An Interview With George Halvorson: The Kaiser Permanente Renaissance, And Health Reform’s Unfinished Business
In this interview, Jeff Goldsmith talks with the recently retired CEO of the $60 billion Kaiser Permanente Health Plan about his turnaround strategy at Kaiser, his activism during the 2008-2010 health reform debate, the health system’s unfinished business and his future plans as an advocate for reducing healthcare disparities. Interview with George Halvorson
How Much Market Power Do Hospital Systems Have?
Hospital systems like Boston’s Partners Healthcare and Northern California’s Sutter Health are supposed to exert virtually unchecked economic power in their local health insurance markets. Many health policy experts believe they have enough clout with health insurers to charge what they wish for their own services. So why did these and other high quality health systems suffer sharp economic reversals at the end of 2013? See How Much Market Power Do Hospital Systems Have:
A Modest Proposal: Charting Day
Physicians are spending more than a day a week on paperwork, and nearly $85 thousand a year on administrative costs related to billing and “quality reporting”. Administrative costs are drowning independent physicians and driving them to sell their practices. Jeff Goldsmith proposes a solution: Charting Day
Can Hospitals Survive? Part II
Hospitals all over the United States are seeing fewer inpatients and their revenues have basically ceased growing, despite five years of economic recovery. Traditional strategies such as merging to get market power with health insurers and acquiring physician practices don’t seem to be working. What is happening to the nation’s hospital industry and what do boards and managements need to do to cope with a rapidly worsening economic outlook? Can Hospitals Survive, Part II
Health Industry Price Inflation At Historical Low
Health costs are slowed to a near standstill. What caused it? What does it mean? Is the pause durable or transient? Read: Health Cost Inflation at Historic Low.
Hospitals’ Twenty First Century Time Warp
The US hospital of 2013 is remarkably similar in technology and services to the US hospital of 1998. Have hospitals entered a 21st Century Time Warp?
Practice Redesign Isn’t Going To Erase The Primary Care Shortage
The largest problem the health system faces in the next decade is the retirement of the baby boom primary care physicians, just in time for boomers enrolling in Medicare and millions of newly covered by health reform. Younger physicians are not entering primary care because it pays so poorly. Can we design new primary care models to alleviate the impending shortage, or is something more fundamental required?
Where Is Health Spending Headed? Some Reactions To The CMS Report
For the third year in a row, health spending continues at pre-Medicare rates of cost growth. Is this new and welcome trend sustainable? Where is health spending headed?
Accidental Tourist: Visiting the Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok
In December,2012, Jeff Goldsmith journeyed to Thailand, and visited the storied Bumrungrad Hospital. He was really impressed with what he saw. Read about why in The Accidental Tourist.
Health Care: An Alternate Economic Universe
While the US economy continues to labor to create new jobs, the health system has added over a million jobs since the beginning of the recession, despite falling physician office visits, hospitalizations, etc. What gives? Is health care an alternate economic universe?