On-Site Clinic NewsON-SITE CLINIC NEWSLETTER


The Newsletter for Employer Managed Healthcare
                                   
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Your New PHR Has Just Been Replaced
Restating the Obvious
NWHCA News
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Global Media Dynamics

5th Annual Congress on On-Site Employee Health Clinics

Building & Expanding On-Site Health Clinics - Incorporating Innovative On-Site Clinic Models that Reduce Costs, Ensure Employee Satisfaction and Positively Impact Patient Behavior

July 25-26, Chicago

The World Congress

3rd Annual Executive Forum on the Business of On-Site Employee Health Clinics 

 Quantify andDemonstrate the Economic Value of Onsite Employee Health Clinics through Validated Cost Savings Data and Metrics 

July 27-28, Chicago


The Forum 11

Annual Meeting of  

Care Continuum Alliance

Sept 9-11

San Francisco 

Vol 17 No. 1
June 2011


Greetings!
 

 

Lots in this issue to review and use for planning, the first of which is to look over the conferences.  Chicago is the place to be.   Global Media Dynamics and The World Congress are both holding their on-site clinic conferences there.   

 

Each program has been highlighted in our banner, and we certainly endorse the concept of meeting in Chicago in the summertime.  They are scheduled back-to-back, both at a world-class venue.  We encourage you to come to Chicago and network with your peers.  Besides getting a dose of information and exposure, you can have Chicago Pizza which is infinitely better than the "Chicago-style" pizza they sell in your home town.

Your New PHR Has Just Been Replaced - 

Microsoft is continuing to flesh out its HealthVault electronic medical records service with new features like Facebook credential access and support for mobile devices.  This means that, as a consumer, I can access my "stuff" on my Android or iPhone (just like I can access everything else in the world).

 

Employers better rethink PHRs, EMRs and EHRs in order to stay relevant.  The game-changer in health care is the consumer - not the doctor or the hospital.  This is a consumer-enabling event which will be matched (improved upon?) by Google.  It is all about "the cloud," and the consumer will be making doctor appointments and ordering lab tests the same way that they make hair appointments and order take-out.  If you don't believe me, go to the Domino's Web site and order a "Meat Lover's," and then try to call your doctor on a Monday.

 

Besides the Facebook access, Microsoft is using OpenID as an option to authenticate personal health accounts on HealthVault.  As you would expect, you can also upload/download digital images including X-rays, ultrasounds, and MRIs from the HealthVault Connection Center.

 

Sit around and conceive of the future with health access tied to the mobile phone, with banking and credit transactions on the same device.  You can muse over this idea while you are answering questions on a clipboard with a ballpoint pen in the waiting room of your doctor.  Consumers are heading in the direction they see as high tech and patient sensitive.  The programs being sponsored by vendors and employers have to be there first.

 

Before you all write in to tell me that HealthVault is not a PHR nor is it an EMR, let me remind you that we don't yet know what it is.  The same goes for Google Health.  I do know that they are the platforms that will survive since these companies have a higher capitalization than a hundred EMR/PHR companies combined.  With the speed of tech and the adoption rate of the phone as an "everything instrument," your doctor better know the answer when the patient asks, "Is there an app for that?"

For more on-site clinic news, and to blog about your ideas - visit the FORUM Web site at www.onsiteclinics.org .

Restating the Obvious - Value and Quality are Elusive

At long last - A "cure" for rising health care premiums.

 

California seems to think it has the answer in HC 92.  This is a bill that regulates insurance rates and which will require insurers to gain approval from the State Insurance Commissioner for any rate increases.  News like this always gives us a chuckle since it is like putting pancake make-up on a melanoma.  It looks okay from a distance, but the cancer is still there and as potent as ever.

 

Smaller businesses that are victims of the insurance cost-squeeze will benefit short term from a bill of this nature. It will not impact the self-funded firm, and it may actually confuse businesses into thinking that something is happening that will affect the cost of health care.  The real challenge is affecting the value of health care.  This is accomplished through the empowerment of primary care, the engagement of the patient population, and the active design of secondary and tertiary support mechanisms.  Data is the glue that holds this all together, and information processed from that data is the tool that allows a system to be constructed.

 

Laws won't help to do anything but confuse the issue.  My advice for anyone who wants to offset health care costs using insurance as a tool  is to buy stock in the insurance companies and invest the margins earned in an on-site clinic. 

National Worksite Health Center Association News
 

The association that we have announced and formed, in conjunction with the Midwest Business Group on Health, has now been incorporated and an initial board is being formed.

 

I can give you some of the key ideas behind this group with more information to follow.

 

The organization is going to be comprised of employers (firms or public entities) that have made a commitment to the concept of providing health care on or near the work site for their employees.  Many of these employers have extremely sophisticated programs, and many have partnered with vendors who have made a significant contribution to the industry as they outfit employers and design programs for targeted populations.  While the Association will be governed by the employers, we will include the vendors in a supportive role since we feel that they have a lot to offer, and we want to have their input and ideas, as well.

 

We do respect that dollars are tight and membership fees are budgeted with care.  Therefore, we are going to acknowledge any firm that has a membership in an established business alliance with a special membership rate.  So far, the key collaborator in this initiative is the Midwest Business Group on Health, and their members will receive a discounted rate that will be lower than that of a general membership.  With all of the duplication that is going on in health care, we don't want to contribute to additional cost with duplicative member services or fees.  We are talking with other business alliances, and new affiliations will be announced in upcoming newsletters.

 

We are inviting recognized members of the on-site medical community to participate in a medical council that will address the many issues that should start (and end) with medical care and quality as the core factors.  Highlighting a medical council of seasoned physicians is a key for this organization to stay centered on what we are all about - quality care and the effective delivery of health care options to the employed work force and their dependents.


We want to highlight some other news of the past two weeks in our closing comments.   Perdue, which has long had an outstanding on-site program for its employees, held a Workplace Health & Wellness Symposium just last week.  You can get a copy of the handout on-line, but we have a few highlights excerpted here to tempt you to look at it in full.  

 

The cost per associate for Perdue is less than half that of a national benchmark from the National Business Group on Health/Milliman survey (just under $4,000).  Pretty amazing data, but look at the "USA - Cost vs. Product" slide.  It makes you pause and think about value and the use of scarce resources in our system.  Also check out the information on the "HIP" program for employees, as well as the one on its effect on turnover. Finally, I love the one on Conclusions:  "There is no limit to the good we can do, the health we can convey if only we are willing."  Now there's a philosophy to live by!

 

One more item of note.  CMS has proposed new rules which would (among other things) ". . . provide standardized extracts of Medicare claims data from Parts A, B, and D to qualified entities."   This would allow employers, insurance companies, and other data miners (if qualified) to access Medicare data (for a fee) and then combine it with their own data to identify quality services.  There apparently would be some requirement that the resulting data would be available publicly, making it also easier for consumers to review aggregate quality data and make better decisions about healthcare.  Who knows what the final regulations will look like, but sounds promising as a way to get more data to use in contracting for those narrow network services. 

 

Sincerely,

Mike La Penna
The La Penna Group, Inc.