68: Percent of older adults who say the quality of care would not be as good as a face-to-face visit, according to a University of Michigan National Poll on Health Aging, with half saying they did not feel personally connected to the health care professional and 4 in 10 reporting difficultly seeing or hearing. The poll asked a national sample of 2,200 adults, ages 50 to 80, about their ‘tele’ experience.
Prostate Story Twist: Nebraska Internist Marvin Bittner ended up buying one of those imaging vouchers through MDSave to cover an MRI his doctor thought was necessary to identify suspicious areas for targeting during a prostate biopsy. And who said doctors weren’t cost conscious? The night before his scheduled MRI, Aetna called to deny the scan, arguing his results didn’t meet coverage criteria. Bittner says his doctor was ‘using judgment’ after a series of suspicious PSA results. For what it’s worth, clinicians we talked to in the UK say they routinely do prostate MRIs before these biopsies. But rather than leave Dr. Bittner fledgling in the wind, the hospital where his doctor works told Bittner to buy an MDSave voucher to cover the MRI at a cost of about $150 less than he would have paid for the deductible had he submitted the claim to Aetna. The story ended well. No cancer. But it illustrates some oddities: (1) A US insurance company not covering something that the UK National Health Service does cover, despite its reputation and (2) The MDSave Groupon-like voucher for the entire MRI coming in at a lower cost than a deductible.
Air Conditioning Only Scratches Surfaces: So the latest move by insurers is yet another signal that healthcare is moving rapidly into the social sector. Anthem is creating a benefit for Medicare members enrolled in its plans specifically offering pest control vouchers, likely to help mitigate the causes of Asthma, while Cigna beneficiaries with COPD can get an allowance to buy an air conditioner. Several insurers are also looking to help avoid falls – Anthem offering 124 hours of an in-home personal care aide for assistance with activities of daily living (ADLs), 64 meals delivered and up to $50 in allowances for the installation of home safety devices.
Watch This: Medicare Advantage start-up Devoted Health says it is the first Medicare Advantage insurer to offer the Apple Watch as a benefit to its members. Devoted will subsidize $150 of the wearable’s cost. The move is an early example of offering wearables benefits for older consumers.
AI Boom: For Philly hoops fans, this already happened when point guard Allen Iverson led the 76ers to the playoffs, but for healthcare organizations the promise of a different AI, Artificial Intelligence, has been slow to develop, until now. 9 out of 10 healthcare executives are confident they’ll see an ROI sooner than previously expected, according to a survey from UnitedHealth Group’s health services arm Optum. AI’s potential is greatest, the healthcare leaders report, in automating prior authorization, providing patients with relevant health information using personalized communications, managing EHRs, detecting fraud or waste in reimbursement, and selecting appropriate care settings. AI has clinical benefits, but there are still many questions about its value vs. physicians. Authors of The Lancet Digital Health published study scanned more than 20,500 articles published since 2012, yet only 14 directly compared clinician and AI diagnostic abilities side by side. In sum, AI was able to detect diseases when looking at medical images with similar accuracy as medical professionals.
Burning Mississippi No More: Mississippians have a new choice of health coverage in 2020 – Molina healthcare is entering the marketplace for families looking for insurance. Molina will include telemedicine services that provide 24/7 access to doctors at the same price as a primary care visit.
Extra Point: Phil Collins’ people were on the rotary phone 38 years ago to call my dad, of all people, to help the Genesis pop legend tape the ankle he rolled in time for his show one cold October night at the Hartford Civic Center Mall. Dad, who was athletic trainer and tennis coach at the University of Hartford for nearly four decades, treated Phil like any student-athlete. My sister came along for the quasi emergency, backstage ankle taping – Collins offering dad a pair of front row seats to hear him belt out his “Can you feel it in the air tonight” number, his #1 hit back in 1981. I wanted to go desperately, but Dad picked my sister and, while I was bummed at the time (okay, I was mad), I get it now. Flash forward to two Sunday’s ago at Madison Square Garden in New York – Collins, now almost 70, hobbled on stage with a wobbly cane and a broken foot and admitted to the sold out crowd he probably wasn’t going to be skipping around stage or beating the drums, that his ‘messed up’ foot, bad back and a number of other health issues would keep him stationary, but, against all odds, he was going to sing a few songs…His teenage son played drums and my bride and I, neither having ever seen Phil in concert, sang “Follow You Follow Me” like we were still 10 years old next to the scratchy record player in our parents’ living rooms. It is remarkable how pain, injury and surgery don’t have to mean you stop. You just have to adjust. I think back to that night when the phone rang and how my mom dropped the receiver on dad’s foot and nearly choked my sister with the phone coil as she frantically, if not excitedly, stretched the phone over to dad’s ear…. I think back to how dad showed me the next morning how he taped Phil’s ankle like an artist in his own right, and I wonder if the pop star would remember that moment. If he’d remember dad.