January 13, 2022 | Incomes not keeping pace with insurance costs

INDUSTRY NEWS

Poor communication hurts COVID effort

“Throughout the pandemic, we have seen how inconsistent messaging around COVID has fueled doubt around science, giving place to consistently messaged misinformation that has found its way into communities all across America. This has undermined our ability to implement data-driven policymaking.” Kavita K. Patel MD, MSHS, and Joseph V. Sakran, MD, MPH, MPA write in Scientific American. Patel and Sakran call for a “rapid response system that evaluates the newest data around COVID and quickly provides feedback to best ensure the most consistent, evidence-based messaging is released to the health care workforce and the general public.” (Scientific American)

Experts to Biden: COVID is here to stay. Deal with it.

Six former advisers to President Biden have provided “an extraordinary, albeit polite, critique” on his approach to COVID. In three opinion articles published last week in JAMA, they call on him to adopt an entirely new domestic pandemic strategy geared to the “new normal” of living with the virus indefinitely. One of the recommendations: Recognize that the coronavirus is one of several respiratory viruses circulating, and developing policies to address them together. They also point out that relying on “forgeable paper cards is unacceptable in the 21st century.” (New York Times; JAMA)

INNOVATION & TRANSFORMATION

Blumenthal: How companies can save primary care

“No modern health care system can function without the equivalent of what the family doctor provides. The United States has failed to offer it. Perhaps corporate America can come to the rescue, make a profit, maintain quality, and sustain a vital national service,” David Blumenthal, MD, president of the Commonwealth Fund, writes in the Harvard Business Review. He identifies three potential strategies: Use primary care as a loss leader for their main business; make fee-for-service primary care more profitable by increasing its productivity; apply a capitation model and assume the financial risk of the cost of care. (Harvard Business Review)

Working to bring community orgs into value-based models

Community-based organizations (CBO), on the frontline of local need, are often the last to be part of value-based care models. However, “efforts are underway to overcome these challenges, from Medicaid and Medicare Advantage program designs to third-party tech enablers,” HealthLeaders Media reports. "Many CBOs lack sustainability," says Lynn Carroll, COO and head of strategy for HSBlox."It is up to payers—or the holders of the financial and outcomes risk for the individual—to create the infrastructure and processes to add CBOs to their VBC models and pay them for their services." (HealthLeaders Media)

CONSUMERS & PROVIDERS

Incomes not keeping pace with insurance costs

According to a Commonwealth Fund report released yesterday, median incomes have not kept pace with rising health insurance costs and deductibles. Workers are at increasing risk of spending 10% or more of their earnings on premiums and deductibles. In 2020, workers in 37 states passed that threshold, up from 10 states in 2010. Overall, premium contributions and deductibles totaled 11.6% of median income in 2020, up from 9.1% in 2010. The financial burden of commercial insurance, it argues, “is an enduring problem that is undermining Americans’ economic well-being and causing many to forgo necessary medical treatment.” (Commonwealth Fund report)

Think tanks rate state telehealth policies

A new report from Reason Foundation, Cicero Institute and Pioneer Institute rates each state’s telehealth policy across several categories. The laws vary widely, but one of the most common barriers it identified was the ability to work across state lines. “Once the public health emergency declarations started to end or executive orders were withdrawn many of the new flexibilities for providers, insurers and patients were lost overnight,” says Vittorio Nastasi, policy analyst at Reason Foundation and co-author of the report. (Becker's Hospital Review; announcement)

NEW & NOTED

Universal health in the Golden State? California’s universal health care system legislation is back on the table as sponsors proposes tax hikes to pay for it. Progressives in California’s Democratic-dominated state legislature have long called for a universal health care system, plans have often stalled over questions about how to pay for it. (AP)

Too much screen time: Children and youth with more screen time had increased risk for poor mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to results of a longitudinal cohort study conducted published in JAMA Network Open. Researchers noted that greater exposure to stressful news, online bullying and detrimental advertising could be contributing factors. (Healio; JAMA Network Open)

A smarter TV? Electronics manufacturer LG announced that its new TV models will include a health platform that includes, among other features, access to telehealth appointments, discount pharmaceuticals and flat-fee dental consults. (TechRadar)

MULTI-MEDIA

Documenting the front lines of COVID

Alan Hawes, RN, a former photojournalist, has—with appropriate permission—been taking powerful pictures of COVID patients and hospital workers. "If the public was more educated and could see what was going on and feel some of those emotions that I hope my photos show, I felt like it would make a bigger difference," says Hawes, whose photographs have been published by the Chicago Tribune, Sports Illustrated and The Associated Press. (NPR)

MARKETVOICES…QUOTES WORTH READING

“In the meantime, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is adding to the chaos in the way they changed its isolation recommendations. […] These changes, which started as guidance focused on health care personnel before it was suggested to the general public, give reason to suspect the agency was motivated by pressure from the business community rather than consideration of the science. […] With such a shift from our top public health agency comes a palpable sense of frustration in the country, and the further eroding of public faith in science, the scientific process and scientists themselves.” — Kavita K. Patel MD, MSHS, and Joseph V. Sakran, MD, MPH, MPA, in an opinion piece for Scientific American