$200M: The amount Blue Cross NC is giving out in health and wellness retail cards to fully insured members during October and November. The cards will be pre-loaded with between $100-500 and members will be able to use them to purchase anything over the counter. Blue Cross in Tennessee mailed rebate checks to 143,000 members in September because their health insurance costs were lower than originally anticipated. Members who purchased individual health insurance coverage through the Federally Facilitated Marketplace in 2019 qualify.
Which Specialty? A new report by Doximity shows that radiologists and psychiatrists are most interested in telehealth, while anesthesiologists and surgeons are least interested, not surprisingly. Other increasingly popular telehealth services include telestroke (neurologists), dermatology, pediatrics and infectious diseases. Many specialists are increasingly interested in using telehealth, particularly to treat their patients with chronic conditions who may need more frequent check-ins and management.
California Dreamin’: SCAN Health is bringing AmericasHealth Plan and Clinicas del Camino Real into its provider network in an aim to support the Hispanic population in Ventura County of California with high quality care. Clinicas del Camino Real is an FQHC with 15 sites, serving approximately 40,000 patients enrolled in Medi-Cal or Medicare plans This collaboration takes effect October 1, 2020, and will focus on older adults.
Ro the Boat: Telehealth startup Ro is expanding its partnership with Pfizer’s generics division to offer generic versions of commonly prescribed blood pressure and cholesterol medications through Ro’s virtual mail-order pharmacy. Generic versions of Lipitor and Norvasc will be made available through Ro’s $5 per month prescription drug service, which launched earlier this year and does not take insurance.
Mental Health Illuminated: Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago are testing an artificial intelligence virtual agent called Lumen that will be used to broaden mental healthcare access for people with moderate depression or anxiety. Using the same technology as Amazon’s Alexa, researchers are developing an app that will act as a virtual mental health coach, leading patients through strategies and following a validated treatment protocol. The National Institute of Mental Health is funding this five-year project.
Trick or Treat: If you took last week’s quiz, you’ll know it was not easy – three value-based stories, only one true. But the truth is, they were all true. A $90 fee is in fact provided to a dermatology group by a commercial payer for diagnosing depression in teens with serious skin conditions, A Medicaid plan in the east is now near the end of its first year paying a skilled nursing facility an additional $230 a day for helping manage and treat substance use disorders in its residents, and an additional share of savings for lowering hospital admissions below a baseline target. And an MA plan has set a target bundled rate of $13,900 for hip arthroscopy, inclusive of two months of post-op physical therapy and pain management, and after a year, the average total cost for the episode was indeed $11,500, so the plan has decided to lower the target and change the share of savings.
Extra Point: My oldest is home from college this week, her college dorm shut down until at least November, so like any parent worth their salt I made her help me stack the wood, rearrange the pantry and poll 134 students. I need an assistant from time to time and who better to ask kids about the future than one who had to escape her homeland to make hers. The students, age 11 to 17, are all current and former pupils at my wife’s school in inner-city Hartford, all young girls trying to rise at a time and in a world that makes it difficult for them. We asked them what they want to be when they grow up and 94 of them said things like “I’m already grown up – I take care of my sisters,” “I pay the rent,” “I talk to the doctor for my mom,” and “I read the label on the inhaler for my lil’ brother.” We asked them if they weren’t in school and had a job, what they’d want to do, and half said a singer like Lizzo or Taylor or Beyoncé and about 50 of them said a doctor or a nurse, maybe a “baby doctor” or “cancer doctor,” like “that woman who saved my uncle” or the nurse “who took my blood pressure,” or maybe “a therapist because my friends say I’m a good listener.” None of them want to be a surgeon, two of them want to be Michelle Obama and one wants to be Kamala Harris, and one – just one – said she wants to be her mom – brave, working two jobs, sacrificing, “but always making time for me.” We asked them what it would take to be a doctor or a nurse and most said go to college. None of them have a parent who graduated college, but they all said they “dream about being the first in my family” to do that. I asked my oldest what she thought about that and she said, “I have that same dream…but right now, it feels impossible.” Hang in, I said, the glass is half full…. now go help your sister with her chem homework.