Obamacare in California: Health Benefit Exchange

 

Executive Director:  Peter Lee

 

Health Train Express did some deep dyving into the Covered California Plan. California is the first State to embark on the Affordable Care Acts option for states to plan their own Insurance Exchange.

This information is taken from the Covered California web site. Readers must realize that this plan will not be operational until January 2014, and that most figures are subject to revision.

On the surface it appears reasonable to assure all are covered.  If your income is below the 400 % of the Federal Poverty Level (subject to the size of your family) you will be eligible for the subsidized tax credit.  The Covered California web site provides a simple calculator to get an estimate of your premiums.  The web site also provides a benefit table, co-pays, deductibles, maximum out of pocket expenses and a range of plans, Bronze,Gold, Silver, Platinum.

The ACA  Changes that occur in January 2014

Calculating Potential Insurance Cost in 2014

Coverage Basics

For Individuals and Families

Getting Financial Help

Calculating Potential Insurance Cost in 2014

Frequently Asked Questions

If you need coverage before 2014

The Fine Details (Not for the faint of heart)---written by attornies and passed into law by the California State Legislature and signed by Governor Jerry Brown

Legislative Bills

AB 792

AB 1766

AB 1926

SB 961

 

Technorati Tags: PPACA,AB 792,AB1766,AB1926,AB 961,AFFORDABLE care act,health insurance exchange,health benefits exchange,federal poverty level

A Blogger’s Paradise

 

If you are an avid blogger your presence is most likely known to the Department of Homeland Security.

I came upon this little tidbit of information released as a result of a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) query

Analyst Desktop Binder_REDACTED by Andrea Stone

It professes to know what ‘keywords” the D.H.S. searches for when scanning social media for ‘suspicious’ material.

Judging from the list there is little to fear….this has to be some kind of joke, sort of like the Affordable Care Act.  It would be funny but it is not…these are the people we elect to run our lives.

So here goes my test:

This material has been released under the Freedom of Information Act and is in the public domain.

Technorati Tags: terror,homeland security,keywords,social media,blogger,foia,freedom of information

THE WALKING GALLERY A SOCIAL EVENT

 

Just a reminder,  today is another episode of The Walking Gallery, a regularly occuring event, which thus far has only been held in Washington, D.C.  This unique event was founded by Regina Holliday. This year it will be held:

The Walking Gallery 3 will be held in St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Northwest DC one block from the Mural 73 Cents.

The event has been quite successful growing in numbers each year. For the past two years The Walking Gallery gathered in the Kaiser Permanente Center for Total Health.  It was a great venue for the first two years.  Thank you Kaiser Permanente for your gracious support!  The first year we had 54 Walkers wearing their jackets.  The second year we had over 80.  

The “glue” that is the centerpiece for the event is the creative paintings which Regina Holliday has painted on the back of jackets which the attendees wear. These are pictorials of people in medical situations depicting different events.  Regina travels the country visiting many medical conferences and is inspired by these events. Many of the attendees are well known in social media and are prominent thought leaders.

Regina Holliday also blogs at “Regina Holliday’s Advocacy Blog”  this week’s edition is entitled “Stair Steps”

Accompanying each of these paintings Regina also utilizes her amazing story telling talent as a postscript for the artwork. The stories themselve are an art form and a novelette. They are also based upon real life situations. The stories always grab me, there is humor, happiness, sadness and tragedies….many of which are precipitated by our broken health care system.

If you are a provider, patient or an advocate it gives you much thought and should stimulate thought and illuminate just where things have gone “wrong’ Regina along with other prominent patient advocates, such as ePatientDave are already making a difference.

The event came to my attention rather late. So if you miss it plan for next year.

My only complaint is that the event has not taken place on the West Coast or in the midwest.

Regina, you have many fans here on the ‘Left Coast”.  How about a Walking Gallery in Los Angeles, San Diego, or in San Francisco ?

 

San Diego Convention Center                   San Francisco Cable Car Turnaround

One other suggestion is to also carry the event as a live stream on Google Hangouts on Air, to share it with the rest of the world.

 

del.icio.us Tags: regina holliday,walking gallery,st paul's lutheran church,washington d.c.

Does Patient Engagement lead to Higher Bills?

 

From Science Roll

“Patients who helped with medical choices had higher bills: Let’s Analyze This!

by Dr. Bertalan Meskó on June 1, 2013

As a huge fan and supporter of e-patients who want to use digital technologies and the information they find online in their health management, I don’t like news articles speaking against them without explanations and data.

The healthcare social media community has been discussing a study that concluded patients who wanted to participate in medical decision making had higher bills. It might predict that e-patients will have higher bills as well. Let’s take a look at it:

Analyzing the data, the researchers found that nearly all — 96.3% — wanted to receive information about their illnesses and treatment options, but that only 28.9% said they had a strong preference for making their own decisions about their care.

