Schwartz Healthcare IT Blog

Get Ready for AHIP 2010

2010-06-04T18:13:59Z

By Melissa Bruno

Don’t let the heat and the glare of flashing neon lights on the Vegas strip distract you at next week’s America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) Institute show (June 9-11). Much like the sun-baked Nevada desert, the payer community has taken quite a beating, particularly over the last year, so it should make for an interesting environment.

Schwartz Communications caught up with Eric Wicklund, managing editor of Healthcare Finance News to get his thoughts before he heads out West. Keeping true to his healthcare finance beat, Eric will be on the lookout to see “whether any big healthcare finance deals will be made or broken on the casino floor or at the poker table.”

Like many vendors, members of the press and attendees, Eric’s most interested in the mood at the show––especially since insurers are being portrayed as the villains in Washington and on Main Street. He wants to know, “will they be apologetic or will they take a hard line on responsibility for rate increases?”

At Institute, make sure to set some time aside to catch the sessions for the latest news, challenges and trends in the payer space––many of them will examine the impact of the healthcare reform bill on payer/provider interactions, the adoption of technology, reimbursement and improving the cost and quality of care, not to mention the renewed interest in wellness and preventative care and the latest hot topic: HIEs. With all that's on the docket, there's ample opportunity to use the conference’s focus on these high-level trends to make your company––and news––relevant to the bigger stories that reporters are going to be focusing on in coming months.

Finally, we’ll leave you with a few PR tips from the strip to help you survive Vegas unscathed:

• Stay hydrated. Between air travel and high temperatures, you won’t be on you’re A-game if you aren’t getting enough H20.

• Know the show. Institute has limited exhibit hall hours––usually centered around food and drink––so if you’re planning on making the rounds to network and see the vendors, know the hours, plan ahead and avoid the snack lines to make the most of your time: Wednesday, June 9: 5-7 p.m., Thursday, June 10: 10-10:30 a.m.; 2:15-3:45 p.m. and 5:45-7:00 p.m. and Friday, June 11: 9:30-10:00 a.m.

• Gamble with money, not the media. The Institute press room is in Neopolitan IV, but keep in mind that reporters will spend most of their time in meetings or writing stories for pending deadlines, so tread carefully. If you come upon an unoccupied reporter, introduce yourself, hand over a business card and make note to follow-up with them after the show.

See you in Vegas!

FUD Factors

2008-10-03T15:21:02Z

An Envision Solutions/Kelton Research survey found that 85.6 million U.S. adults, or 38 percent of the population, have doubted the opinion of their doctors or other medical professionals when it conflicts with information found online. Forty three percent of consumers ages 18 to 34 reported they doubted their health provider's advice when it conflicted with online sources.

Only 3 percent of Americans seeking advice about how to manage a serious medical condition would view patient developed online health information as trustworthy. I’m sure this perspective would change if a consumer was faced with a serious disease or condition, hence the popularity of sites like PatientsLikeMe.com.

Few consumers listed the government, the media or non-profits as credible healthcare information sources. The survey shows that a majority of Americans still view health providers as their most trusted source of medical information overall.

Docs Rate Plans

2008-09-30T18:15:32Z

The AMA recently issued its first health insurance report card grading how quickly and accurately doctors get paid. Docs hope the report card will reduce the cost of claims processing and help in contract negotiations with the health plans.

According to the AMA, the report card compares Medicare and seven national commercial health insurers on the timeliness and accuracy of claims processing. UnitedHealthcare had the lowest rate – only 62 percent of medical services billed were paid by them at the agreed rate. Aetna came in higher at 71 percent, and the Medicare at an impressive 98 percent.

What you can do: If you are a healthcare IT physician practice management or EMR vendor who facilitates electronic coding and billing, use the AMA report to highlight how you can improve payment rates for you customers. It's likely your solution improves reimbursement rates and speed, translating into a more efficient and profitable practice.

