• Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
Español
  • Explore Health Plans
    • Individual & Family
    • Medicare Plans
    • Life Insurance
    • Dental & Vision
    • Small Group
    • Travel Health
  • Resource Blog
  • (855) 522-2201
  • Menu Menu

How to Measure the Value of Virtual Health Care

General Information

The Covid-19 pandemic has spurred a dramatic increase in virtual health care in the United States. The rise has been driven by the need for social distancing and enabled by a wide range of policy flexibilities implemented by federal and state legislators, regulators, and payers.

However, many of these allowances are temporary. As the pandemic ebbs, policymakers and payers are deciding whether and how much to pay for virtual care services in the future, leaving clinicians uncertain about whether they will be able to afford to continue their virtual care programs. But parties are often making these decisions based on outdated or limited measures of success that do not holistically reflect the realities of how value is being generated.

To address this need, the American Medical Association (AMA) and Manatt Health, a legal and consulting firm, have developed a framework for assessing the value of digitally enabled care. It accounts for the various ways in which virtual care programs may increase the overall “return on health” by generating benefits for patients, clinicians, payers, and society going forward. The framework can be used by care providers to develop and evaluate new digitally-enabled-care models, by payers to inform coverage and payment decisions, and by policymakers to establish regulations that guide the future of virtual care.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, virtual care adoption was slow going and represented less than 1% of overall health care volume. In most cases, virtual care existed outside of the traditional health care delivery system and was often uncoordinated with in-person care. A patient would develop a fever over the weekend and would see a virtual urgent care provider who, in most cases, was not his or her primary care provider. Some innovative health systems or tech-enabled health care delivery companies such as One Medical and Cityblock Health had implemented integrated virtual care tools, but for the most part, the virtual care ecosystem existed in parallel to and disconnected from the in-person health care ecosystem.

Accelerated by the pandemic, we are entering an era, where in-person and virtually enabled care will be seamlessly integrated and the mode of care delivery will be based on clinical appropriateness (i.e., when telehealth should and should not be used) and factors such as convenience and cost. When given the option of telehealth during the pandemic, patients largely saw their existing physicians for their needs versus a new provider. Digitally-enabled-care models will be developed across the full range of disease acuity and across all clinical conditions. The integration of new digital health solutions such as video visits, remote monitoring, asynchronous telehealth, continuous and passive sensors, and AI into digitally-enabled-care models offers the potential to provide access to high-quality care and positive patient and physician experiences at a lower cost.

While there has been much progress, the existing body of evidence for telehealth is narrowly focused on short-term measures of the financial value of virtual health. There is much opportunity to now gather details on broader benefits such as improvements in access to care, clinical outcomes, the impact on the patient and clinician experience, the potential for operational efficiencies, and the impact on health equity. These benefits will also vary based on a wide range of factors that affect value and outcomes such as payment models, virtual care modalities (e.g., audio/visual visits, asynchronous), or the clinical use case. That’s why we developed a comprehensive framework to help stakeholders measure the various ways in which virtual care programs can generate value based on their specific imperatives.

Measuring the Value of Virtual Care

To do so, we examined the existing literature on telehealth’s impact and interviewed national experts on virtual care delivery, financing, technology, and research. We also consulted with current and former leaders of Ochsner Health System, Virginia Commonwealth University Health, Cityblock Health, the Healthcare Financial Management Association, Harvard Medical School, the Medical Group Management Association, private practices, and others.

The framework describes several environmental variables that impact distinct value streams, which collectively seek to capture the overall value derived from a specific digitally-enabled model. The environmental variables include practice type, payment arrangement, patient population, clinical use case, and virtual care modality. The framework is flexible because it acknowledges that different provider organizations will have different clinical or business rationales for pursuing different models based on their environmental and strategic context. For example, a small rural primary care practice with a largely Medicare population paid on a fee-for-service basis will experience the value of digitally-enabled care very differently from a large vertically-integrated regional health system.

Next, the framework includes six value streams: clinical outcomes, quality and safety; access to care; patient and family experience; clinician experience; financial and operational impact; and health equity. The impact of a digitally-enabled-care model should be measured on all these value streams — a Balanced Scorecard approach, if you will, to measuring and realizing the full potential of virtual care.

Some leading health systems are starting to measure value more holistically. One is VCU Health a Virginia health care system, which increased virtual visits from less than 1% of outpatient psychiatry visits to more than 90% last year in response to the pandemic. It has begun to evaluate the impact of its new virtual model on the various value streams in the framework and has identified some novel findings. For instance, the visit no-show rate (an element of financial and operational impact) dropped from 11% pre-pandemic to 6% during-pandemic, and VCU Health is now considering how it can use virtual care to reduce the number of wasted time slots to improve its operational performance and improve access (another value stream). VCU Health is also measuring the impact of virtual care on health equity given concerns that older people may not be as digitally savvy as younger people; it found that there were no differences in access to care by age group when delivery shifted from nearly all in-person visits to nearly all virtual visits. This report provides additional case studies from organizations such as Ochsner Health and Massachusetts General Health and resources, such as upcoming sessions and virtual discussions for the industry to share their own experiences.

Virtual care is here to stay, but many stakeholders across the industry are in the process of determining how best to invest in their programs and measure their success. This value framework can help.

This article was originally published on hbr.org on June 24, 2021.
Co-written by: Meg Barron, Vimal Mishra, Stacy Lloyd, and Jared Augenstein  

Explore Your Health Insurance Options Here Today!

 

June 30, 2021
https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.152.202/720.193.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Healthedly-Blog.png?time=1656569409 900 1366 healthedly23 https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.152.202/720.193.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Healthedly.svg healthedly232021-06-30 13:41:002021-06-30 13:41:00How to Measure the Value of Virtual Health Care

BCBS: Men’s Health: Do You Know the Signs of a Silent Heart Attack?

ACA, Health Resources, Individual and Family, Medicare

Think you know what you’d feel like if you were having a heart attack? Think again.

 

These types of heart attacks are described as “silent” because when they happen, their symptoms may not seem like a classic heart attack. There may be no extreme chest pain and pressure. No stabbing jaw, neck or arm pain. No overwhelming sudden shortness of breath, dizziness or sweating.

Symptoms can pass quickly and feel mild, but silent heart attacks damage your heart and can lead to life-threatening problems. Silent signs may include:

  • Fatigue or an ache or pain
  • Mild pain in the throat
  • Mild pain in the center of the chest

The symptoms can easily be confused with indigestion or general aches or pains, leading men to ignore them. But a silent myocardial infarction is just as dangerous as other heart attacks.

Let your doctor know if you think you may be having symptoms. You can decide together if you need to have testing or see a heart specialist.

What Can You Do?

Take it seriously. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S. The best ways to protect yourself are awareness and prevention.

Do what you can to lower your risk. The risk factors for silent heart attacks are the same as any other heart attack. They include smoking, being overweight and not exercising. Health conditions like high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels raise your risk, as does diabetes. Getting those health problems under control is important for your overall health and safety.

To lower your risk:

  • Know the signs of a heart attack.
  • Keep your weight, blood pressure and cholesterol in a healthy range.
  • Talk to your doctor about those numbers and ask if medication is needed.
  • Don’t smoke or use tobacco.
  • Limit alcohol use.
  • Try to exercise most days of the week.

