Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School Receives $28 Million in Grants from Gates Foundation, Packard Foundation and Hewlett Foundation to Expand Advanced Family Planning Advocacy

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The whole idea here is to expand access and use of family planning services.  Nine countries will be in the initiative,  India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Senegal, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya.  If you have not seen the TED video from Melinda Gates from earlier this year, use the link below and watch it.  You know her influence on the Johns Hopkins grants are is all over it.  BD 

Melinda Gates Talks Birth Control and Contraception–Giving Women the Option To Control When They Want to Have Children–TED Video

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Newswise — The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has received $28 million in grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to continue and expand the Advance Family Planning advocacy initiative within the Bloomberg School’s Bill & Melinda Gates Institute on Population and Reproductive Health.

Advance Family Planning aims to increase resources and political commitment for quality family planning programs, as part of the July 2012 London Summit on Family Planning (now known as FP2020). The vision of the summit was to enable more women and girls in some of the world’s poorest countries to use contraceptive information, services and supplies, without coercion or discrimination, by 2020.

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/597573/?sc=rsla&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NewswiseLatestNews+%28Newswise%3A+Latest+News%29

FDA Approves Another ADHD Generic Version of Concerta

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This will offer another alternative generic as if you read on the web there’s a lot of comments about how the generic doesn’t work as well and this is odd because they are both manufactured in the same Ortho-McNeil plant but we don’t know the formulation so again you would think they would be real close if for no other reason than extensive retooling the production line.  Now here’s one from a totally different manufacturer.  BD 

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Mallinckrodt, the Pharmaceuticals business of Covidien plc (COV - Analyst Report), has won the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to manufacture and sell a generic version of CONCERTA (methylphenidate HCl) Extended-Release (ER) Tablets USP (CII) in 27 mg, 36 mg and 54 mg dosage strengths.

The tablets are used to treat patients, aged between 6 and 65, suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). ADHD is a neurobehavioral disorder, usually diagnosed in childhood.

Children with ADHD are inattentive, hyperactive and impulsive. Despite being a long-term chronic condition, it can be successfully treated with proper therapy and medication.

http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/89503/fda-approves-covidien-drug

Dune Medical Gets FDA Approval On Device Used to Identify Breast Cancer Cells Along the Edges of Tissue- Will Help Avoid Second Surgeries To Remove More Cancer That May Have Been Missed

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So what does the machine do? We all wonder when surgery takes place with removing cancer, did they get it all? The devices gives the surgeons the information they need to find out during surgery. The probe uses software that detects to see if any more tissue needs to be cut away.
Radio frequency technology is used and it is the only device that can find microscopic cancer on the marginal tissue. The price is certainly affordable as far as surgical and diagnostics go at 2k. The whole point here is avoid second surgeries of course to remove additional cancer cells.

Right now the device is designed for breast cancer detection only but the company hopes to expand on this for other types of cancers. The clinical trial was done at NYU.

  BD

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Federal regulators have approved a new instrument made by Dune Medical Devices Inc. that enables breast cancer surgeons to determine immediately whether they have removed all of the cancer tissue during lumpectomy procedures, the company is set to disclose Wednesday.

Dune Medical, based in Caesarea, Israel, plans to move its US office from Framingham to Boston’s Innovation District next week as it builds a sales force to market the device, called the MarginProbe system, to breast cancer surgeons across the nation.

Dune Medical’s new device, already in use in Israel, Germany, and Switzerland, got the green light from the Food and Drug Administration eight months after the privately held company filed its application for premarket approval. That followed clinical trials involving 664 patients at two dozen sites in the United States and Israel. MarginProbe was shown to be effective in identifying cancer along the edge of breast tissue during lumpectomy surgery.

“This is the only device that will identify microscopic cancer on the margin,” Levangie said, noting that MarginProbe is his company’s first approved product. “This is a first-of-a-kind device. But the technology can be applied to a wide variety of other cancers.”