Costs and Opportunities

2008-09-28T23:11:40Z

Health care costs are expected to rise more than 10 percent into next year, says an Aon Consulting survey of 70 national health insurers. This is actually good, considering it’s the smallest increase Aon has seen in six years.

Employers take measures to combat such increases through new designs, adoption of CDHP and HSA plans. Costs are still rising to keep up with growing patient demand for services, the needs of an aging population and prescription drug and technology costs, according to Aon.

What you can do: If you are a healthcare technology vendor whose solutions help lower costs for employers, leverage surveys such as this to highlight the savings you can provide customers. Highlight employer group success stories in the HR and benefits trades. Consider a round table of customers and experts to put your solution in a trend story context.

EHRachusetts

2008-09-23T21:11:14Z

Here in Massachusetts, Gov. Deval Patrick signed legislation mandating hospitals and community health centers to implement interoperable electronic health records systems by Oct. 1, 2015, as a condition of their state license. The state will develop regulations to define EHRs.

The systems must be certified by Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT.) Further, the law mandates collection and reporting of quality and cost data by providers and insurers, for dissemination to consumers via a state Web portal.

For HCIT practitioners of EHR vendors, this gives you an interesting message point to weave into pitching any Massachusetts hospital or health center customers.

PHR Thoughts

2008-09-16T15:03:18Z

While it may take a decade for widespread adoption of PHRs, it will definitely happen. It is another medium for communicating your medical condition to a doctor, which today is done verbally. Data supplied into the PHR by health plans, or the doctors via EMR interchange, will be more accurate as patients memory – selective or otherwise – isn’t often reliable.

What will help doctors is a high degree of interoperability between the PHR and the EMR, otherwise it’s still easier to take down a patient’s information verbally. When the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT) starts certifying PHRs this will hopefully be addressed.

Other obstacles that will be overcome with time is general technology acceptance by doctors. The old guard's resistence will be replaced by younger doctors who are more comfortable and trusting of technology. Ubiquity of PHRs via Microsoft, Google, health plans and hospitals will move PHRs from “nice to have” to “must have."

This presents PHR vendor PR folks with opportunities to highlight how their solutions are making adoption easier, helping facilitate the vision of universal PHRs.

Who Watches the Watchmen?

2008-09-09T10:54:28Z

University of Missouri researchers conducted a national survey and found that the majority of health journalists have not had specialized training in health reporting and face challenges in communicating new medical science developments.

Health literacy, as defined by the American Medical Association, is ‘the ability to obtain, process and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions and follow instructions for treatment.’

According to the UM press release, of the journalists surveyed, only 18 percent had specialized training in health reporting and only 6.4 percent reported that a majority of their readers change health behaviors based on the information they provide. The journalists had an average of 18 years of journalism experience and seven years experience as health journalists.

Journalists reported quoting medical experts, avoiding technical terms, and providing data and statistics, as the three most important elements to making health information understandable.

According to the survey, a majority of journalists reported believing that their readers understand information from medical professionals, but are not proficient with scientific information and more prone to believe health myths. The results suggest that newspaper journalists view their roles as information providers, while magazine journalists perceive themselves more as advocates for behavioral change.

PHR Factoids

2008-09-02T22:39:52Z

A recent Markle Foundation survey found that regardless of their interest in using an online PHR service, 79 percent or more of the public believe using an online PHR would provide benefits to individuals in managing their health. Fifty six percent cited worries about privacy and confidentiality as a reason for their reluctance.

Only 2.7 percent of adults have an electronic PHR today (representing about 6.1 million persons). Most (57.3 percent) do not keep any form of personal health records, and 40 percent keep some paper health records.

What you can do: If you're a PHR vendor PR person, utilize the survey findings to support your solution. Use the statistics in press releases or collateral to help make your case. Highlight the privacy and security safeguards that your product takes, given that privacy is a major obstacle to PHR acceptance.

Most Powerful?

2008-08-26T16:07:23Z

Modern Healthcare's annual "100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare" list for 2008 has been published and includes healthcare IT vendors in the top three spots.

