Posts Tagged “Wellness and Prevention”
ShowHide 3rd Party PapersNational Institute for Health Care Reform: Employer Wellness Initiatives Grow, but Effectiveness Varies Widely
Annals of Family Medicine: Using knowledge of decision-making psychology to persuade patients to engage in healthy behaviors or to make treatment decisions that foster their long-term goals is ethically justified
MetLife Study: New Insights and Innovations for Reducing Health Care Costs for Employers
Health Affairs: Screening rates are higher in the U.S. than in Europe—for people of all ages—despite the U.S. lack of universal coverage
USPSTF: Screening for Breast Cancer: Recommendation Statement
Trust for American: American Public Supports Investment in Prevention As Part of Health Care Reform
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2010 Potpourri XXXI
by Kevin Roche on Saturday, August 28, 2010
Summer nears an end, but not our Potpourris. This one includes the costs of malpractice, an innovative provider error disclosure program, employer wellness paybacks, blood pressure medication issues, the cost of new technologies, provider pricing power and the mental health of Californians.
Tags: Care Management, Health Care Costs, Hospital, Malpractice, Personalized Medicine, Wellness and Prevention
Employment-based Wellness Programs
by Kevin Roche on Monday, August 16, 2010
Wellness programs continue to grow in popularity as a method for companies to get health costs under control and to improve productivity. A new report summarizes evidence on what may make these efforts most effective.
Tags: Wellness and Prevention, Workplace
2010 Potpourri XXVIII
by Kevin Roche on Saturday, August 7, 2010
Summer begins to wane, but not our Potpourris. Another one full of useful data, including health insurance costs for 2011, a new telehealth joint venture, use of kiosks in physician offices, prostate cancer screening, health care use cutbacks, teledermatology and sharing of physician notes with patients.
Tags: Consumers, Health Care Costs, Health Insurance, Monitoring, Physicians, Telemedicine, Wellness and Prevention
2010 Potpourri XXVII
by Kevin Roche on Saturday, July 31, 2010
A lot of great items in this week’s potpourri, covering the acquisition of HealthGrades, what encourages men to get screenings, potential cheating on pay-for-performance schemes, the problems of a multi-payer system, improving heart failure care, Canada’s experience with EHRs and autonomous robot surgery.
Tags: HIT, M&A, Medicaid, Medical Care, Pay For Performance, Payor, Wellness and Prevention
Preventive Care Regulations
by Kevin Roche on Monday, July 19, 2010
HHS has issued its draft regulation on what preventive services health plans must cover without cost-sharing by the patient. Someone, of course, has to pay for all these “free” services, and it usually is the consumer.
Encouraging People to Get Necessary Services
by Kevin Roche on Thursday, July 8, 2010
Preventive measures can help patients delay or prevent illness or can lead to early detection and usually better outcomes. Unfortunately many patients fail to take even the most basic preventive steps. A new study suggests just how difficult it is to change that behavior.
2010 Potpourri XVIII
by Kevin Roche on Saturday, May 22, 2010
Yet another in our long series of weekend catchup on miscellaneous health care items that we missed in earlier commentaries, including telemedicine, smoking bans, engagement in wellness efforts, the cost of high-risk pools, telemedicine and getting results in health improvement programs.
Tags: Consumers, Health Care Reform, HIT, Telemedicine, Wellness and Prevention
2010 Potpourri IV
by Kevin Roche on Saturday, February 6, 2010
Yet another sampling of health care items, relating to personalized medicine, telemedicine, wellness, disease management and using health data for comparative effectiveness research.
Tags: Care Management, Comparative Effectiveness, Personalized Medicine, Telemedicine, Wellness and Prevention
More Breast Cancer Screening Controversy
by Kevin Roche on Thursday, January 28, 2010
The recommended schedule for mammography screenings to detect breast cancer is examined in a Cochrane report, which finds that the current recommendation probably leads to overdiagnosis and treatment and the women are not being properly presented with the overall risks and benefits.
Tags: Comparative Effectiveness, Health Care Costs, Health Care Quality, Wellness and Prevention
More Evidence That Workplace Wellness Programs Can Save Money
by Kevin Roche on Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Health Affairs publishes a study examining a number of workplace wellness efforts. The meta-analysis finds that most programs offer substantial returns on investment, through both health cost and absenteeism reductions. It is becoming clearer that worksite wellness is one of the most promising methods for limiting health care costs.
Annual Survey On CDH Members
by Kevin Roche on Tuesday, December 29, 2009
EBRI releases the results of its latest survey of members in consumer-directed, or high deductible, health plans. These members are generally satisfied and exhibit more cost-conscious behaviors and use wellness services more extensively than persons in non-consumer directed plans.
Health Incentive News
by Kevin Roche on Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Several groups have recently released reports on the expanding science of using incentives and benefit design to encourage consumer involvement in health and lower costs.