Don’t skip preventive health care. Men tend to go to the doctor less often than women for annual checkups, says Johns Hopkins Medicine.  That means they may not get important routine tests for cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar. Those tests help gauge heart health.

Skipping preventive exams and screenings also means men are less likely to find out if they have damage called myocardial scars from a silent heart attack. One study found that 80 percent of people who had myocardial scarring were not aware of it.  And the study found that men were five times more likely to have myocardial scarring than women.

Don’t assume you’re too young to worry about it. Some men with a family history of early heart attacks can be at risk as early as their 30s or 40s. Learn your family history and talk to your doctor about it.

Ask for help. If you’re feeling depressed, don’t ignore it. Depression is linked to heart disease. Many men try to mask depression by self-medicating or other unhealthy behaviors rather than getting help. If you’ve consistently been feeling sad or hopeless for longer than a few weeks, talk to your doctor.

Manage stress. Stress can raise your blood pressure. Extreme stress can be a “trigger” for a heart attack. And some ways people cope with stress, like overeating, excessive drinking and smoking, are also bad for your heart. Better ways to address stress: working out or other active hobbies, listening to music, getting outdoors, and meditation.

Control diabetes. Having diabetes doubles your risk of heart disease, says U.S. National Library of Medicine.  That’s because high blood sugar from diabetes can harm your blood vessels and the nerves that control your heart. It is vital to get tested for diabetes, and if you have it, to keep it under control.

Make time for sleep. Not getting enough sleep can also raise your risk for high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes. And all of those can increase your risk for a heart attack. Most adults need at least seven hours of sleep per night. If you regularly have sleep problems, talk to your doctor.

Take steps to protect your heart and health now. And if you ever think you might be having a heart attack, don’t hesitate. Call 911 right away.

This article was originally published on https://connect.bcbstx.com/ on May 3, 2021 
Written by: BCBSTX Connect Team

Healthcare Marketplace is still open with HUGE tax credit savings!
 

June 22, 2021
https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.152.202/720.193.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Healthedly-Blog.png?time=1656569409 900 1366 healthedly23 https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.152.202/720.193.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Healthedly.svg healthedly232021-06-22 12:51:002022-03-24 18:37:20BCBS: Men’s Health: Do You Know the Signs of a Silent Heart Attack?

To Fix Healthcare After Covid-19, Doctors Must Have The Courage To Change

News

Long before doctors were fighting the coronavirus, their professional ancestors were risking their lives to battle the Black Death.

Throughout history, physicians have demonstrated courage: the ability to act regardless of the risks or fear involved. 

Consider the act of sawing off a gangrenous limb or performing brain surgery or treating a disease like Ebola, which kills as many as 90% of the people it infects. In these harrowing situations, courage alone isn’t enough. Doctors must also—to a certain extent—deny objective reality. They must repress the very existence of fear, detach themselves from their emotions, admit no weaknesses, deny all pain, show a single-minded attentiveness to the task at hand and snuff out any feelings that try to escape in the process.

Until recently, no one ever questioned whether such extreme denial was mentally healthy. Doctors just assumed it was necessary.

Courage and denial remain cultural imperatives in the profession today. These traits are taught to every medical student and hardwired into every doctor. 

And they come with some unfortunate, and tragic, side effects.

I remember a talented doctor who returned to work the day after she, herself, received a terminal diagnosis. None of her colleagues, friends or patients were aware of her illness until after she died. In medical culture, this kind of emotional detachment is the rule, not the exception. As a nation, we owe a debt of gratitude for the courage and denial of our doctors. Without their bravery and sacrifices over the past year and a half, Covid-19 would have killed many more of our friends and loved ones.

But now that our country is through the worst of the pandemic, the time has come to address the failings of American healthcare that were inflicting harm on doctors and patients long before the coronavirus came ashore. For this to happen, physicians must play a leading role both in changing the healthcare system and challenging their own cultural assumptions.

These changes will require more courage and less denial.

1. The courage to ask for help  

In a recent article, I wrote about three critical care physicians who’d recently gone through hell.

One doctor, a resident, had started his ICU rotation with a half dozen Covid-19 patients under his care. All were dead by the end of the month. Another physician, a hardnosed veteran of the ICU, said she had been waking up every day before dawn covered in sweat. The third, a senior attending, watched four of his patients die in a single day.

Psychological defenses like denial help doctors push away fear and bypass the grief of losing a patient. But like any coping mechanism, denial is best used in moderation, not perpetuity. No degree of denial, repression, grit, or toughness could have prepared healthcare workers for the deluge of death Covid-19 has wrought. No amount of cultural conditioning could adequately equip clinicians for the pain they’ve endured. And as a result, many in the profession feel depleted.

As the expression goes, “you can’t pour from an empty cup.” Too many cups are empty.

According to the most recent Medscape physician survey, 42% of all doctors are burned out. But only 7% of them report seeing a therapist to improve their mental health.

It will take courage to challenge the medical profession’s culture of toughness and emotional repression. It will require great strength for doctors to acknowledge their limitations. And it will take courage to seek help when it’s needed.

2. The courage to acknowledge one’s biases

It has become standard practice in American culture to point fingers and blame others. Doctors are no different. On social media and at medical conferences, physicians are rarely willing to accept responsibility for any of healthcare’s many problems.

Take health disparities, for example. Ask physicians why Black patients have shorter lifespans and experience poorer health outcomes than whites, and they’ll blame socioeconomic factors like income, education and the ills of American health insurance. They’ll point to social determinants (where people are born and raised, work, play, and socialize) and social dynamics (such as racial segregation, poverty, and educational barriers). Of course, these external factors contribute to health disparities, but they’re not the only factors at play.

Research shows that two-thirds of doctors have an implicit bias against Black individuals. This type of bias is different from overt hatred or even conscious prejudice. But it’s no less harmful.

Early in the pandemic, when testing kits were scarce, physicians tested white patients twice as often as Black patients with identical symptoms. This makes no logical sense given that Black patients were dying at a rate of two to three times higher than white patients.

Bias also helps explain why Black patients receive 40% less pain medication than white patients after surgery. And it helps us understand why the average Black patient receives $1,800 less per year in total medical care than a white person with the same set of health problems.

For decades, doctors have insisted that health disparities are the fault of American society, existing political policies or other players in the healthcare system. While we must address these barriers to better health for all, doctors must also show the courage to hold a mirror up to the profession. After all, they are the ones who decide which patients to test and how much pain medication to administer.

Until doctors demonstrate the courage to confront their biases, they will continue to violate medicine’s sacred oath to “first, do no harm.”

3. The courage to treat patients like healthcare partners

In the 21st century, the internet has flattened the gap between the experts and everyone else. In the realm of healthcare, patients can now research diseases and treatments to a depth never before possible.

Many physicians believe that culling healthcare information from the internet is a recipe for “bad medicine.” Maybe. But doctors can’t reasonably expect patients will just stop turning to the web for insights. It’s not as if people will suddenly covet less information, less transparency or less convenience from healthcare or any other service.

American consumer culture isn’t going away. As a result, more Americans are calling for a new kind of doctor-patient relationship—one that looks far less paternalistic and much more like a partnership. And this partnership needs to take the patient’s needs and wants into account.

Telemedicine is a great place to begin. Before the pandemic, only 8% of Americans had experienced a “virtual visit” with a doctor. That’s because most physicians had insisted that good doctoring could only take place in-person. Covid-19 proved that perception wrong. A recent survey found that 20% of consumers (55 million Americans) would swap doctors for one that offers telehealth services.

