Health Care Reform Made Simple

My name is John Ross and I have spent my entire 40 + year career in health care. Specifically, my background and experience is in developing and managing evidence planning, reimbursement applications, and health economics strategies for a number of fortune 500 health care technology businesses. In short, my job was to help the companies that I worked for to understand the health care market place from three important perspectives. The first was to answer the question; “What can we expect to be paid for the medical technologies we are developing and planning to market? The second question; “will the results and/or lower costs associated with the use of these medical technologies justify the payment level we think they deserve? Finally, what product development, marketing and sales strategies do we need to employ to insure that our future medical technologies are quickly accepted hospitals, physicians, payers and patients? Obviously with such a focus I had to deal with Medicare (health insurance for folks over age 65 and the disabled), Medicaid (state-run insurance programs for the less fortunate) and commercial health insurance companies (the companies that insure and administer employer-based health insurance plans). I also spent a lot of time assessing the needs of physicians, hospitals and large integrated health care delivery networks that purchase and use a wide array of medical technologies.

From a funding standpoint I have seen America’s health care system go from almost “anything goes” to today’s increasing focus on cost and outcomes. Outcomes, is just another way of asking the question; “for the dollars we are spending nationally or on a particular patient’s disease or injury are we getting a good value in return? In other words, is the price of the drug, medical device, procedure, diagnostic or surgical intervention worth the cost in terms of better results and lower costs compared to how we would traditionally manage this patient’s condition?

This blog is a forum for talking “honestly” about:

1. Where health care in America is going?

2. Why it is going there?

3. What can we expect from tomorrow’s health care system compared to what we have become used to?

4. What we can do to the best of our ability to use less of it (think preventive health strategies)?

5. How we should think about and help those unfortunate individuals, young and old, who need more of it than we do?

6. How can we help to make sure those who need health care get access to good health care when they need it?

7. What can we do to increase the chances that state of the art health care will be there when we need it and at a price we can afford?

I will also provide education as to how the health care system works from the various perspectives of the stakeholders. It is vital that we understand these perspectives, what drives them and the many conflicts that exist. Areas to cover will be:

1. What is happening to hospitals and physicians in this changing health care thccbd.us?

2. What is happening to the development of innovative future medical technologies and pharmaceuticals?

3. Where is Medicare policy going with regard to payments to physicians and hospitals and other care settings?

4. What is the future of employer-sponsored health insurance plans?

5. Where is changing with regard to private health care insurance companies?

6. What will happen to patient costs?

7. What can I do to avoid premature, unnecessary or unproven health care interventions?

8. What role will “evidence and data” play in the future in giving us more information from which to make personal or family member health care decisions?

I would like this to be the place that you can visit when you hear politicians or anyone else for that matter promising something from health care that just doesn’t make sense. We all know the feeling we get when we hear an “it’s too good to be true” story. When we hear such fantastic promises, we better check it out and this will be a place where you can do that. So, bring your concerns and questions and I will do my best to help you to check them out!