Tags: Consumer Directed Health, Incentives, Wellness and Prevention
Thanksgiving Potpourri
by Kevin Roche on Thursday, November 26, 2009
No turkeys here, just stuffing you will relish. Don’t cramvery much into your brain at once!
Tags: Drugs, Health Insurance, Telemedicine, Wellness and Prevention
Potpourri V
by Kevin Roche on Saturday, November 21, 2009
Another summary of miscellaneous health care items, including telemedicine and prevention and wellness.
Tags: Drugs, Telemedicine, Wellness and Prevention
Rethinking Screenings
by Kevin Roche on Thursday, October 22, 2009
JAMA publishes an article on some common screenings, suggesting a new strategy that would attempt to identify and screen only high risk individuals and would limit treatment to tumors demonstrated to be likely to cause significant disease.
Vita Advisors, LLC New Research Report on Prevention and Wellness Released
by Kevin Roche on Thursday, October 22, 2009
We have released a research report on The Value of Prevention & Wellness. The report describes various preventive interventions and examines methods of valuing these programs and specific research on the value of prevention and wellness activities.
AHA Endorses Workplace Wellness
by Kevin Roche on Friday, October 16, 2009
The American Heart Association issues a comprehensive set of recommendations for improving cardiovascular health through workplace wellness programs, continuing its efforts to prevent acute coronary disease.
Tags: Medical Care, Wellness and Prevention, Workplace, Worksite Health
Second-hand Smoke
by Kevin Roche on Monday, October 5, 2009
New research confirms that second-hand smoke can cause serious health issues for non-smokers.
Clinical Preventive Care Summary
by Kevin Roche on Wednesday, September 30, 2009
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has published a review of the cost effects of clinical preventive care measures.
Tags: Health Care Costs, Medical Care, Wellness and Prevention
More Evidence on Obesity’s Cost
by Kevin Roche on Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Overweight people are getting blamed for everything, including more workers’ compensation costs.
Tags: Wellness and Prevention, Workers Compensation, Workplace
Inverness Continues to Build Health Management Business
by Kevin Roche on Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Inverness Medical has agreed to acquire Free & Clear, a provider of smoking cessation and other wellness services.
Tags: Disease Management, M&A, Medical Care, Services, Wellness and Prevention
Measuring Prevention’s Cost Savings
by Kevin Roche on Tuesday, September 8, 2009
A new Health Affairs article suggests a different method to measure cost savings from disease prevention and management efforts.
Tags: Care Management, Chronic Disease, Medical Care, Wellness and Prevention
A Screening Illustration
by Kevin Roche on Friday, September 4, 2009
Coronary calcium screening provides an interesting example of the potential benefits, costs and uncertainties surrounding various disease screening opportunities.
CBO Explains Prevention & Wellness Scoring
by Kevin Roche on Monday, August 10, 2009
In a letter to a Congressman, the CBO gives its rationale for how it attributes costs and savings to prevention and wellness programs.
Tags: CBO, Government, Medical Care, Wellness and Prevention
Prevention and Wellness Savings for Medicare
by Vita Advisors on Friday, August 7, 2009
Healthways’ Center for Health Research put our a report estimating that Medicare could save over $100 billion a year if beneficiaries entered the program in better health and maintained good health status.
Tags: Government, Medical Care, Medicare, Wellness and Prevention
Obesity, Obesity
by Kevin Roche on Monday, August 3, 2009
A new study shows increasing amounts of US health care spending are caused by obesity.
Tags: Chronic Disease, Consumers, Health Care Costs, Wellness and Prevention
Individual Health Responsibility
by Kevin Roche on Monday, July 27, 2009
Any health reform needs to ensure that there are adequate incentives to motivate individuals to take responsibility for lifestyle decisions that affect health.
Tags: Consumer Directed Health, Consumers, Incentives, Wellness and Prevention
More Innovation From the Private Sector
by Kevin Roche on Wednesday, July 8, 2009
A Company mandates that its employees check their health status.
Once Again, Health Care Change is Hard
by Kevin Roche on Thursday, June 18, 2009
Many unions and some disease advocacy groups are objecting to the wellness and prevention provisions proposed in some health reform measures. In a USA Today article, the difficulties of our “system” once again point out the impediments to improvement.
Tags: Consumers, Health Insurance, Incentives, Wellness and Prevention
Safeway’s Health Care Prescription
by Kevin Roche on Monday, June 15, 2009
Safeway Inc. has received a great deal attention around its health care plan and apparent cost savings. The essence of the plan is putting employees and their dependents directly at financial risk for improvements in certain key health-related behaviors.
More on Prevention’s Cost Savings
by Kevin Roche on Sunday, June 14, 2009
The Wall Street Journal article summarized some research results regarding the potential cost savings of prevention and wellness efforts, particularly for persons with chronic diseases. The overall conclusion is that not much money is likely to be saved by such methods, primarily because the cost of these programs when applied to a large population tends to outweigh the health care cost savings which eventually accrue.
Tags: Chronic Disease, Consumers, Disease Management, Medical Care, Wellness and Prevention
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