Employer Healthcare Strategies

It's no secret that on-site medical clinics are a popular solution for employers, both public and private, who are seeking a solution for rising healthcare costs and declining employee health. 

The beauty of the on-site clinic model is that employers are able to offer a best-in-class benefit to employees that in turn benefits them by improving employee health and productivity, reducing healthcare costs, and improving recruiting and retention. Sounds like a win-win-win, right?

It's Mental Health month for the United States. You may have heard about the mental health reform bill which enjoys bipartisan support in the Senate, but has yet to be voted upon. 

With 1 in 5 Americans suffering from mental health troubles, and national suicide rates at a 30-year high, it's clear that reform is needed.

Mental health problems are incredibly diverse. In most cases, a mentally ill person in crisis may have difficulty paying the high costs of therapy or counseling.

Fortunately, many patients show great progress using more inexpensive methods.

Since 1975, more than 60 million Syrian refugees have fled the unrest in their home country. The US has accepted only a handful.

Since the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, request for sanctuary within the United States has increased. But the US only accepts 3,000-5,000 refugees each year, after 18 months of intense applications and vetting.

Most Syrian immigrants who are eventually admitted, are relocated to upstate New York, where local health systems are being crippled by the complex needs of this challenged population.

Healthcare costs are high and rising. Everybody knows it, but nobody knows what to do about it. 

Last week HCMS group, a healthcare business consultancy, offered one possible solution: over-treatment/over-consumption reversal.

Americans spend $3.2 trillion each year on healthcare, an estimated 30-40% of which can be considered "waste" for over-treatment. Of the many sources of waste, medications top the list, along with unnecessary procedures and tests.

The Healthcare sector reported more data breaches than any other industry in 2015. An overview by IBM provides a closer look at industry data loss, here described as an "arms race between adversaries and defenders".

The Retail sector used to be the source of the most numerous data breaches, but many of those problems were corrected last year. Most of healthcare's losses occured through theft of currency or extortion tactics, involving financial insitutions and hospitals.

America's Hispanic population is growing 3x faster than the national average. This sea change in US demography has widespread effects, upon health care (perhaps) more than any other sector.

There are currently 10 million Hispanic people who have access to health care in the United States, with a projected 10 million to come over the next decade.

In spite of optimism reported earlier in the year, a major national mental health overhaul is unlikely to make it through Congress.

The $500 million initiative is supported by the President, as well as both Party leaders, but a vocal faction of Congress opposes new spending of any type, and is likely to sink the bill.

Everyone knows that doctors get paid plenty of money... Right? Some physicians don't agree.

Some doctors are struggling to make ends meet, and are forced to see as many patients per day as possible.

This doesn't benefit physician or patient, and the case for better pay for doctors has has even more strong points.

"Interoperability" has been one of the big conversations in healthcare reform for many years.

Interoperability is the communication of patient records from one health care provider to another, even between companies that have nothing else to do with each other.

The Obama administration has finally taken part, pushing America's largest healthcare providers to integrate their independent data communication technologies.