Nov 3, 2014 | Health Navigator
The New York Times article noted “At least that’s one of the curious connections to emerge from a health care analysis project at the insurance division of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.”
“It is at the forefront of an emerging field called predictive health analytics, intended to improve patients’ health care outcomes and contain costs. But patients themselves are often unaware of the kinds of intimate details about their households that insurers and hospitals may use to try to sway their treatment decisions.”
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Oct 31, 2014 | Health Navigator
The Hill reported: “Almost 7 million people can sign up for health plans under ObamaCare even before the new enrollment period begins in November, according to an advocacy group.”
“Enroll America, an ObamaCare enrollment group with close ties to the White House, said Wednesday that millions of adults are eligible to sign up for insurance before Nov. 15 because they have moved, gotten married, had children, lost insurance or become American citizens.”
“Even though millions of Americans got covered before open enrollment closed earlier this year, we’re not resting on our laurels since seven million consumers might have the opportunity to get covered even now through a special enrollment period,” said Anne Filipic, president of Enroll America.
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Oct 30, 2014 | Health Navigator
The Wall Street Journal article noted “The Obama administration plans to automatically renew for next year the health plans and premium subsidies that consumers obtained through the Affordable Care Act’s federal insurance exchange.”
“The move, which will apply to most of the five million people who selected insurance through HealthCare.gov for 2014, will make it easier for consumers to stay in their plans and retain tax credits lowering the cost of coverage. It also will relieve pressure on the federal exchange, which was crippled during parts of its first enrollment period.”
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Oct 29, 2014 | Health Navigator
A Health Leaders Media story noted “At Mount Sinai Health System in New York, a combination of personalized medicine, natural language processing, and clever integration with electronic health record software is allowing clinicians to adjust medication selection and dosages based on patients’ genomic differences.”
“Personalized medicine is one of those technology topics that perpetually comes up in conversations about The Next Big Thing. Think combining genomics data with population health, throw in some predictive analytics, and you’ve got the basic idea.”
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Oct 28, 2014 | Health Navigator
We are getting familiar with “public exchanges” under Obamacare.
The Wall Street Journal article noted “Most U.S. employers will continue to sponsor health benefits for their employees over the next few years, but the way that benefits are provided may begin to shift for many workers, according to a report.”
“These private exchanges, modeled around the Affordable Care Act’s state exchanges, allow employees to ‘shop around’ for different plans and insurance companies, depending on how much their employer is willing to subsidize healthcare…”
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Oct 27, 2014 | Health Navigator
The Kaiser Health News article noted “…Employers are inquiring about it and brokers and consultants are advocating for it.”
“Health spending is driven largely by patients with chronic illness such as diabetes or who undergo expensive procedures such as organ transplants. Since most big corporations are self-insured, shifting even one high-cost member out of the company plan could save the employer hundreds of thousands of dollars a year — while increasing the cost of claims absorbed by the marketplace policy by a similar amount.”
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