What hath the pandemic wrought?
Tag Archives: costs
More about billable hours
Rate increases coming soon…
As I said last week, the PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare) program is alive and almost well. That doesn’t mean that folks aren’t going to be ticked off at changes that will occur soon.
Property Manager?
The tax law is changing. It’s a done (bad) deal. And, one of the ways you can position yourself to take advantage of the changes is to start a business. Because pass-through businesses are going to have special tax preferences.
Oligarchy
We all keep hearing that the Fed (the Federal Reserve) is confounded. The economy is growing (albeit slower than they would like), but inflation- given the unemployment rates- is virtually non-existent. And, what else is non-existent is a real rise in wages.
Slowing down- finally?
The health care cost spiral is slowing- finally. Prior to 2008, the increase averaged at least 8% a year- for two decades! Over the past 5 years (up to 2014), total healthcare costs have growing by less than 3% annually. That trend is up for grabs through, as the last year’s(2015) increase seems to 5.5%- but the current year’s increase will be a little less at 4.8%. Except, these numbers still don’t tell the whole story….
How come this only works for drugs?
For years, various patient advocate groups have been helping folks get health insurance. In particular, the AKF (American Kidney Fund) has been paying the premiums for folks who are undergoing dialysis.
1000% Markup????
Remember when I said that non-profit hospitals didn’t become greedy SOB’s when they converted to for-profit status. And, that their care was pretty good- despite their change in motivation. I also said that most dialysis centers seemed to be of the same mental state.
Oregon leads the way- again. Or, is that still?
In the late 2000s- long before Obamacare- Oregon began considering how it could best manage the health care costs for its poorer citizens. This program eventually became known as the Oregon Health Care Experiment.
Continue reading Oregon leads the way- again. Or, is that still?
If my magic wand had batteries…
It always amazes me that U.S. dialysis patients are not more healthy than the rest of the world’s. Even though our program costs more than everyone else’s. Of course, many of our dialysis patients end up as dialysis patients because they have diabetes- which is the proximate cause of their kidney failure. And, keeps our dialysis population at the top of the charts (as in “way too many patients”). And, this also often leads to cardiovascular complications, which reduces the ability of these patients to undergo kidney transplants.