1) Steve Case, CEO/founder of Revolution Health

2) Eric Schmidt, Chairman/CEO of Google

3) Bill Gates

4) Hillary Clinton

5) Barack Obama

6) Ted Kennedy

7) Arnold Schwarzenegger

8) George W. Bush

9) John McCain

10) Newt Gingrich

These popularity/political contests are amusing. As a healthcare IT PR practitioner it’s good to see the vendors in the top spots, as it indirectly helps all our causes. Personally I think none of them deserve to be there. Revolution, Google and Microsoft’s consumer health efforts are so early stage with virtually no users that they really should be in the low ‘teens.

No one seems to like Bush, but you can bet that doctors have privately thanked and rooted for him in not cutting Medicare reimbursement rates. That would put Bush from #8 to #1 no question. And Newt’s quasi-political think tank which charges vendors $50,000+ for representation is in many circles (as discussed by the Associated Press on occasion) a questionable operation. I could go on. But most people will agree that in our own real world, the most powerful person in healthcare is your or your child’s very own doctor.

Cloudy Outlook for PHRs?

2008-08-20T18:31:40Z

According to market research firm Gartner, government ITexecutives should investigate the impact of personal health records (PHRs) and health information exchange programs.

PHRs, such as Google Health, Microsoft HealthVault and ActivePHR from ActiveHealth Management, are free and controlled by the consumer and could achieve a high degree of interoperability with clinical systems operated by healthcare providers and other third parties, says Gartner. Microsoft recently announced a pilot project with Kaiser Permanente to enable data transfers between consumers' medical records and Microsoft's HealthVault online health site.

Gartner says these publicly available applications are built on important characteristics of cloud computing - they are enormously scalable resources that offer services directly to end users and to other IT products through an application program interface (API). Gartner reports they have the potential to achieve several important benefits:

]]> -They could provide a lifetime consumer health record that is free to consumers and healthcare payers because the vendors have very low costs through their cloud-computing facilities and the ability to monetize their PHRs by drawing consumers to their other online products.

- They have the potential to scale up to cover the dramatic expansion in healthcare data driven by increased use of diagnostic imaging, genomics and proteomics.

- They offer Internet-savvy approaches to the two most vexing issues in sharing electronic information in many jurisdictions: consumer authorization and consumer identification.

- Their cloud-computing approach, offering data access as a software service, can help to create a new market of consumer-oriented healthcare applications, enabling better consumer lifestyle choices and more active consumer participation in choosing a course of treatment for serious health problems.

- The cloud-computing approach is synergistic with the underlying philosophy of these products, which is to engage consumers in managing their own data. This consumer engagement is another reason that better consumer choices could stem from their use.

"It is very early in the life of these products and there are numerous obstacles that the vendors will have to overcome to achieve the benefits," said Gartner’s Wes Rishel in a press release. "The availability of these cloud-based approaches can disrupt health information-sharing initiatives and policies that some jurisdictions have in place by providing PHRs that better leverage vendor and global healthcare provider partnerships."

Gartner defines cloud computing as a style of computing where massively scalable IT-related capabilities are provided "as a service" using Internet technologies to multiple external customers.

Gartner recommends that policymakers prepare now to deal with issues pertaining to consumer confidentiality, competition with government programs, disenfranchisement of disadvantaged populations and policies on the secondary use of consumer health data.

"PHRs can impact government IT organizations and executives by creating the need for informed participation in policy initiatives and by impacting beliefs about whether some initiatives should be governmentally operated," said Rishel. "For almost all jurisdictions, preventing the entry of PHRs is not a viable approach. Delay is not a long-term strategy, but a limited amount of delay may provide time to ensure good confidentiality and craft an approach that is synergistic with government programs."

Additional information on personal health records is available in the report "The Cloud-Based Personal Health Record." The report is available on Gartner's Web site.