Historically, doctors have not valued or prioritized the patient’s time, convenience or preferences. In the future, they’ll have no choice. A more equal doctor-patient partnership will require the courage to embrace alternative care-delivery approaches and accept that patients have become (and will remain) savvy healthcare consumers.

4. The courage to uphold medicine’s true mission and purpose

For most of medicine’s history, diseases tormented doctors. Plagues killed millions, including the physicians who comforted the sick and dying. Entire civilizations died gruesome deaths with doctors at their bedsides. And yet physicians never lost their nerve or desire to help. 

Today, many doctors feel like victims of a broken system. They blame for-profit insurers, greedy drug company executives and hospital administrators for their professional dissatisfaction. And while they are right to call for sweeping healthcare reforms—ones that will free them from the administrative distractions that prevent them from doing their jobs—they must also show the courage to change what they can control.

Physicians are the ones who write the prescriptions that contribute to 60,000 opioid deaths each year. They sign off on the surprise medical bills that have bankrupted millions of patients and their families. They contribute to the preventable medical errors that kill 200,000 people each year. They perform the 30% of all procedures that Mayo Clinic researchers have shown add no clinical value.

American doctors are at a crossroads. They are a part of a wonderful and beautiful profession that is current in crisis. Doctors must continue to uphold the righteous mission and purpose of medical culture. At the same time, they must demonstrate the courage to evolve the culture’s most problematic parts. Doing so will not only benefit patients but also restore the esteem the profession deserves.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com on June 14, 2021
Written by: Robert Pearl, M.D.

Shop & Compare Health Plans Available In Your Area >

 

June 21, 2021
https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.152.202/720.193.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Healthedly-Blog.png?time=1656569409 900 1366 healthedly23 https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.152.202/720.193.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Healthedly.svg healthedly232021-06-21 12:51:002022-03-24 18:37:27To Fix Healthcare After Covid-19, Doctors Must Have The Courage To Change

Teletherapy Aimed to Make Mental Health Care More Inclusive. The Data Show a Different Story.

General Information

For years, teletherapy has been pitched as the next frontier in mental-health care. Unlike medical disciplines requiring a more hands-on approach—say, physical therapy or surgery—talk therapy has long seemed a natural and effective fit for telehealth. 

And by taking appointments off the therapist’s couch and into patients’ homes via their devices, advocates argued, telehealth could make counseling more accessible and convenient for everyone, with particular benefits for those who lived in health care deserts or who couldn’t regularly drive back and forth to see a clinician. 

The hope was that virtual therapy could help democratize a system that allowed almost 20% of white Americans to receive mental-health care in 2019, but fewer than 10% of people identifying as Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, Asian or Pacific Islander.

Then, of course, the pandemic hit, sending the U.S. health care system into a panic and shuttering clinics and private practices nationwide. Telehealth, once psychiatry’s up-and-comer, was suddenly its lifeline. With impressive speed, a system built around face-to-face visits shifted almost exclusively online. By May 2020, 85% of the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) surveyed clinician members said they were conducting the majority of their sessions virtually, up from just 2% prior to the pandemic. It was the perfect pressure test for the promise of virtual mental-health care. If there was ever a time for teletherapy to shine, it was during the pandemic.

But the data aren’t so shiny. Telehealth has indisputably improved mental-health care access—but not to such an extent that it delivers on promises of revolutionizing the mental-health system. The same problems that kept many people—particularly those who are lower-income or of color—from seeking care before the pandemic still exist, even with the expansion of telehealth. As a result, mental-health usage in the U.S. hasn’t changed as drastically as many advocates would have liked.

In a series of TIME/Harris Poll national surveys conducted this winter and spring, about half of respondents reported using telehealth since the pandemic began, compared with about 25% who said they had beforehand.

But only about 5% said they’d gotten mental-health care for the first time during the COVID-19 crisis. That suggests the expansion of telehealth didn’t bring in an influx of new patients to the mental-health system. Government data show a similar picture: about a quarter of U.S. adults received mental-health care in the winter of 2021, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), up from about 19% in 2019. That’s an improvement, but not an enormous one.

Similarly, a March 2021 study from California’s Kaiser Permanente health system found that telehealth allowed clinicians to conduct 7% more psychiatric visits in spring 2020 than 2019—but most of those were with patients who already had a psychiatric diagnosis. Among people without a pre-existing diagnosis, volume declined by more than 40%, suggesting that virtual appointments were more helpful for people already served by the mental-health system than those outside it. On the opposite U.S. coast, telehealth allowed McLean Hospital, a psychiatric institution near Boston, to increase outpatient volume by about 15%, counting both new and existing patients, but psychiatrist-in-chief Dr. Scott Rauch says there’s “absolutely the recognition that there are some populations,” like certain older adults, “that are having difficulty accessing the technology.”

In fact, despite the increased availability of telehealth, the share of American adults with an unmet mental-health need increased from August 2020 to February 2021, from 9% to almost 12%, according to CDC data. That’s understandable, given elevated levels of anxiety, depression and stress during the pandemic, but it also suggests teletherapy is not a panacea. And that means the harder work is still ahead.

There are lots of ways to think about access to care. The most obvious—making it easy for a patient to speak directly with a clinician, either in person or via a device—is only one.

There are also financial barriers. A single therapy session can easily top $100 (without insurance) in many parts of the country, and telehealth has done little to change that. Rightly so, argues Dr. Joe Kvedar, a former president of the American Telemedicine Association, since there’s no evidence to suggest virtual therapy is lower quality than face-to-face. Be that as it may, high price tags mean both therapy and teletherapy remain unattainable for many.

Another limitation: there are simply not enough therapists to go around. More than 125 million people in the U.S. live in an area with a shortage of mental-health practitioners, according to U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration estimates. Whether they’re seeing patients virtually or in the flesh, there are a finite number of mental-health professionals with a finite number of hours in their days. Rauch, from McLean Hospital, says telehealth can increase appointment capacity somewhat, mainly because patients are less likely to cancel or no-show, but “as long as it requires an hour of clinician time to deliver an hour of clinical service, expanded access won’t be drastically enhanced.”

To meet demand, the U.S. needs not only more therapists generally, but also more therapists from diverse backgrounds. A 2020 study concluded that just 10% of U.S. psychiatrists identify as Black, Hispanic, American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. That means many patients of color can’t find a therapist whom they trust and with whom they can form a close rapport. This constitutes “a barrier that dissuades many people from getting the help they need or prevents them from reaping the full benefits of therapy,” says Dr. Amanda Calhoun, a psychiatry resident at Yale and a fellow on the APA’s Council on Minority Mental Health and Health Disparities.

“There are many patients who want a Black therapist and they can’t get it,” Calhoun says. “If we truly want to reduce the gap [in mental-health care usage] we need to make it a trustworthy system where people feel they can connect with their therapist or psychiatrist.”

Patients who do not speak fluent English, or who feel more comfortable using another language, may also struggle to find a therapist with whom they can communicate freely. Increased use of language interpretation could be an essential tool for expanding access, Calhoun says.

