Employer Healthcare Strategies

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.

One longtime criticism of the healthcare industry is that patients don't have a good way of knowing what treatment is going to cost. A more transparent industry, one theory posits, would enable consumers to choose low-cost providers, thus increasing competition and driving down healthcare costs nationwide.

Certain tools to lead healthcare consumers to low prices do exist, but they are far from efficient and not yet widely used.

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.

People still express widely varied opinions about the Affordable Care Act and its effects on United States Healthcare.

Recent polls indicate that while Americans remain sharply divided about the ACA's political baggage, more are starting to recognize some of its practical benefits.

The Affordable Care Act is so big and complex that everybody is learning about it little by little, even years after it was enacted. One of the most important, and least understood, details is the way the ACA shifts financial risk in the provider/customer relationship.

The Provider now carries more risk than at any other point in the Insurance industry's history, a reform meant to trigger lower prices over the coming 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.

"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.

Remember when the ACA was in its infancy, and people warned that businesses would start cutting full time employees' hours, to avoid paying for their health benefits?

Well that day has come for the Dave & Busters in Times Square, which has been sued by one long-time employee.

In a case proceeding to trial, a 10-year employee says that her bosses cut her full-time hours to 10-25 per week to avoid the cost of the ACA's regulations.

The decisive victories of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump during the Michigan primaries sent ripples through all of American politics. 

And while there are many factors at play, some thinkers pin the rise of party outsiders into frontrunner status on their positions on the Affordable Care Act.

Hyperinflation of healthcare costs takes a huge bite out of salaries, so that even as compensation rises, take home pay is dropping for many. 

With candidates on both sides of the political spectrum offering remedies, the voting public is even more responsive than political prognosticators anticipated.

The Senate is preparing a bi-partisan mental health reform bill, which actually shows promise of getting passed (no mean feat in an election year).

It all starts with the American problem of mental health. 1 in 5 adults suffer from mental health problems, but psychiatric resources are actually dwindling.

The bill would create a new government position to address mental health, as well as expanded grants to get help for children who show signs of burgeoning psychological problems.