When I train doctors to deliver ‘person-centered’ healthcare, concierge practices are not exactly what I had in mind. NBC’s article highlights potential disparities in resource allocation and access resulting from the use of boutique medicine. –
Concierge practice — also known as boutique medicine — is a new a model of medical service emphasizing easy access, [...]

A “growing number” of U.S. hospitals are accessing patients’ personal financial information to help determine how likely patients are to pay their medical bills, the Wall Street Journal reports. According to the Journal, some hospitals look at patients’ credit reports — which provide information on available lines of credit, debt and payment histories — while [...]

Financially strapped states are looking to take away government health insurance and benefits from millions of Americans already struggling with a souring economy.An Associated Press review of the budgets in all 50 states reveals coverage would be eliminated for hundreds of thousands of poor children, disabled and the elderly. More than 10 million people would [...]

Last month, right after he had the heart attack and then the heart surgery and then started receiving the medical bills that so far have topped $200,000, Melvin Tsosies joined the 91,000 other residents of Oregon who had signed up for a lottery that provides health insurance to people who lack it.
“They said they’re going [...]

Thomas Mahoney came out of a seizure last December surrounded by paramedics ready to take him to the hospital by ambulance. Mindful of the cost, he asked his mom and girlfriend to drive him instead, slipping in and out of consciousness along the way.
Maybe it wasn’t the smartest option for a patient with epilepsy, but [...]

Google Inc. will begin storing the medical records of a few thousand people as it tests a long-awaited health service that’s likely to raise more concerns about the volume of sensitive information entrusted to the Internet search leader.The pilot project announced Thursday will involve 1,500 to 10,000 patients at the Cleveland Clinic who volunteered to [...]

It’s a new way to push for patient safety: Don’t pay hospitals when they commit certain errors. Medicare will start hitting hospitals where it hurts in October, and other insurers are hot on the trail.
That has the nation’s hospitals exploring innovative programs to prevent injury and infection: Hand-washing spies. Surgical sponges that sound an alarm [...]

There are a lot of good reasons for people to lose weight and stop smoking — but saving money on lifetime health care costs isn’t one of them, according to a study out of the Netherlands.
The researchers found that healthy people cost governments more in the long run because they live years longer: an average [...]

Hundreds of hospice providers across the country are facing the catastrophic financial consequence of what would otherwise seem a positive development: their patients are living longer than expected.
Over the last eight years, the refusal of patients to die according to actuarial schedules has led the federal government to demand that hospices exceeding reimbursement limits repay [...]

Google Inc-funded 23andMe launched on Monday and began offering a DNA saliva test for $999 per person, which would help U.S. users of the online site learn about disease risk, inherited traits and their ancestry.
Eventually users, who sign up for the saliva test online and receive it by mail, will also be able to participate [...]