Blog Entries tagged 'Consumer Driven Health'

What's The Difference Between A Hippo and HIPPA?

shades — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 22:00:00 +0100

My son has this flattened stuffed hippo called Flatso, who has been a close family friend for many years. As an aside, I wonder if the phrase "creature comfort" is derived from these affections we had for these stuffed critters when we were kids.

When my son was three years old, we were eating dinner at Col Poole's Bar-B-Que joint up in the Georgia hills on our way home from a weekend in North Carolina. Poole's is famous for four things; Pig Hill, politician [...]

Who Is Regina Herzlinger?

shades — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 22:00:00 +0100

For starters, she speaks our language. And that is the language of Consumer Driven Healthcare. A brief expose' of her positions are outlined in the December 22 edition of Business Week and worth a read. If time is tight, keep reading below for a summary and maybe even a few thoughts of our own (maybe).

Regina Herzlinger is a professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and she advocates neither government nor employer based healthcare. [...]

So What's Going On In E-Health?

shades — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 22:00:00 +0100

If you have read the last two postings ("What the Heck is E-Health" and "E-Health and Health Savings Accounts") you know what e-health is. Now the question is, where is it going?

There's a good article in the December 8th edition of Business Week on E-Health. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Wal-Mart (who began offering Health Savings Accounts in 2006 as a means to provide health benefits to its 1MM+ employees) will offer its 1MM benefits eligib [...]

Goodbye Joe the Plumber. Hello Dan the Street Super.

shades — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 22:00:00 +0100

Dan Crowell represents the changing face of health and healthcare in America. Dan is the street superintendent for the city of Lafayette, Indiana. Now I don't know Dan but I read about him JConline.com, the online edition of the Journal Courier Newspapers of Lafayette and West Lafayette Indiana.

Both cities, faced with ever rising healthcare costs have joined together to save money on health insurance and to promote healthier employees. One of the keys to their st [...]

Beans, Tea Parties, Witch Trials - Massachusetts Healthcare Reform 2009

shades — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:00:00 +0100

About the only things I know about Massachusetts have to do with beans (Blazing Saddles), a bunch of whiteys dressed up as Indians (wonder if they were wearing wigs?), and burning witches at the stake (now that's hot).

Being from the Deep South, my purview of the rest of the country is somewhat narrow, and I suppose for every one of us, there is enough history, news, and politics in our own states to keep up narrowly focused and narrowly minded for a lifetime. Thank God, [...]

Politically Speaking, Is There A Middle Ground In Healthcare?

shades — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:00:00 +0100

Ron Klar, a guy way smarter than me when it comes to healthcare, the healthcare debate and fixing the problems related to our Nation's ills, wrote a terrific article just before the election entitled, AmericarePlans: A McCain-Obama Hybrid Proposal posted on Health Affairs, The Policy Journal of the Health Sphere. Being the last guy on the grape vine, it took awhile for me to intersect with his article.

I'm not going to regurgitate the article here as it is much bett [...]

It's Open Enrollment Season Out There. Are You the Hunter Or The Hunted?

shades — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 23:00:00 +0100

If you are one of those folks who dreads the open enrollment period for your health benefits, who puts their heads inside of their shell and basically runs and hides, I'm sorry to say, you are the hunted. If you simply sign up for whatever you had last year (but likely at a higher price, and possibly with reduced benefits) without doing your homework, you are the hunted. If you haven't figured out things like HSAs, HRAs, or FSAs, then you are the hunted. If you simpl [...]

Another $17 in My Health Savings Account (HSA) or is that My Hair Savings Account?

shades — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 23:00:00 +0100

When I was a kid, up until the age of about eleven, my Grandmother used to conduct Doctor Jekyl-like experiments on my hair with her handy scissors. I was a total toe head and when she was done they could have slapped me on the side of a paint can and called me the Little Dutch Boy.

I revolted at eleven and began a 30 plus year quest to find the perfect barber. Recently though, in my quest to save more money into my health savings account I decided to give Betty, my barber, [...]

Why Is Healthcare So Expensive? The Unscientific Top Ten Reasons Why.

shades — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:00:00 +0100

I have an HDHP. When I go to the Doctor to have them look at the creatures crawling around in my throat, causing me to itch all over, or making my hair fall out in clumps, I am expected to pick up the full tab until I hit my deductible. I even have a little stash of money, called an HSA to pay for it. BUT, I don't pay a nickel when the Doctor is done with me. Not immediately.

The Doctor has to put in a claim to my insurance company, the insurance company tell [...]

Are You A Savvy Health Savings Account Shopper?

shades — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:00:00 +0100

I came across an article in Wednesday's (10/29) edition of Workforce Management Magazine which was extracted from a presentation made by Maureen E. Sullivan, SVP Blue Cross Blue Shield Association at the National Consumer Driven Health Summit on October 20. The name of the presentation was called Health Plan Initiatives, Trends and Research in Consumer Driven Care. If you want the full download please click on either of the links above for loads of relevant statistics re [...]