It seems naïve, or at least wildly optimistic, to think telehealth could overcome some of these entrenched structural issues. And in some cases, virtual care actually worsens disparities. Some people don’t have a reliable Internet connection or a smart device, for example. About 7% of American adults don’t use the Internet at all, according to Pew Research Center, and those without advanced education and people of color—i.e., those already often underserved by the mental-health system—are least likely to be “digitally literate,” according to a 2020 Health Affairs article. Further, elderly adults, an estimated 20% of whom have some sort of mental-health condition, may struggle to navigate virtual platforms even if they have quality Internet access. And online platforms aren’t perfect. Some people feel uncomfortable sharing their most intimate thoughts through a screen, and any digital system runs the risk of malfunctioning or being hacked. That recently happened in Finland, when a data breach led thousands of patients’ sensitive appointment notes to land in hackers’ hands.

Plus, teletherapy is only convenient if you’re able to step away from work and other responsibilities to conduct the call in a private place. While the pandemic has many white collar workers drowning in time at home, surrounded by devices, that’s far from a universal experience. For essential workers, a disproportionate number of whom are people of color, it may be only slightly easier to steal away for a teletherapy appointment than it would have been to schedule an in-person visit with a clinician. Perversely, teletherapy may be making it easier than ever for people who already had access to mental-health care to get it, while leaving behind the people who arguably need it most.

If teletherapy isn’t doing the trick, the question then becomes how to better serve those still not getting the mental-health care they need. Calhoun says any real solution needs to take a step backward and investigate why many people either cannot or choose not to seek help.

For people of color, centuries of neglect and mistreatment by the medical institution are not easily forgotten. In the 1700 and 1800s, influential American doctors coined since-discredited diagnoses like “drapetomania” (psychosis or madness causing an enslaved person to run away) and “negritude” (essentially, the “disease” of not being white). Many contemporary providers aren’t aware of those offensive diagnostic frameworks, Calhoun says, but the cultural legacy of that racism is still widely felt in communities of color.

Training more clinicians from underserved backgrounds is the single most impactful way to encourage people of color to get help, Calhoun says. But that process takes time. In the interim, she says, all clinicians need to be educated about psychiatry’s problematic past, so they can acknowledge and understand why some patients may not feel comfortable seeking help, and then hopefully address those issues in their own practices. Looking beyond telehealth and focusing on community-based programs—like church-run mental-health groups or the Confess Project, a nationwide initiative that trains barbers to be mental-health advocates—may also help build that trust.

Case studies also suggest teletherapy can work well when it’s integrated into the traditional, in-person medical system. For the past decade-plus, Massachusetts has run a program that allows participating primary-care providers to teleconference in a psychiatrist during a child’s checkup, for example. Such programs don’t eliminate mistrust of the medical system, but they can at least make it easier to introduce people to the mental-health system.

Mental-health apps—while not appropriate for patients with serious diagnoses, and clearly not an option for those without a smartphone—can also provide a cheap (or even free) stopgap measure for people struggling to find or afford an appointment with a clinician, Rauch says. And in some cases, adds Dr. Adrienne Robertson, a family medicine physician who works with the online medical startup Nurx, through which people can request prescription medicines and diagnostic tests simply by filling out a form, eliminating face-to-face interactions with providers can actually put patients of color at ease, because they can “just [be] a patient like everyone else.”

Policy also plays a role. Nordic countries, like Sweden, have among the most robust and widely used telemedicine programs in the world, boosted by affordable, state-sponsored medical networks. Unlike in the U.S., where insurance limitations and out-of-pocket costs are roadblocks for some patients regardless of platform, many people in Nordic countries have a public option for virtual care. Last year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services made it easier for Medicare holders to use telehealth services, a policy that allowed more than a quarter of Medicare beneficiaries (and more than 30% of Black and Hispanic beneficiaries) to use telehealth during the fall and summer of 2020, but it’s not clear what will happen after the pandemic ends. Permanent federal action for Medicare and Medicaid holders—many of whom are low-income or elderly adults—could open up therapy to millions of people who can’t currently afford it. And changing federal policies that currently limit clinicians to treating patients located in the state where they are licensed could help even out distribution of the mental-health workforce.

All of these fixes are considerably more complex than bringing appointments online; they require rebuilding the system, rather than simply shifting it to a new platform. That work needs to happen sooner rather than later, Calhoun says. Already, according to TIME/Harris Poll data, many people are returning to in-person medical appointments, both psychological and physical. In May, more than half of respondents who’d received mental-health care said they’d had an in-person appointment since the start of the pandemic, up from 37% in February. While some patients and clinicians are sure to stick with teletherapy after the pandemic, much of the system will seemingly revert back to how it was—and without concerted effort, the same problems may persist for years to come.

This article was originally published on Time.com on June 14, 2021
Written by: Jamie Ducharme

 Healthedly.com = Quick, Simple Health Insurance Shopping!

June 18, 2021
https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.152.202/720.193.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Healthedly-Blog.png?time=1656569409 900 1366 healthedly23 https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.152.202/720.193.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Healthedly.svg healthedly232021-06-18 12:23:002021-06-18 12:23:00Teletherapy Aimed to Make Mental Health Care More Inclusive. The Data Show a Different Story.

Jim Hemenway: Accept that health care is effectively socialized already

General Information

Despite being conservative on most issues, I’ve finally accepted the fact that health care expenses are effectively socialized, and we won’t make any progress bringing costs down until we accept that. While purists may quibble that health care is not a constitutional right, there’s ample proof that it is a de-facto right in our society today.

Back in 1986 Congress passed EMTALA — the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act — to prevent hospitals from dumping indigent patients and to ensure that people got treated during emergencies without regard to their ability to pay. In 2020 at the outset of the pandemic, Congress authorized $187 billion to reimburse hospitals for uninsured COVID patients. I read that headline, heard no opposition from any Republicans and thought, “OK, health care expenses are socialized, get over it.”  Since we’re too humane to allow people to die in the streets, we have to insist that everybody pays and not tolerate those trying to free ride the system.

Americans spend about 18% of GDP on health care, while the rest of the developed world spends between 9% and 11% with roughly equivalent outcomes. It’s more expensive here for a variety of reasons — hospital concentration, high doctor salaries, administrative costs, defensive medicine to avoid lawsuits, etc. — but in the end, it’s because no party is really motivated to keep expenses down, and end-users feel entitled to any treatment because insurance pays. Other countries don’t allow doctors to advertise, and they aggressively negotiate drug prices. During the ObamaCare debate in 2009, the suggestion that treatments be evaluated for effectiveness was derisively called “death panels.” How can we get expenses down if we can’t even discuss which treatments are worthwhile? Do we adopt the approach that everybody gets everything? A few weeks ago, we heard that former Sen. Bob Dole had been diagnosed with lung cancer and that he would begin treatment shortly. He’s 97. And we wonder why it costs so much?

Government pays for about one-third of health care now via Medicare and Medicaid, while employers and individual buyers pay the rest. Doctors and hospitals will claim that Medicare/Medicaid under-reimburse them, and that they make up for it by shifting costs to employer and individual plans — socializing it. Employers don’t really care about expenses either. Insurance premiums are just part of an employee’s total compensation while salaries are the much bigger piece. If medical costs rise too much, employers will respond by limiting raises and asking employees to pay more. Most employers have already moved to high deductible health plans that shift costs to employees. Those who claim that taxes will go up in a single payer system either don’t understand or disingenuously omit the fact that the money that employers now pay for health care will get added back into employee paychecks.

