airing. In the meantime check out my other amazing guests.
Listen live at 4:00 AM, 12:00 Noon or 8:00 PM ET, Monday through Friday for the next two weeks at HealthcareNOW Radio. After that, you can listen on demand (See podcast information below.) Join the conversation on Twitter at #TheIncrementalist.
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