Big-picture issue: Are consumers oblivious to the economics of their healthcare?
Is this a major problem? Minor problem? Not a problem?
If it's major, what's being done about it? Can anything be done?
The short summary of the discussion is, yes, consumers aren't fully engaged in the true costs of providing them with healthcare. Some of the comments and anecdotes shared by the audience are:
- Consumers are oblivious to some portion of the costs, but cost-sharing of premiums, higher deductibles, and higher co-pays are changing this.
- Consumers aren't engaged in wellness protocols, which causes higher care costs later in life.
- Insurance companies should segment subscriber populations based on their positive and negative behaviors (e.g., obesity, smoking, etc.)
- Prices of healthcare services are very obscure to consumers, who lack easy-to-understand pricing information at all times: from the time they make appointments with medical providers until they get explanations of benefits from insurance companies and bills from the providers.
- It's more than pricing: consumers don't know what's their best course of action because they lack accurate medical and care information at the time they need to make decisions. Physicians are often uninterested in providing the information.
- Physicians don't see patients as customers.
- Perhaps consumers acutally don't care, as evidenced by the total failure of personal health records like Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault.
- Look abroad to healthcare delivery models that work.
- Identify best practices, and practice evidence-based medicine.
- Eradicate the notion that consumers are idiots.
- Provide transparent, easy-to-understand pricing, and make it easier for consumers to shop for providers, especially for diagnostic procedures like MRIs.
- Ration healthcare, especially for end-of-life care of terminal patients.
- Make it easy for consumers to get access to their health records.
- Have national standards for healthcare records.
- Legislate what insurance companies are allowed to take as middlemen.
- Get government out of healthcare.
- Legislate a single-payor system to eliminate the greed factor.
- Provide incentives for entrepreneurs to execute solutions.
- Medical providers should use social media to engage younger generations who are starting to consume healthcare services as they get older.
Innovation presentations
We had three presenters:
My commentary: The big-picture discussion was very engaged and lively -- which was excellent -- but perhaps too superficial with plenty of anecdotes that could have used more extensive thought-through cause-and-effect brainstorming. The innovation presenters were, at best, weak in their messages and engagement with the audience. I have to work on improving all of this.
We had three presenters:
- Ted Margison of Pebble LLC (picture below). For 10 minutes he explained his idea on improving care coordination, and was peppered with many comments and questions. Ted is a process-improvement specialist who has previously built and sold a software company. He's new to healthcare, and started formulating his idea while observing major medical errors and ineptitude at a highly prestigious Los Angeles hospital during the treatment of a relative with a major, end-of-of-life disease.
- Maoz Lev of the Southern California College of Osteopathic Medicine, a private medical school.
- Richard Burke of RxTimer Cap, an inexpensive solution to help patients adhere to their medication protocols.
- Lev and Burke presented for 90 seconds followed by a few minutes of audience questions and comments.
My commentary: The big-picture discussion was very engaged and lively -- which was excellent -- but perhaps too superficial with plenty of anecdotes that could have used more extensive thought-through cause-and-effect brainstorming. The innovation presenters were, at best, weak in their messages and engagement with the audience. I have to work on improving all of this.
Ted Margison of Pebble LLC explaining his innovation to the group