In a real free market for health care, a person would comparison shop different levels of coverage ahead of time and pay accordingly. But, it just doesn’t work that way in the U.S.  Insurers find it difficult, if not legally impossible, to withhold care based on cost. The deductible is some deterrent, but once you meet it, the sky’s the limit in our system. And nobody comparison shops or gets a second opinion from a hospital bed.

There are a variety of different solutions, single payer is one, but we need to accept that our expensive system is the result of historical quirks and gamed by special interests. We should ban all medical advertising — either by doctors or drug companies. Remove the double tax break on employer provided insurance, so that workers see how much their health care costs and begin to demand alternatives. Use anti-trust laws to ensure competition among provider groups and prevent consolidation. Allow Medicare/Medicaid to negotiate drug prices and create a federal panel that evaluates treatment for cost effectiveness. These changes may seem drastic, but only by accepting that health care is different from other products, and that the expenses are effectively socialized will we be willing to alter our behavior enough to make it more affordable. If nothing changes, nothing changes.

This article was originally published on Timescall.com on June14, 2021.
Written by: Jim Hemenway

Shop & Compare Individual & Family Health Insurance Plans and Medicare Plans >

June 16, 2021
https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.152.202/720.193.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Healthedly-Blog.png?time=1656569409 900 1366 healthedly23 https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.152.202/720.193.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Healthedly.svg healthedly232021-06-16 13:14:002022-05-27 21:38:54Jim Hemenway: Accept that health care is effectively socialized already

US Healthcare Spending—Rising Fast

News

U.S. healthcare expenditures greatly exceed spending levels in other developed countries. They are projected to increase at a substantial rate, but produce no better—and indeed sometimes worse—outcomes, according to research sponsored by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

With national healthcare expenditure (NHE) estimated to reach $6.2 trillion by 2028, public policy experts, government officials, healthcare-sector leaders, business executives and ordinary citizens share mounting concern about the country’s ability to provide healthcare services that are fiscally responsible and attain acceptable levels of quality, effectiveness, and equity.2

Proposals to counter the increasing levels of U.S. healthcare expenditures abound. They include policies intended to achieve price transparency; alternatives to fee-for-service compensation, such as price controls based on Medicare fees or a percentage of negotiated in-network rates, as well as value-based and capitation systems; antitrust enforcement; simplification of administration;3 and wholesale restructuring of the sector’s present complex arrangements with a single-payer, governmental system for the entire population.
Efforts to reduce healthcare spending—even if aimed at reducing the future rate of increase in expenditures—are bound to provoke the powerful groups comprising the healthcare sector. Deciding whose revenue would be cut and how reductions would be allocated among different healthcare interests will require a widespread agreement on the necessity, urgency, and inevitability of these reductions, and exceptional political leadership.

 Key Takeaways

  • For almost 60 years, U.S. healthcare expenditures have increased annually.
  • Currently U.S. healthcare costs are growing 1.1% faster than annual GDP.
  • By 2028, U.S. healthcare spending will reach $6.2 trillion and account for almost 20% of GDP.
  • The complexity of the health sector and political clout of major groups challenge cost cutting efforts.

Pandemic Reveals Systemic Problems

COVID-19 has altered the patterns and distributions of healthcare services and expenditures, at least for 2020 and 2021. It has spotlighted systemic deficiencies and inequities existing long before the pandemic and continuing throughout and probably thereafter. The pandemic and the development of vaccines have confirmed the importance of investment in basic scientific research. It has advanced innovation, particularly in the provision and distribution of services through telehealth expansion, retail clinic and urgent care utilization and outreach to rural and underserved communities through mobile heath units. Recognizing the widespread acceptance of telehealth, Walmart has purchased a telehealth provider and plans to expand its service nationwide.5

The pandemic also has revealed substantial weaknesses in crisis preparedness; inadequate and inequitable supply, facility, and professional resources; and insufficient coordination and communication capability.  At the very time that policymakers are compelled to address the rising cost of healthcare, the pandemic is requiring them to face long latent, systemic inadequacies along with the continuing internal and external causes of increasing healthcare expenditures.6

The necessity of federal financial support and technical assistance for providing free vaccines, various pricing directives for testing—as well as eventual supply and equipment aid to improve access and affordability for addressing COVID-19—was widely recognized.  However, the general acceptance of these government interventions seems unlikely to carry forward and expand price regulation and equitable access policies broadly beyond the pandemic. Increasing healthcare costs will continue to challenge individuals, the healthcare sector, and the general U.S. economy.

Annual US Healthcare Costs

Experts look at healthcare costs both in terms of national healthcare expenditure (NHE)—which includes the costs at every level—and federal-government health spending. Here’s how both are rising.

National health costs and the GDP

Healthcare payers, providers, and patients consider the mounting cost of U.S. healthcare and its increasing demands on the American economy unsustainable. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) annually produce yearly NHE estimates and 10-year national healthcare expenditure projections reflecting total nationwide costs. These comprehensive, national statistics pertain to total U.S. spending, and thus include spending by federal, state, and local governments, households, and employers. In 2019—the most recent year with full, 12-month statistics—NHE grew 4.6% to $3.9 trillion, an amount representing 17.7% of the gross domestic product (GDP). Spending per person was $11,582.7

Current levels of U.S. healthcare spending—both on a per-person basis and as a share of GDP—far exceed those of comparable countries.8 The country with the second highest expenditure per person was Switzerland, with a 2019 per capita cost of approximately $11,000 and total healthcare spending constituting 12.1% share of GDP.  The United Kingdom spends approximately 10.3% of GDP, averaging $4,653 per person. The average per-capita expenses for the wealthy OECD countries, other than the U.S., was $5,500.9

A number of factors contribute to the higher cost of U.S. healthcare. Generally, healthcare prices are higher in the U.S. for professional services, hospitalizations and medical supplies and drugs. Higher administrative costs in the U.S., accounting for one-quarter to one-third of all U.S. healthcare spending,10 are estimated at $937 per capita compared to $284 in Switzerland, $80 in the United Kingdom, and an OECD average of $173, also raise the total spending figure.9 As of 2019, the OECD had a total of 37 member countries. At least one more joined in 2020.11

Health spending by the federal government

In addition to reporting NHE, CMS also estimates the subset of expenditures that comprises federal healthcare spending. In 2019, the federal government was responsible for 29% of NHE. The rest of NHE was divided among households, which accounted for 28.4%; private business, 19.1%; state and local governments, 16.1%; and other private revenue sources, 7.5%.  Total federal government expenditures include Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace premium subsidies, the Veterans Administration, U.S. Department of Defense healthcare programs, support for healthcare professionals and hospitals providing uncompensated care, as well as other federal programs.

Medicare represented 21% of total NHE in 2019; it accounted for the largest share of federal healthcare spending, a total of $799.4 billion. CMS projects that Medicare spending will grow 7.6% annually between 2019 and 2029. Medicaid accounted for $613.5 billion, 16% of NHE in 2019. That same year, private health insurance spending amounted to $1,195.1 billion, 31% of NHE, and out-of-pocket expenditures were $406.5 billion, 11% of NHE. From 2018 to 2019, spending for hospitals increased 6.2% while prescription-drug spending rose 5.7% and spending for physician and clinical services grew 4.6%. CMS has projected the average annual rate of growth for NHE during the period 2019-2028 at 5.4%.12

US Health Outcomes Lag Behind Other Countries

Despite Americans spending significantly more on healthcare compared to the residents of other developed countries, they do not enjoy better outcomes. In fact, the U.S. lags behind other countries when common health metrics are considered.13 Individuals born in 2019 in OECD countries have an average life expectancy of 80.7 years. Among the wealthier European countries, for example, the life expectancy for individuals born in 2019 in Switzerland is 83.8 years; in France is 82.8 years; in the United Kingdom, 81.3 years. The life expectancy for U.S. residents at 78.7 years trails even the OED average.14

The American health system falls short of other national systems in cost and results….Americans’ healthcare costs far exceed those of other wealthy countries….Americans pay more for healthcare than do residents of other major countries….Residents of comparable countries enjoy better healthcare outcomes and live longer than Americans.