MarginProbe, including the console and probes, will cost health care providers about $2,000, a fraction of the cost of screening equipment used to make the initial diagnosis of breast cancer.

http://bostonglobe.com/business/2013/01/02/dune-medical-wins-fda-approval-sell-new-breast-cancer-tissue-assessment-tool/km72J2iXqbt2Sv3G0mnHRJ/story.html

Physician Rating Sites Are Seeing Fewer Reviews These Days–Flawed Data Catching Up Along With Loss of Value As Consumers and Doctors Lose Interest?

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It looks like a group at Loyola University did a study on these sites and they kind of came up with what I have been saying for the last couple of years.  First of all I go back a few years ago when myself and several doctors looked around the sites, dead doctors was one of the first issues we found.  There’s nothing wrong with keeping a listing as those are helpful but the over all grading systems don’t offer much anymore as everyone who does ratings has their own set of parameters they use to judge and give that report card grade.  Now according to this report fewer patients are rating doctors too so more evidence that these sites as far as value have dropped?  Every time I go to one of them I find errors with only a couple searches and the sites blame the state boards for the data but in my opinion, some simple web searches will help all of them update their information.  You can read below where I said six months ago that these sites are getting dated. 

HealthGrades Puts Out Top Hospital List–Time to Drop All the Hospital Ratings Sites As Nobody Cares, Many Don’t Have Time To Read and Too Much “Flawed Data”

You read stories in the news too with major hospitals who get a “C” rating and yet they provide life saving procedures that are not available at smaller hospitals so what’ up with that.  I’m back to my same old rant again about quality of data and the rise of “flawed data” in some areas of healthcare.  Healthgrades is now owned by a marketing company so what does that mean?  Better marketing or better information, and I think it’s more like the first. 

 

HealthGrades to Merge with CPM Marketing–Will Their Data and Questionable Algorithms Will Be Improved For Consumers?

I also said consumers were too busy and that’s a fact as now consumers are just as busy as doctors in “correcting” all the flawed data posted by various sites and companies about them.  It’s a scary growing trend but companies make billions selling all kinds of data they mine and they put the money in the bank and consumers and doctors have to spend time on their own dime to fix the flawed data that makes billions in profits for corporate USA.  I said over a year go that it’s time to excise tax all that sell data which would include banks, companies, social networks, etc. 

We could fund the FDA and the NIH with such money.  This is a runaway train here with corporate USA getting free labor to fix all their mistakes as there’s a captive audience here who is stuck as they can’t get whatever they need, be it a car, house or whatever until on their own dime, they fix the flawed data that makes billions in profits for corporate USA, one of my Attack of the Killer Algorithm posts.  Nobody minds the shop government wise and there’s very little risk and these profit makers found the ultimate free labor to fix their data, doctors and consumers sadly.  I only got in on this a few years ago when I found my former doctor who had been dead for 8 years still listed as seeing new patients and the AMA and I had a nice chat about it. 

Here’s some other related information about E-Scoring that gets around the law with what they call their business and you and I as consumers have not a clue on what data they have or have any access as they found a loophole in the law that allows them to do this and sure there’s others who do this as well.  BD

 

One More Good Reason to Tax the Data Sellers– Create Additional Funding for the NIH and FDA From Sources That Otherwise Are Too Greedy to Share & Contribute

Start Licensing and Taxing the Data Sellers of the Internet Making Billions of Profit Dollars Mining “Free Taxpayer Data”–Attack of the Killer Algorithms Chapter 17 - “Occupy Algorithms”– Help Stop Inequality in the US

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Newswise — MAYWOOD, Il. - Millions of Americans read physician ratings on websites such as Healthgrades.com, but such ratings are based on scores from an average of only 2.4 patients, a Loyola University Medical Center study has found.

The study of 500 randomly selected urologists found that 79.6 percent of physicians were rated by at least one of the 10 free physician-review websites researchers examined. Eighty-six percent of physicians had positive ratings, with 36 percent receiving highly positive ratings. Healthgrades had the most physician ratings.

