Anne Zieger

Cardiology practice tests out concierge package deals

Right now, concierge medicine is largely offered by primary care doctors.  It seems,  however, that specialists are catching on as well. According to cardiovascular marketing blog The Main Artery, cardiologists are rolling out concierge packages too. One example comes from the Pacific Heart Institute in Santa Monica, CA, where cardiologists have begun offering services ranging from […]

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Has Google lost the PHR race?

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A few years ago, a consensus began to develop that healthcare consumers needed a place to store — and control — their health data online. (If you’re asking why access to a well-designed electronic medical record doesn’t get the job done, join the club.) This platform, known as a personal health record (PHR), was quickly […]

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Brace yourself: Health plan contracts may be an even bigger pain

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While some aspects of healthcare reform be profitable for healthcare providers, such as the likelihood that most will be carrying health insurance, others may turn out to be a threat. For example, new health reform-driven demands for quality may prompt health plans to cut long-time network members — or refuse others they’d happily have taken […]

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Codes may help healthcare track devices worldwide

Group developing standards for tracking medical devices

Outside of the murky world of supply chain logistics, few readers may have heard of a trade group known as GS1. But the even if you’re not a logistics kind of gal/guy, don’t fall asleep yet. There’s some very interesting ideas floating around the GS1 world, and if you have your hands on a medical device — or want to manage one — check this out.

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Will the FTC ever get tough on health plans?

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According to the American Medical Association — which is boiling mad over what it sees as undue market control by single plans — there have been 400 health plan mergers over the last 10 years, and 94 percent of markets in the U.S. are “highly concentrated.”

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WSJ gets it wrong on hospital buyouts

Is there a “hospital bandwagon” rolling around the private equity world?  That’s the word from Josh Beckerman, who writes the Wall Street Journal’s private equity blog.   Beckerman seems to see a trend emerging here – that PE types are lurking in every hospital hallway looking for deals. But  I’d say, personally, that he’s missed the ball.  […]

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How to get biotech from the bench to the bedside

The notion of “translational medicine” — moving clinical discoveries from the lab bench to the patient’s beside more quickly — has been much discussed in recent years. And it makes a great deal of sense.  After all, if a discovery can be fast-tracked to use (safely) in patient care, and stands a chance of helping, […]

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They’re here, they’re severe: The new HIPAA team

One of the little known aspects of the HITECH Act — known better for its EMR subsidies — is language allowing state Attorneys General to participate in HIPAA enforcement. That might not sound like a big deal, but it is.

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Healthy consumer? Don’t charge a premium

Sometimes, taking an idea to its extreme offers food for thought — and this is definitely extreme.  What would a world be like in which a consumer who’s in measurably great health paid little or nothing for their health insurance coverage? Yeah, managed care execs, I can already hear you screaming “How can we survive this way?” […]

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HCA plans $2 billion dividend to owners

HCA  has set plans to pay a $2 billion dividend to its owner, a group of private equity investors including KKR & Co., Bank of America and Bain Capital.  This comes four years after HCA went private in an extravagant $33 billion leveraged buyout. The dividend might have been paid by proceeds from a $4.6 […]

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