National Health Expense: Ever Higher

NHE has increased annually for almost 60 years.15  CMS projects that U.S. healthcare spending will grow at rate 1.1% faster than annual GDP and is expected to increase from 17.7% of GDP in 2019 to 19.7% by 2028. Some of the reasons: health-sector wages are anticipated to increase faster than GDP and the prices for medical goods and services are projected to grow an average of 2.4% annually by 2028.  With the aging baby boom generation, the “pig in the python”16 greatly increasing Medicare enrollment, Medicare spending is expected to grow 7.6% annually over the decade. Spending on all categories of healthcare expenditures is expected to grow faster between 2019 and 2028 than in earlier years.

Even with overall growth, some trends with cost-reduction potential were underway before the COVID-19 pandemic. Increasingly, Americans were seeking healthcare services in places other than traditional professional offices, emergency rooms and hospitals. As health systems diversified their service locations beyond hospital facilities—and insurers directed plan members to lower-cost places of service—the number and utilization of ambulatory surgery centers, urgent care facilities and retail clinics grew.17

The use of telehealth services, both video and telephonic, which was significant even before the pandemic, became many times greater once “social distancing” was imperative. Given telehealth’s convenience for providers and patients—and especially its advantages for remote and underserved communities—its usage likely will expand. Although professional fee schedules for telehealth so far seem unlikely to vary from ‘in-office’ fees, telehealth may reduce medical-facility costs for providers. Walmart’s and Amazon’s investments to add telehealth operations to their consumer healthcare offerings confirm expectations for this mode of care.18

Causes of Higher Spending

Studies of healthcare spending tend to focus on factors internal to the healthcare sector that contribute to higher costs—in particular, prices and administrative costs.19 Even though changes in these areas would be opposed by powerful interests, significant cost-savings are imaginable, even if not easy.  Less amenable to change are external conditions that increase costs but cannot be avoided, including basic economic principles and demographics.

External cost factors: basic economics and demographics

CMS’s estimates, and other projections of future increases in U.S. health spending assume that the current structure of the healthcare sector generally will continue; these projections also take into account external developments that impact costs. Although academic, political, and industry sources are currently generating many proposals for cost-savings—including significant structural changes—the prospect for substantial change is uncertain. Certain externalities, particularly demographics, will challenge cost-containment efforts.

Supply and Demand. Healthcare spending is subject to the basic economic principles of supply and demand. As the population grows and more individuals enjoy better access to care because of such developments as the Affordable Care Act markets, increased Medicare enrollment, and expanded Medicaid and other government programs in some states, expenditures will rise. What’s more, limitations on current and future supply, particularly with respect to the education and licensing of medical professionals, may result in unmet demand that could easily lead to rising prices.20 In addition, the increase in the production of expensive drugs protected by patents also will cause spending increases, unless cost-containment measures, probably requiring legislation, are adopted.21

Baby Boomers and the Larger Insured Population. Demographics constitute a significant contributor to the rapid ascent of healthcare costs and will have substantial, immediate impact. As increasing numbers of the baby boom population born between 1946 and 1964 reach Medicare age, that program is projected to experience the highest rate of spending growth among healthcare payers—7.6%, between 2019 and 2028. Based on the distribution of births between 1946 and 1964, the peak year for new Medicare enrollment likely will be 2022, 65 years after 1957, the year the greatest number of boomers were born.22

As of 2019, 10,000 baby boomers were aging into the program every day.23 MedPAC has estimated that Medicare enrollment will reach 80 million by 2030. And as years pass, the
Medicare program will have an increasing number of older—and, thus, more expensive—beneficiaries.24

With per-person healthcare expenditures for individuals age 65 and older estimated at five times the spending per child and almost three times the amount per working-age person, the impact of the older cohort is obvious. In 2019, the average Medicare expenditure per enrollee was $13,276, while overall the national average per-person spending was $11,582. Private insurers, which generally pay higher fees than Medicare but whose enrollees typically are younger and less expensive than the Medicare population, spent $5,927 per person in 2019. Medicaid, which covers individuals at all ages, spent an average of $8,485 per person.2

During periods of increased enrollment in private insurance and public programs, healthcare costs generally can be expected to increase as more people take advantage of their coverage. Assuming enrollees continue their insurance coverage indefinitely and preventive care reduces the severity and cost of later healthcare needs, individual healthcare costs may decline. However, longer-term savings may not be realized because of termination of insurance coverage, for example, when job loss ends employer coverage or individuals lose government benefits. In addition, high deductibles and copays may discourage the use of covered services by lower-income enrollees and limit
their access to long-term and continuing coverage, thereby preventing comprehensive care.25

Internal factors: prices, administration and anticompetitive trends

Factors internal to the healthcare system also affect the rise in prices.

Prices and administrative costs. Analyses of increasing healthcare spending generally cite prices as the leading cause. In particular, they emphasize trends in pricing for professional and facility services, prescription drugs, and durable medical equipment (DME).26

More detailed studies also acknowledge the significant role of administrative costs, which like prices, are higher in the U.S. than in other developed countries. These studies often emphasize that the administrative costs for private insurance substantially exceed the costs for Medicare administration.27

The comparative complexity of the U.S. health system—with its mix of government programs, private insurance, and uninsured individuals—entails varied and duplicative administrative requirements that add measurably to expenditures. These include expenses incurred by physicians’ practices for billing, obtaining pre-approval for services, and record-keeping required by multiple payers whose enrollment, coverage, patient benefits, authorization, payment, and other standards can vary greatly. Already in 2009, these expenses have been estimated to add $23 billion to $31 billion to the cost of healthcare.28

Insurers and plan managers incur their own administrative costs. Employers and other plan sponsors bear consulting, broker, and administrative expenses for their employee health plans. Although government programs generally spend less on administration than do private health plans—and pay providers lower fees—the scale of federal and state programs adds significantly to overall national expenditures.

Anticompetitive trends. The impact of greater consolidation in the healthcare sector, both vertical and horizontal, has raised concerns about adverse effects on competition and potential increases in consumer costs.29 Investment funds increasingly see the healthcare sector as an attractive investment opportunity and are viewed as influencing rising prices.30 Private equity has a growing presence in the health sector, as firms invest in pharma, biotech, technical equipment, facilities from nursing homes to surgery centers, and professional provider groups, including ER, anesthesiology and other specialist practices serving hospitals.31

Doctors and hospitals view insurer consolidation as anticompetitive32 and are challenging companies for lowering fee schedules and forcing provider groups and hospitals out-of-network.33 Public officials have criticized mergers of provider organizations; insurance company acquisitions of professional provider groups, pharmacy benefit managers, and healthcare-related analytic and consulting organizations.34

In January 2021, as litigation and regulatory actions challenged insurer mergers and business practices, government officials reacted. The Congress passed by a bipartisan voice vote in the House and unanimous consent in the Senate, and the president signed, a new law repealing a long-standing federal antitrust exemption for medical and dental insurers. Thus, federal authorities, as well as state regulators, can now investigate antitrust issues in the health insurance industry.35

The Bottom Line

Both the Biden Administration and the Congress that came into office in 2021 recognize the need to address widely held concerns about the cost of healthcare in the United States.  With the Covid-19 pandemic having exposed critical weaknesses in the health sector, officials are challenged not only to contain costs but to develop policies that also assure equitable access to quality healthcare.