Healthgrades posted reviews on 54 percent of physicians, followed in order by Vitals.com, 45 percent of physicians; Avvo.com, 39 percent; RateMDs.com, 25 percent; Drscore, 13 percent; Revolutionhealth.com, 5 percent; Kudzu.com and Healthcarereviews.com, 1 percent; and Zocdoc.com and Yelp.com, less than 1 percent.

http://www.newswise.com/articles/physician-rating-websites-rely-on-few-patient-reviews

Lexmark Buys Acuo Technologies–Software to Connect to PACS Systems and More To EMRs

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This side of the business has certainly grown as I remember the early days and there’s still a lot of this that goes on to get paper information scanned and connected to an EMR to reference.  As a matter of fact many offices did this to to have not go back and pull out older paper charts, a great idea and system.  Now we are at the Enterprise level with bringing  in imaging to connect which again makes sense.  It’s all about the indexing and connecting the relative patient data.  BD

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Lexmark International, Inc. has announced the acquisition of Acuo Technologies, LLC, a leader in high performance software and services for clinical content management, data migration and vendor neutral archives (VNA), for a cash purchase price of approximately $45 million. Acuo Technologies will become a part of Perceptive Software, a Lexmark company.

Acuo Technologies, when combined with Lexmark’s Perceptive Software healthcare software solutions, will enable customers to deploy a single, enterprise-wide access platform for clinical content via any electronic medical record (EMR) system.

Acuo Technologies’ offerings include a single integration point for all medical imaging assets, lowering costs and risks through the Universal Clinical Platform’s ability to work with different systems – enabling flexibility and efficiency across users and departments.

http://www.kyforward.com/2013/01/lexmark-acquires-acuo-technologies-continuation-of-capital-allocation-framework/

@NRA Letter of Resignation Sent By Bush to Rifle Association

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SOURCE http://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/11/us/letter-of-resignation-sent-by-bush-to-rifle-association.html

Following is the letter of resignation sent last week by former President George Bush to the National Rifle Association: May 3, 1995

Dear Mr. Washington,

I was outraged when, even in the wake of the Oklahoma City tragedy, Mr. Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of N.R.A., defended his attack on federal agents as "jack-booted thugs." To attack Secret Service agents or A.T.F. people or any government law enforcement people as "wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms" wanting to "attack law abiding citizens" is a vicious slander on good people.

Al Whicher, who served on my [ United States Secret Service ] detail when I was Vice President and President, was killed in Oklahoma City. He was no Nazi. He was a kind man, a loving parent, a man dedicated to serving his country -- and serve it well he did.

In 1993, I attended the wake for A.T.F. agent Steve Willis, another dedicated officer who did his duty. I can assure you that this honorable man, killed by weird cultists, was no Nazi.

John Magaw, who used to head the U.S.S.S. and now heads A.T.F., is one of the most principled, decent men I have ever known. He would be the last to condone the kind of illegal behavior your ugly letter charges. The same is true for the F.B.I.'s able Director Louis Freeh. I appointed Mr. Freeh to the Federal Bench. His integrity and honor are beyond question.

Both John Magaw and Judge Freeh were in office when I was President. They both now serve in the current administration. They both have badges. Neither of them would ever give the government's "go ahead to harass, intimidate, even murder law abiding citizens." (Your words)

I am a gun owner and an avid hunter. Over the years I have agreed with most of N.R.A.'s objectives, particularly your educational and training efforts, and your fundamental stance in favor of owning guns.

However, your broadside against Federal agents deeply offends my own sense of decency and honor; and it offends my concept of service to country. It indirectly slanders a wide array of government law enforcement officials, who are out there, day and night, laying their lives on the line for all of us.