Health Savings Account (HSA) Mindset And Chinese Fortune Cookies

shades — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:00:00 +0100

"A Thrifty Man Is A Free Man" Advice from my fortune cookie March 1982

Good advice during these strange and troubling economic times. Good advice anytime and way cheaper than a fortune teller (unless of course, the fortune teller is your crazy aunt Zelda).

The October 20th edition of Business Week offered up a timely article entitled, "The New Age of Frugality" by Steve Hamm. It discusses the tightening of spending by Americans with our contra [...]

Healthcare Ain't Rocket Science....

shades — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 23:00:00 +0100

.......it's actually harder.

Remember a few years ago when this outfit called the X Prize Foundation paid $10 million for the first privately funded manned space flight? Quite a contest. Quite a feat.

Well yesterday, WellPoint and the X Prize Foundation announced a new competition offering $10 million for solutions that can impact positive change in health care cost and quality.

Nice prize. Tall order. But just damned cool.

Now if you are i [...]

Individual vs. Family Deductibles and your HSA

shades — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 23:00:00 +0100

My family has had our High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) for just under one year, and last month we discovered that what we believed to be an embedded deductible was nothing of the sort. Huh? What's an embedded deductible you say?

When shopping for health insurance you'll often see an individual deductible and a family deductible quoted side by side. In our case the individual deductible was $5,200 and the family deductible was $10,400. From our reading o [...]

Consumer Directed Health & The Healthiest Nation Alliance

shades — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:00:00 +0100

Generally speaking I don't care for films that have subtitles. First of all, reading in the dark goes against, well,....... all the rules of reading. I mean, when you were a kid your mom or dad didn't come into the room when you were knee deep in a good book and say "hey, it's too bright in here, you need to turn out the light." Quite the contrary of course. Secondly, those films are generally distracting because in addition to having to read you [...]

In Healthcare, When is Oop a Good Thing?

shades — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 23:00:00 +0100

I ran across a cool website today called outofpocket.com; let's call it Oop for short. Oop is a good thing, not to be confused with Oops, a bad thing. Oop also rhymes with something that occasionally attaches itself to the bottom of my son's shoes, which he feels compelled to bring into the house, but that's a story for another day.

Outofpocket.com is an exclamation point on consumer directed healthcare, not only because its mission is to bring transparency to th [...]

A Little Detour From The HSA �Grab Bag� 101�Halleluiah�s All Around

shades — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:00:00 +0100

For those folks glued to this blog to learn about the whole ‘Grab Bag' thing, fear not. For as best we can tell it pretty much goes into perpetuity. However, it is definitely time for the staff at Gradock to take a break and cover some other ground.

It is hard to believe it's been almost a year since we plunged into the world of high deductible health plans (HDHPs) and health savings accounts (HSAs). And brothers and sisters have we learned a lot. I [...]

Health Savings Accounts And My Left Ear

shades — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0100

It's been 77 days since I moved $17 from my "Hair Savings Account" into my Health Savings Account. This , the result of a bold experiment involving my wife, some sheers, and my generally thrifty disposition. The entire hair lowering experience was all documented (and wildly popular) in the article on HSAeducator.com entitled "Hair Savings Account - HSA" . Well, I'm hair to tell you, while I may be dumb, I am also slow. I am also a cheap a [...]

July 4th: Consumer Directed Health = Independence

shades — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0100

The folks at The Gradock Bulletin recommend that in honor of our nations' birthday, we spend a little bit of time thinking about the concept of independence and how it relates to our desire to take control of our healthcare needs.

For those who flunked American History in school, our founding fathers (the guys with the wigs) got really sick of the King of England sticking his hands into their pockets and telling them how to run their lives. Remember that "taxation without [...]

3rd Law of Healthonomics

shades — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:00:00 +0100

Let me start by saying that any article, blog, website, white paper, essay or other written communication that include "onomics" as part of any word in it, is, by its nature, going to be hard for most of us. Huh?

At college I was forced to take two quarters of economics. One was Micro Economics and the other Macro Economics. One of the two courses, I can't remember which one, was either taught by one of the worst teachers in the history of th [...]

Mo Money, Mo Money, Mo Money For Your HSA

shades — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 23:00:00 +0100

While this isn't hot off the press kind of news, it also is not front page news either. That is if you are one of the 6.1 million folks who were enrolled in a health savings account (HSA) last year according to AHIP (American Health Insurance Plans) or one of the couple of million folks who enroll over the course of this year according to Gradock, you may make larger contributions to your HSA in 2009.

The IRS will raise the annual contribution limits as follows:

Individu [...]