This article was originally published on Investopedia.com on June 8, 2021.
Written by: Michelle P. Scott

 

Don’t forget with the new Affordable Care Act Laws, you can qualify for an even lower Health Insurance Plan Today!

June 14, 2021
https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.152.202/720.193.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Healthedly-Blog.png?time=1656569409 900 1366 healthedly23 https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.152.202/720.193.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Healthedly.svg healthedly232021-06-14 12:49:002022-05-27 21:39:07US Healthcare Spending—Rising Fast

Viewpoints: Health Care Must Prepare For Next Pandemic; Pediatric Board Maternity Leave Policy Needs Revision

General Information

Modern Healthcare: How Healthcare Can Meet Pandemic, Climate Change Challenges.

 

The biggest challenge to human health over the next 25 years will come from climate change. It will also cause and amplify the impact of future pandemics. Both climate change and pandemics will disrupt the economic, physical, and social infrastructures of countries around the world. The events of the past 18 months are a window into our future. Preemptive and adaptive policies and strategies will be needed to avoid even worse consequences than we have experienced to date. The U.S. healthcare system could play a seminal role in addressing these twin threats. To do so, healthcare leaders must reinvent what constitutes the healthcare infrastructure; accelerate the implementation of population health budgets that encourage prevention and continuously improving care; and adopt new business models. (Stephen M. Shortell, 6/8)

Stat: Pediatrics Board Should Modernize Its Maternity Leave Policy  When my daughter started to reveal just how comfortable she was in utero, and wasn’t planning to leave any time soon, I immediately messaged my obstetrician: “I need to be induced.” I was worried about having enough leave from my fellowship in adolescent medicine. She scheduled me for an induction within a few days, nodding kindly as she shared with me that she, too, went past her due date and watched her maternity leave tick away. (Megana Dwarakanath, 6/9)

Houston Chronicle: Sex Ed In First Grade? Knowledge Protects Kids From Abuse. The elite Dalton School in New York City made national headlines this week after an animated sexual education video used by teachers began to circulate online. While sex education usually comes with a parallel course in managing controversy, this specific video garnered an unusual amount of outrage because of the intended audience — kids in first grade. As a psychologist who works mostly with children, especially children who have survived sexual trauma, I understand where this outrage comes. Nobody wants to think that their innocent youngster needs to know about sex. Nevertheless, I feel the need to push back. (Melissa Goldberg Mintz, 6/9)

The New York Times: 3 Lessons The AIDS Pandemic Taught Us About Covid  Forty years ago last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported five cases of a rare pneumonia in Los Angeles that it described as “unusual”: The patients were all young, previously healthy “active homosexuals” whose immune systems had inexplicably stopped working. Two had died by the time of the report’s publication, and the other three died soon after. It was, unbeknown to the C.D.C., the first official U.S. recognition of the disease now called AIDS: one of the worst pandemics in human history that has since killed nearly 35 million people, including over 700,000 Americans. (Spencer Bokat-Lindell, 6/8)

The Baltimore Sun: Letting Incarcerated Cancer Patient Out Of Prison Would Show Mercy And Still Uphold Justice  There are things to think about that are unquestionably more beautiful and uplifting than the plight of a 64-year-old prison inmate with advanced liver cancer. I could use this space to describe the trill of a thrush I heard Sunday evening in the woodlands along the Gunpowder River. I could tell you about the kaleidoscope of butterflies that suddenly rose from the trail during our hike, or the spooky mist that appeared on the river at sunset. But, as much as I would prefer to contemplate things of beauty in a world so often ugly and upside down, I come to Robert Smith because, even at the far end of society’s spectrum, among the scorned and forgotten, there’s the possibility of mercy. (Dan Rodricks, 6/8.

 

Protect yourself and your loved ones with the right Health Insurance Plan today!

June 11, 2021
https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.152.202/720.193.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Healthedly-Blog.png?time=1656569409 900 1366 healthedly23 https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.152.202/720.193.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Healthedly.svg healthedly232021-06-11 13:06:002021-06-11 13:06:00Viewpoints: Health Care Must Prepare For Next Pandemic; Pediatric Board Maternity Leave Policy Needs Revision

Immigration a net positive for health care funding in the U.S., study finds

General Information

Immigrants tend to be younger and healthier, on average, compared to the general U.S. population.

Two new reports outline the financial benefits that immigrants bring to the U.S., specifically in the area of health care. The research, released by the bipartisan group New American Economy, found that immigrants contribute more to both Medicare and private insurance than is spent on them.

The two reports look at immigrants and health care finances at a time when immigration continues to be a controversial political issue. But like other economic studies, these reports find immigration is a net positive to both Medicare and private health insurance in this country.

This article was originally published on benefitspro.com on June 01, 2021
Written by: Scott Wooldridge  

Explore Health Plan Options Now >

June 9, 2021
https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.152.202/720.193.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Healthedly-Blog.png?time=1656569409 900 1366 healthedly23 https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.152.202/720.193.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Healthedly.svg healthedly232021-06-09 13:01:002021-06-09 13:01:00Immigration a net positive for health care funding in the U.S., study finds

Universal health care must be a priority — even amid COVID

News

A focus on specific diseases has derailed efforts to achieve health care for all before. The world must not repeat that mistake with COVID-19. 

The COVID pandemic illustrated how a lack of reliable health care renders communities vulnerable.Credit: John Moore/Getty

Vaccinating the world’s population against COVID-19 remains a global health priority. But it is vital that this effort does not overshadow the need to ensure that everyone, everywhere has access to basic health care.

Despite the urgency of the current crisis, the provision of universal health care remains a priority for Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO). It is also enshrined in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals on the basis that health is a prerequisite for economic growth. Governments, scientists, and the public should support this goal, because it’s in everyone’s best interests. And they will have an opportunity next week, when the World Health Assembly convenes online.

The pandemic has amply demonstrated how a lack of reliable health care can render communities vulnerable. Although access to health care isn’t the sole factor that determined how well countries fared, its absence clearly fueled the flames. Many lives have been lost in India because hospitals have been overwhelmed. In the United States, COVID-19 deaths have been higher among people on low incomes, who are less likely to have health insurance and therefore less likely to seek medical care promptly. A similar pattern has been seen elsewhere: one study found that in the poorer neighborhoods of Santiago, more than 90% of people whose deaths were attributed to COVID-19 died outside health-care facilities (G. E. Mena et al. Science https://doi.org/f9b4; 2021). Moreover, people without reliable health care might be more vulnerable to complications of COVID-19 because of poorly controlled chronic diseases.

A lack of easily accessible health care — and of health systems for sharing information — has impeded the detection and monitoring of COVID-19 infections. Should another deadly virus emerge in a region with inadequate health care, the world could lose valuable time to contain the outbreak. The two largest Ebola outbreaks so far — in West Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo — spread for weeks to months before they were identified.