You have not repudiated Mr. LaPierre's unwarranted attack. Therefore, I resign as a Life Member of N.R.A., said resignation to be effective upon your receipt of this letter. Please remove my name from your membership list. Sincerely, [ signed ] George Bush

Corporate taxation for the layman, and why we need a "territorial" system

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source http://thespiritofenterprise.blogspot.com/2012/12/corporate-taxation-for-layman-and-why.html

There has been a great deal of discussion about adopting a "territorial" corporate tax system, much of it jaw-droppingly ignorant. It seemed to us that it would be much in order to explain corporate taxation for the layman interested in the policy debate.

First, a couple of warnings. The topic is infinitely complicated, so we will generalize in ways that will irritate tax and accounting professionals, and probably get too basic for most people who took business classes in college. We are, however, undeterred!

The basics

There are many ways to organize a business, including as a proprietorship, a partnership, or a limited liability company. We do not tax any of these structures separately -- the owners pay personal income tax on their share of the business's profits -- but each has disadvantages that drive most larger businesses to become corporations. We tax most corporations as separate entities. (Many small businesses in the United States organize as "S" corporations, which are "pass through" entities like partnerships, which is why people who favor low personal income taxes talk about the impact of high rates on small businesses, but that controversy is not the subject of this post.)

In general, corporations in the United States pay federal corporate tax at the rate of 35%. They also pay state corporate tax at varying rates. This is all fairly straightforward for individual American corporations with no foreign subsidiaries.

Of course, most larger American corporations own and control other corporations, often because they wish to do business in a foreign country and it is advantageous or even required to form a local corporation to do so. For our purposes, let's call the top corporation (the one you would buy shares of stock in if you were to invest) the "ultimate parent," American subsidiaries "domestic subsidiaries," and non-American subsidiaries "foreign subsidiaries."

Of course, the foreign subsidiaries often earn profits in foreign countries which levy corporate tax on those profits. These rates can vary enormously, but they are almost all lower than the US federal rate, and lower still than the blended federal-state rate.

A bit about "headline" tax rates and the difference between tax and accounting

In the American system, we keep separate books for accounting (financial reporting) and tax purposes. This is because financial reporting and tax have different purposes. The purpose of financial reporting is to reflect the financial results and position of the corporation as fairly as possible. "Profit" for financial reporting purposes, however, may have little to do with profit for tax purposes, in part because there are provisions in the tax code intended to change behavior. So, for example, the Congress might decree that a machine expected to last 10 years can be "depreciated" (expensed) over three years for tax purposes so that businesses can get larger and faster tax deductions and will therefore have an incentive to buy machines more quickly. We still require that the machine be depreciated over 10 years for financial reporting purposes, because we want accounting to be true to the underlying economics regardless of the machinations of Congress.

The result is that "reported" and "cash" tax rates are often different for entirely legitimate reasons, usually required by law. Journalists, even such experts as the editors of the New York Times, rarely understand this difference or deliberately obscure it to rally their readers to some policy view. (If you are a confused financial journalist, here is a somewhat more involved summary of the differences between "book" and tax income under American law.)

rest at http://thespiritofenterprise.blogspot.com/2012/12/corporate-taxation-for-layman-and-why.html

Boehner to Reid: 'Go f— yourself' - daily kos

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source http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/02/1175627/-Boehner-to-Reid-Go-f-yourself

Haha:

It was only a few days before the nation would go over the fiscal cliff, no bipartisan agreement was in sight, and Reid had just publicly accused Boehner of running a "dictatorship" in the House and caring more about holding onto his gavel than striking a deal.

"Go f— yourself," Boehner sniped as he pointed his finger at Reid, according to multiple sources present.

Reid, a bit startled, replied: "What are you talking about?"

Boehner repeated: "Go f— yourself."

Okay, so maybe Boehner was pissed off that Reid had accused him of running a dictatorship. But Reid's point was fair: Boehner, up to that point, had refused to allow a vote on anything that wasn't supported by a majority of House Republicans, even if a majority of the House as a whole wanted to see it get passed. And, in the end, while Boehner apparently bragged to his fellow House Republicans that he had told Reid to go f— himself, it was Reid who got his way: the bill that passed the House last night did so without a majority of House Republicans backing it.