The Cost of National EHR

2008-08-15T16:30:31Z

Government Health IT reported that full implementation of networked e-health records in U.S. doctors’ offices and hospitals could cost around $150 billion over eight years.

According to Robert Miller, a professor of health economics at the University of California, San Francisco, this $150 billion estimate is actually “manageable” because it amounts to less than a 1 percent increase per year in the nation’s total health care spending.

Miller said hospitals are further along the path toward implementing clinical information systems, partly because they get some boosts in revenues when they install EHRs. With hospital profit margins around 5 percent, most hospitals can afford it.

Miller’s projections call for hospitals to spend $35 billion to acquire and expand EHR systems and $55 billion in new operating costs over eight years. Financial incentives and reporting requirements are going to be key to getting useful data from EHR users, Miller said.

The Rand Corp. reported in 2005 that the total cost over 15 years would be $114 billion, an amount Rand said would be completely offset by cost efficiencies and other financial benefits of EHR use.

What you can do: HCIT PR practitioners may want to consider highlighting the ROI of their EHR solutions in contrast to all this talk about costs. For those vendors with low cost hosted solutions, take full advantage of this feature in comparison to the bigger and more expensive licensed solution vendors.

Finally a Fine

2008-08-09T16:46:58Z

Some past posts of mine have talked about the lack of HIPAA enforcement fines. Finally a nursing home company in Seattle got fined. The A.P. reported that Providence Health & Services was socked with a $100,000 fine and mandate to fix it’s security in light of past privacy complaints.

Providence failed to properly secure backup tapes, disks and laptops with electronic patient information, even after thefts of the tapes and laptops.

Providence agreed to revise its policy on transporting patient records improve training.

Buzz Kill

2008-08-04T15:22:13Z

Part Two on Corporate America's Abuse of the English Language

I've written before on this topic in my "Good Business Writing: An Oxymoron?" post, with some extra commentary from Gary Baldwin of HealthLeaders magazine (now with Health Data Management.) Today my colleague Brian Bogie weighs in on the topic, with some insights from Eric Wicklund of Healthcare IT News...

Companies have news they need to communicate to their constituents. This news is made up of new customer wins, product announcements, partnerships, recent hires, etc. The most common method of distributing that news is the humble press release. Tried and true, a well written press release can get the word out quickly and effectively. Unfortunately, a great barrier stands in the way of effective communication in a press release: buzzwords.

It’s not the buzzwords fault, really. In a culture of hype, the buzzword is royalty. It shows you are “with it,” you are “now,” and you are “happening.” Ok, really bad examples, but you get the idea. With business book titles leading the way for a real-time, paradigm-changing, seamless business consciousness, we all end up believing the hype. And we are all guilty of using them. Besides, isn’t the news about our client’s fantastic new technology, or the greatest partnership in the history of mankind that you just signed with Microsoft worthy of a buzzword or two? For that answer, I went to Eric Wicklud, managing editor of Healthcare IT News.

Eric was kind enough to give some thought to the overuse of buzzwords. A master craftsman when it comes to understanding and reporting on news of the healthcare technology industry, Wicklund has simple advice: just say no.

Illustration: Katy Hanlon

“Long-winded words are tossed about as often as acronyms in the healthcare field these days, making it difficult to conduct a normal conversation or read through an article without consulting some kind of reference guide,” says Wicklund.

Please follow the "Continue Reading" link below...

]]> The importance of effective communication in a press can be summed up in one word–coverage. Unless the press release communicates the news value of the announcement in a concise, easily-understood manner, it’s likely to be passed over. Eric sees on average 60 press releases cross his desk daily, and standing in the way of your deserving news receiving coverage are buzzwords. “Buzzwords don’t effectively communicate anything. Rather then bring luster to a release, they only bring confusion,” says Wicklund. Eric openly wonders if there’s a “Healthcare IT for Dummies” out there somewhere.

With that in mind, Wicklund provided Schwartz with his list of most overused buzzwords. An explanation in his own words follows. Trying to sneak a few past him may just relegate your release to the circular file.

