Interviewed Evan Falchuk, President of Best Doctors, on their product allowing consumers to get additional information and options regarding diagnosis and treatment options.
The interview took place at the World Health Care Congress and both a podcast and a transcript lay out the conversation below.
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Evan Falchuck
Best Doctors
This post is cross-posted at the World HealthCare Blog.
George Halverson, Kaiser Permanente’s CEO gave a keynote earlier today at the World Health Care Congress in Washington DC. The statistics he gave were compelling. The opportunities, also, really interesting. From a consumer perspective, the prescription he wrote was not– heavy on centralized best practice reminiscent of the socialistic economy.
The issues today are pretty clear– we are focusing our resources heavily on the sickest individuals.
Even more compelling are the stories of conflicting interests, where an institution such as Virginia Mason is able to significantly reform health costs through better treatment up front (in this case imaging)– only to find a 30% revenue cut putting the institution at a disadvantage in being able to meet payroll and overhead expense.
But these innovations, although they lowered costs and seemingly were good for patients, hurt Virginia Mason’s bottom line. For example, “the big employers saved $100,000 in the first year. But Virginia Mason fell into the red on the average migraine case, instead of breaking even as before.”
Much as people have separated church from state, the private life of an employee used to be sacred ground outside of work. Health advocates are beginning to encroach on those rights– and the end of days for employer-based comprehensive health insurance has come upon us.
In an effort to motivate workers to kick unhealthy habits, U.S. companies are hitting them where it hurts: in their wallets.
Employers who provide health insurance often use financial incentives, such as contributions toward premiums, to encourage workers to participate in wellness programs like smoking-cessation courses.
Now some employers are wielding a stick as well as a carrot. Employees at some companies who are overweight, smoke, or have high cholesterol, for instance, and who don’t participate in supplementary wellness programs, will pay more for health insurance. In extreme cases, employees’ insurance deductibles could rise by $2,000.
John Goodman in his blog dismisses the results of the EBRI/Commonwealth study, and separates what consumers say they want (for free) vs. what they actually do when they make a choice.
“If the question is: Would you rather have a rich, generous plan from your employer than a skimpy plan? Don’t do a survey. Assume the answer is: yes.”
“If the question is: Do people who have the opportunity to choose between health care and other uses of the money make those choices more often than people who do not have that opportunity? Don’t do a survey. Assume the answer is: yes.”
For some reason, healthcare research finds it surprising that people make different choices when everything is free. Most people also struggle a little when adapting to new products. As an entrepreneur in the space, I find it amazing how little people equate our healthcare system to the rest of the realities of a capitalist system…
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