In other words, the next time John Boehner says he can't pass something without having a majority of his own caucus supporting it, Democrats can rightly say back to him: go f— yourself.

Hurricane Sandy Bill: New York Lawmakers Angered After House GOP Doesn't Hold Vote

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source http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/02/hurricane-sandy-bill_n_2395536.html

WASHINGTON — New York-area lawmakers in both parties erupted in anger after learning the House Republican leadership decided to allow the current term of Congress to end without holding a vote on aid for victims of Superstorm Sandy.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said late Tuesday he was told by the office of Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia that Speaker John Boehner of Ohio had decided to abandon a vote this session.

Cantor, who sets the House schedule, did not immediately comment. House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland told reporters that just before Tuesday evening's vote on "fiscal cliff" legislation, Cantor told him that he was "99.9 percent confident that this bill would be on the floor, and that's what he wanted."

A spokesman for Boehner, Michael Steel, said, "The speaker is committed to getting this bill passed this month."

In remarks on the House floor, King called the decision "absolutely inexcusable, absolutely indefensible. We cannot just walk away from our responsibilities."

The Senate approved a $60.4 billion measure Friday to help with recovery from the October storm that devastated parts of New York, New Jersey and nearby states. The House Appropriations Committee has drafted a smaller, $27 billion measure, and a vote had been expected before Congress' term ends Thursday at noon.

More than $2 billion in federal funds has been spent so far on relief efforts for 11 states and the District of Columbia struck by the storm, one of the worst ever to hit the Northeast. The Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster relief fund still has about $4.3 billion, enough to pay for recovery efforts into early spring, according to officials. The unspent FEMA money can only be used for emergency services, said Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J.

New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, District of Columbia, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, New Hampshire, Delaware, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts are receiving federal aid.

Sandy was blamed for at least 120 deaths and battered coastline areas from North Carolina to Maine. New York, New Jersey and Connecticut were the hardest hit states and suffered high winds, flooding and storm surges. The storm damaged or destroyed more than 72,000 homes and businesses in New Jersey. In New York, 305,000 housing units were damaged or destroyed and more than 265,000 businesses were affected.

"This is an absolute disgrace and the speaker should hang his head in shame," said Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y.

"I'm here tonight saying to myself for the first time that I'm not proud of the decision my team has made," said Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y. "It is the wrong decision, and I' m going to be respectful and ask that the speaker reconsider his decision. Because it's not about politics, it's about human lives."

"I truly feel betrayed this evening," said Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.

"We need to be there for all those in need now after Hurricane Sandy," said Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y.

The House Democratic leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, said she didn't know whether a decision has been made and added: "We cannot leave here doing nothing. That would be a disgrace."

wtf?! New Fiscal Cliff Deal Includes A Ton Of Tax Breaks For New NASCAR Tracks @barackobama @speakerboehner #p2 #tcot

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source http://withleather.uproxx.com/2013/01/that-new-fiscal-cliff-deal-includes-nascar-tracks?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+uproxx%2Fwithleather+%28With+Leather%29

Politicians are the worst people on this planet, so it shouldn't have surprised people this morning when news leaked of the sordid inclusions in the fiscal cliff deal, from a heavier rum tax on Puerto Rico to financing Goldman Sachs' new headquarters. Good, those guys needed a break. But also included is the so-called "NASCAR loophole", which has a lot of people really pissed off right now.

However, it's not like the government is just giving a ton of our hard-earned cash to the good ol' boys who spend their days turning left. It's much sneakier and more complex than that. Basically, it's a nice, big tax break for the billionaires behind the International Speedway Corporation, and most notably the France family. So what, then, does this loophole give them?