Despite almost a century of calls to provide all people with health care, attempts have been stymied by crises and disease-specific interventions. After the economic depression of the 1930s, international health officials working for the League of Nations touted the need for the provision of basic health services by country-wide networks of clinics. This vision was interrupted by the Second World War, but was revived in 1946, when the newly formed United Nations met to write a constitution for the WHO. The constitution stated that health is a human right, and that governments are responsible for the health of their people.

But the United States nearly rejected the WHO and its constitution outright. At the time, opponents of national health-care provision in the country connected the measure to socialism and communism. The United States eventually signed on, but inserted a clause stating that it could withdraw from the WHO at any time — meaning that the country donating the most money (dues are based on the size of economies) could walk away if it opposed the organization’s ideology.

The next 20 years of single-disease programs driven by the WHO and global health funders wasn’t ideological, however. Ironically, they were also driven by a wave of scientific advances that offered simple, technological fixes to specific health problems, such as the use of the insecticide DDT to fight malaria and antibiotics to fight infections.

But, in 1978, the push to build up health systems was revived at an international conference on providing everyone with primary health care, held in Alma-Ata in what was then the Soviet Union. The resulting WHO-sponsored Alma-Ata declaration vowed to provide essential care, at the level of neighborhoods, by the year 2000.

But according to Tedros and health-policy experts, the Alma-Ata declaration was undermined by factors including inadequate political leadership, economic crises, political instability and an over-investment in treating individual diseases (T. A. Ghebreyesus et al. Lancet 392, 1371–1372; 2018). Others have suggested that the movement lacked defined steps backed by evidence, as well as cost-effectiveness assessments. Compare this with the UN children’s charity, UNICEF, which in the 1980s vowed to save the lives of four million to five million children a year through well-defined and budgeted programs to deliver vaccines for diseases including measles, tetanus and polio. Government and philanthropic donors grasped the concept immediately, and UNICEF quickly became one of the larger UN agencies. In 2019, its budget was nearly three times that of the WHO.

Childhood immunization programs save lives, but the lack of investment in strengthening countries’ health systems has led to untold deaths. The answer isn’t to stop vaccinations, of course, but to take cues from the success of UNICEF’s campaign and the failures of Alma-Ata.

In 2019, the WHO once again turned the focus on health care for all, this time at the first UN high-level meeting on universal health care. A corresponding report stated that to provide all people with primary health care, countries, on average, must increase their spending in this area by 1% of their gross domestic product. And world leaders signed a declaration promising to pursue universal health care — in their national context — and provide basic, affordable health services to everyone in the country. To hold them accountable, global-health researchers have created an online portal to track progress towards the attainment of this goal by 2030. For example, the tracker says that about 15% of the populations of the United States and Cuba lack access to essential health services. The rate grows to 20% in China and 45% in India and Kenya.

The WHO has placed ‘health for all’ high on the agenda of next week’s meeting, hoping to drive political and financial commitments from governments. Perhaps mindful of the vagueness that doomed past efforts, Tedros has created a new council of economists, health and development experts to advise on the economics of providing everyone with basic health care, including ways to quantify its value.

Universal health care might seem a lofty goal amid a crisis, but if we do not push for change now, we will regret it. The pandemic has increased the number of people living in extreme poverty, making them more vulnerable to disease. It’s infected, killed and traumatized health-care workers everywhere, most devastatingly in places that had too few already. “Our failure to invest in health systems doesn’t only leave individuals, families and communities at risk, it also leaves the world vulnerable to outbreaks and other health emergencies,” Tedros said in October 2019. “A pandemic could bring economies and nations to their knees.” A few months later, it did. We must not let that happen again.

This article was originally published on nature.com on May 18, 2021.
Written by: Editorial Team

Find the right health insurance plans for you and yours today >>

 

June 8, 2021
https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.152.202/720.193.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Healthedly-Blog.png?time=1656569409 900 1366 healthedly23 https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.152.202/720.193.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Healthedly.svg healthedly232021-06-08 16:18:002022-03-24 18:37:50Universal health care must be a priority — even amid COVID

Chandler teen uses her invention to make health care more accessible

General Information

PHOENIX — An innovative and affordable way to detect blood disease could be on the horizon thanks to a Valley inventor who’s still in high school.

Ella Wang took a trip to India a few years ago having no idea it would inspire her to create an award-winning medical device.

The 17-year-old saw first-hand the way blood diseases are treated in developing countries and how socioeconomic barriers put them at a disadvantage.

“Without a more developed health care system, there are few resources and fewer facilities and not many medical professionals that are available to treat these diseases,” Wang told KTAR News 92.3 FM.

She found screening centers with backlogs of data due to people being unsure if they should take a treatment since they weren’t able to get screened for blood disease in the area.

That’s when the soon-to-be senior at BASIS Chandler created HemaVision, an affordable and accessible way to detect blood disease.

She created a microscope using a 3-D printer that can attach to the camera of a phone and capture blood smear images.

Wang said the model was inspired by one of her class projects.

“An odd way to start out, but I actually got the idea for the mobile microscope in art class where we were making these acrylic dome magnets,” Wang said.

She didn’t stop at just the microscope, Wang programmed a web application to analyze the blood smear images and identify diseases within the blood cells.

Wang has achieved 98% accuracy in testing so far.

The invention is also accessible and affordable with a price tag of only $7.17.

HemaVision was considered so groundbreaking it claimed first place and $5,000 in the Regeneron International and Intelligent Science and Engineering Fair in the Robotics and Intelligent Machines category, which is the world’s largest international science competition.

Her project now moves on to clinical testing.

“I’m hoping to implement it into these clinical settings and actually make an impact on patient outcomes,” Wang said.

Despite the awards and money, Ella says what means the most to her is creating something that truly makes a difference.

Wang hopes to attend Stanford University after high school.

This article was originally published on ktar.com on June 01, 2021.
Written by: Taylor Tasler

See how much you can now save on your health insurance plan!

 

 

June 7, 2021
https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.152.202/720.193.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Healthedly-Blog.png?time=1656569409 900 1366 healthedly23 https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.152.202/720.193.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Healthedly.svg healthedly232021-06-07 14:32:002021-06-07 14:32:00Chandler teen uses her invention to make health care more accessible
Page 1 of 212

Categories

  • ACA
  • Dental
  • General Information
  • Health Resources
  • Individual and Family
  • Life Insurance
  • Medicaid
  • Medicare
  • News
  • Obamacare
  • Short Term
  • Special Enrollment Period
  • Supplemental
  • Travel Medical
  • Vision

Archives

  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021

Healthedly
Call: (855) 522-2201

Email: support@healthedly.com

2929 N Central Expy Ste 175, Richardson, TX 75080

Insurance Plans

Individual & Family Plans

Medicare Plans

Life Insurance Plans

Dental & Vision Plans

Small Business Health Plans

Travel Health Plans

Shop By State

Resources

Español

Healthedly Blog

Insurance Payment Options

Special Enrollment Period

Medicaid & CHIP

Health Insurance FAQs

Community Events

Elite Plus Circle of Champions

This website is operated by Healthedly Insurance Services, LLC.  It is not the Health Insurance Marketplace website.  Not connected with or endorsed by the U.S. government or the federal Medicare program.

Privacy Policy

© Copyright Healthedly Insurance Services, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
Scroll to top