Those patients had longer hospital stays, by about a quarter of a day on average, than patients who preferred let their doctors take the lead. They also had greater hospital costs ($865 more, on average.)  By and large, people who were more likely to participate in medical decisions were better educated, and more likely to have private insurance coverage, than the rest of the patients who were surveyed.

You see? It says patients who had a strong preference for making their own decisions about their care. E-patients are partners with their doctors, not making medical decisions themselves alone. That’s the difference.”

This makes sense and should not be surprising. Discussion of the medical issues is patient engagement and leads to patients and physicians reinforcing decisions. Physicians are much less reticent to investigate further after discussing issues with the patient rather than just ordering tests without the patient’s understanding.

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Why Kids go to the E.R.

 

Huffington Post:

 

Sneezing, runny nose and other cold-like symptoms are the top reason kids are brought to the emergency room, according to a new government report on the state of Americans' health that includes a special section on emergency care.

The data show cold symptoms accounted for 27 percent of kids' ER visits in 2009 and 2010, and 14 percent of adults' ER visits.

The report also showed that Medicaid recipients were more likely to go to the ER at least once in a year, compared with people without health insurance or people with private insurance.

The use of advanced imaging (such as CT scans or MRIs) during ER visits has also increased, going from being used in 5 percent of visits in 2000 to 17 percent of visits in 2010.

More highlights from the report:

- About one in five people visited an emergency room in the last year, while 7 percent of people visited an emergency room two or more times in the last year.

- Falls were the No. 1 injury-related cause of an ER visit from 2008 to 2010.

- Life expectancy has increased slightly for men and women between 2000 and 2010, going up from 74.1 years for men in 2000 to 76.2 years in 2010, and 79.3 years for women in 2000 to 81 years in 2010.

- Deaths from heart disease decreased by 30 percent from 2000 to 2010.

- Deaths from cancer decreased by 13 percent from 2000 to 2010.

Nineteen percent of Americans smoked cigarettes in 2011.

- The number of U.S. adults ages 20 and older with a body mass index between 30 and 34.9 was 20 percent from 2007 to 2010, up from 14 percent during 1988 to 1994.

- Fewer U.S. adults had uncontrolled high blood pressure in 2007-2010: 49 percent, versus 74 percent in 1988-1994.

- Fewer U.S. adults had high cholesterol in 2007-2010: 14 percent, versus 20 percent in 1988-1994.

- A little less than half of U.S. adults didn't meet federal exercise guidelines (at least 150 minutes of moderate to intense exercise each week).

- Slightly fewer young Americans are uninsured now: 34 percent of people ages 19 to 25 in 2010, down to 28 percent in 2011.

SUMMARY:  FEWER HEART DISEASE RELATED DEATHS: ELEVATED CHOLESTEROL LEVEL DECREASED: CANCER DEATHS DECREASED BY 13%

LIFE EXPECTANCY INCREASED FOR BOTH MEN AND WOMEN

MAJOR PROBLEMS:   OBESITY, SMOKING

Healthcare approaching a nexus of Star Trek: The Tricorder, Incentivizing mHealth Innovation

 

 

Qualcomm (San Diego, Ca) a company well known for development of cellular phone technology is sponsoring an  XPRISE competition for an award worth $10 million global in a competition developed to incentivize healthcare technology

innovation.  The goal is to develop a hand-held device that would allow a consumer to access the state of their own health anytime, anywhere.

The goal is to develop a hand-held device that would allow a consumer to access the state of their own health anytime, anywhere.  The device will be able to capture key health metrics and diagnose a set of 15 diseases.  These metrics could include blood pressure, respiratory rate and temperature.  The device would ultimately collect large volumes of data from ongoing monitoring.

So far, more than 250 teams from around the world have already filed Intent to Compete forms. Look at this map (from the website) to see where the teams come from:

 

HealthWorks Collective’s Joan Justice interviews Mark Winter, Senior Director, Qualcomm Tricorder XPrize, to get an update.

 

BOOTILICOUS----The formula for Beyonce’s Butt

 

Alternative title:   The Algo Conspiracy, or how a graph deceives us . What Beyonce can tell us about health statistics, or what are we measuring?

Huxters play on this….”The Million Man Match” “Hummers are more Green than Prius’  These are distortions to prove a pre-conceived goal.

Charles Seiffe explains:

Healthcare decisions, like those in other fields are based upon statistics, which measure disease, treatment, alternative treatments, outcomes, reimbursements, market share,,morbidity, mortality. Well to sum it up, watch the video. It tells it much more eloquently than I am able to.

 

del.icio.us Tags: algorithm,statistics,graphs