The so-called NASCAR loophole allows anyone who builds a racetrack to receive a small tax benefit through accelerated depreciation. This tax break cost roughly $43 million the past two years and will get extended for another year. Sounds tawdry, right? And yet, supporters claim the break is necessary so that NASCAR can compete on a level playing field with other theme parks. Looks like they got their wish. (Via Washington Post)

Now I'm no fancy, big city slicker lawyer type with a degree in smartness, but I've read enough USA Today pie charts in my day to know that this isn't much of a surprise. Look, millionaires and billionaires get all the breaks. We've just got to learn to live with that. I mean, take Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria, for example. He fleeced an entire major city government into funding his ridiculous, giant new stadium, and he did it all on the paper wings of a promise that he was committed to building a contender. Classic rich dude crapping on our dreams scenario.

Instead of Loria, though, it's just NASCAR and International Speedway executives who get to act out the "We need these tax breaks to build new tracks and fix the old ones so we can create jobs because America!" routine. But this is all unfair speculation and the biased ramblings of a lower class American just trying to get his next meal. Let's see what the NASCAR fatcats have to say in response…

AMA Reaches Out to Doctors To Remind Them Patient Welfare Must Come First As Rising Pressures From Insurers and Hospitals Can Surmount At Times

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This went out as a reminder as many more doctors are working directly for hospitals and some have “goals” they somewhat enforce as the pinch for money and profits grows.  Doctors normally get paid a salary from a hospital with a bonus tied in somewhere, the old pay for performance routine that insurers sell shareholders on as far as promising productivity.  Doctors’ sometimes get their salaries reduced too if they don’t meet goals. 

In addition private practice doctors are facing the inability to keep practices open and some band together to partner to help share expenses of an office.  In the meantime in addition to not knowing if they are going to get hit with a cut from Medicare, insurers such as United make unwelcomed statements about looking at doctors pay for savings, not what the doctor ordered.  Businesses show no or little compassion outside the dollar these days so again the AMA is reminding doctors to not get caught up in the Money ball doctors contracts that upset everyone. 

UnitedHealthCare Looks at Doctor’s Pay for Savings, Nothing New There Been Doing It for Years But Keep In Mind We Have the Annual Medicare Cut Fix on the Floor Again with Congress–Timing?

Also recently the AAFP found that United was paying doctors in several areas of the US, less than Medicare so if any group has reasons for frustrations today it’s the doctors.  Some contracts also prohibit doctors from working for competitors after they leave a hospital and the AMA recommended to be wary of such contracts and again keep in mind that patient care comes first. 

The AAFP Confronts United Healthcare On Reimbursements, Some Are Below Medicare Rates In Parts of the US–Payment Algorithms/Formulas Calculated Deep Within IT Infrastructures Do the Job

With as much heat as the FDA takes Commissioner Margaret Hamburg also made similar statements in her address (video at the link below)  this year to the graduating class of Einstein Medical.  When you start seeing such messages over and over it appears to be a sign of the time of how difficult it is these days as a doctor to keep everyone happy on both sides. 

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg Delivers Commencement Address at Albert Einstein College of Medicine–Video

Most doctors I know always keep the patient up front but again they have challenges with getting referrals and approvals right and left for patients, I used to hear it all the time.  BD 

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WASHINGTON — With hospitals buying up medical practices around the country and seeking to make the most of their investment, the American Medical Association reached out to doctors this week to remind them that patient welfare must always come first and not be overridden by the economic interests of hospitals that now employ doctors in ever-growing numbers.

“In any situation where the economic or other interests of the employer are in conflict with patient welfare, patient welfare must take priority,” says a policy statement adopted by the association.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/27/health/27doctors.html?smid=tw-nytimeshealth&seid=auto

Health Net Stops Covering Medical Services at 6 Southern California Tenet Hospitals in the OC and Desert Areas –Reimbursement Contract Differences

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The hospitals affected are owned by Tenet in the desert and also in Orange County.  You can read the article below to see where the talks failed with Tenet wanting higher rates and Health Net had their own ideas of rate increases being tied to the consumer price index.  Medi-Cal was also in the picture with questions related to federal and state funding.  This is effective now and the actual date was December 21, 2012 so patients and doctors will have to scramble to go elsewhere for services. 