Buzzwords
1.    Solution – The use of the word “solution” has always bothered me. The word implies an answer to a vexing problem, and is used in marketing terms to refer to a company’s product. My question is, if the product doesn’t work, then it’s not a solution to anything.
2.    Utilization - Bothers me. It’s a longer version of “use.”
3.    Transparency - Sounds like something’s invisible.
4.    Seamlessly - As in “seamlessly integrating.” If it’s being integrated, the whole process should be seamless, or free of wrinkles. If it isn’t, you need an iron. And a better metaphor.
5.    Real-time - As opposed to fake time? Is there any other kind of time?
6.    Efficiencies - Aren’t they apartments? How does one “improve operational efficiencies?” If they’re efficient, they don’t need improving – unless they can be made more efficient, which makes one wonder if they were efficient in the first place.
7.    Innovative - Really? Who says? How do you prove it?
8.    Advanced - As in “advanced technology.” If it isn’t advanced, is it primitive? In my opinion, everything we’re reading about nowadays in healthcare IT is pretty advanced.
9.    Strategic Partnership – All partnerships are strategic. They’re not partnering just for the fun of it.
10.    Intuitive - If it’s intuitive, why say it?
11.    Paradigm - Actually, I like that word. I’ll never use it, because so few people know what it actually means, but it’s a cool word.

I suggest a new scale when weighing the communicative quality of the press release you are currently writing, the “Wicklund Scale.” It may not be a paradigm shifting, transparent, seamless, innovative release living with a few friends in efficiencies, but it may get covered.

PR Plug

2008-07-29T15:26:46Z

A quick plug today for some of the great work that our healthcare IT practice has been doing here at Schwartz.

The new iPhone 3G has provided great guerilla PR opportunities for consumer medical software clients who’ve developed apps for the phone. ePocrates, an early partner of Apple and one of the first to use the SDK, was featured in the Wall Street Journal’s iPhone piece the day of the launch on July 11. Healthcare content company A.D.A.M. developed the Symptom Navigator for iPhone, which was written about in the New York Times “Phone Smart” column, the Wall Street Journal Health Blog, PC World, and dozens of trades and blogs.

This month’s launch of American Well, the online healthcare marketplace, garnered coverage in USA Today, the Wall Street Journal Health Blog, and many trade media and online outlets.

I’d be happy to talk with any healthcare IT PR practitioners on how we went about these campaigns.

Putting Money Where Their Mouth Is

2008-07-22T15:13:28Z

I don’t write too much about government bills and initiatives for healthcare IT, because it’s just so much hot air until a bill passes or money is ponied up. However it is worth mentioning that Health & Human Services’ Secretary Mike Leavitt announced 12 communities that will participate in a national Medicare demonstration project that provides incentive payments to physicians for using CCHIT-certified electronic EHRs to improve the quality of patient care. The five-year project is expected to improve the quality of care provided to an estimated 3.6 million people.

Chosen among a field of more than 30 applicants, the communities selected include Alabama, Delaware, Jacksonville, Fla., Georgia, Maine, Louisiana, Maryland/Washington, DC, Oklahoma, Pittsburgh, Pa., South Dakota, Virginia and Madison, Wis.

Financial incentives will be provided to as many as 1,200 primary care physician practices in the selected communities that use certified EHRs to improve quality as measured by their performance on specific clinical quality measures. Total payments under the demonstration for all five years may be up to $58,000 per physician, or $290,000 per practice.

If you are a PR practitioner for one of the EHR vendors who have participating doctors in these communities, it’s a good opportunity to leverage the project. Promote to the media how your EHR solution is helping move the country toward the National Health Information Infrastructure. Demonstrate the ROI and payment incentives your software is delivering to your customers in the form of a case study pitched to the healthcare IT trades and local media. Encourage trend stories on the project which could include your customer reference. For more ideas, feel free to contact me.