Health Net is not as large as some of the other giant health insurance companies and back in 2010 they had to sell some of their northeast business to United Healthcare while the Tri-Care contract fiasco was ongoing.  Here’s a few back links on that situation as once the initial loss was announced HealthNet needed to make some financial changes and then with the turn of events Health Net was re-awarded the contract for the northeast. 

HealthNet Will Keep the Tri-Care North Contract – GOA Investigated the Original Award to Aetna

HealthNet in Connecticut to Lay Off 750 Employees as United Healthcare Takes Over Membership In the Northeast

United HealthCare Purchase of HealthNet in the Northeast Did Not Include Transfer of Employees

UnitedHealthCare Buys a Portion of Health Net in the Northeast

I made mention of the above and it will be interesting to see what other insurers will do to perhaps entice members to change insurance companies as this is a good number of patients and doctors involved with this.   Also in 2009 HealthNet agreed to stop using the United Healthcare/Ingenix data base that short changed doctors and hospitals for around 15 years, and almost all the major insurers licensed it from United so all were in the same boat of using “algorithms for profit’ for quite a while.  BD

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Health insurance provider Health Net, Inc. announced Thursday it will stop covering medical and health services at six Southern California hospitals run by Tenet Healthcare after contract negotiations broke down.

As a three-year contract came to a close at midnight on Dec. 21, the two companies were unable to agree on reimbursement rates for services necessary to renew the contract.  Health Net wanted reimbursement rate increases to be tied to the Consumer Price Index, which currently averages about 3 percent, according to the company. Health Net also wanted Medi-Cal reimbursements to be tied to state and federal funding for the program. Tenet was pushing for higher reimbursement rates.

The effected hospitals include Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, Fountain Valley Hospital and Medical Center, John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital in Indio, Lakewood Regional Medical Center, Los Alamitos Medical Center and Placentia Linda Hospital.

http://palmdesert.patch.com/articles/health-net-insurance-to-stop-serving-some-desert-hospitals

Niche Health Insurance Company Files for IPO–Uses Cloud Based Platform for Algorithmic Consumer Shopping, Underwritten by Banks

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My first thoughts here are to look at the underwriters, Citi and BofA Merrill Lynch?  The company plans to go on Nasdaq so we have banks here with algorithms and software getting into the health insurance business?  It appears there’s a client base with the numbers quoted. 

In looking at the website this appears to be a pitch to sell additional health insurance to cover where normal policies leave off, in other words a supplemental type of policy to cover specific items to where high deductibles and other provisions in policies do not cover.  In addition there are partners who offer additional services such as Lenscrafters, GymAmerica, Hewlett-Packard computer and digital equipment, and even floral discounts.  In addition I see prescription card benefits and visions discounts sold here.  Of course I think right off how much data is being created for sale here as that’s what happens out there today.  Basically this is an algorithmically operating site that searches out pricing and services and presents them to a client in a format for purchase and the fact that it is in the cloud doesn’t mean much other than the fact that it can use APIs to find their data. An IPO for some cloud algorithms to assist consumers for searching for supplemental insurance and non insurance items?   I guess time will tell on this one to see where the value lies.  BD

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Health Insurance Innovations (HII), which operates a cloud-based platform for health insurance, has filed for an IPO to raise up to $86 million.

HII focuses on the sale of 12-month, short-term insurance plans, which are often half the cost of alternative major medical policies. A key advantage is HII’s core technology system, which analyzes large amounts of consumer data and purchasing habits.

The two key drivers include the likely drop of group coverage from many employers as well as the surge in uninsured Americans entering the insurance market. In other words, demand will inevitably be substantial for low-cost offerings from companies like HII.

http://investorplace.com/ipo-playbook/cloud-based-healthcare-operator-files-for-an-ipo/