By David R. Burda – As a journalist, I’m more of a bad news person than a good news person. I teeter on the line between skepticism and cynicism. I’m happier reporting on conflict than I am reporting on resolution. But every dog has its day, and one of those days came for me recently when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released an updated report on…
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By David R. Burda – My local Target store used to have a CVS MinuteClinic in it. Target has since repurposed that retail clinic space into a cellphone activation center. When it was a retail clinic, I always wondered what people were there for….
By David R. Burda – A short research letter recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association supports the idea that it’s providers and payers, not patients, that have created the revenue cycle mayhem.
By David Burda – Two researchers — one from Georgetown, the other from Harvard — wanted to know how raising the fines for hospital noncompliance with the federal price transparency rules affected hospital compliance with the rules. The researchers defined compliance as posting a…
By David Burda – Healthcare executives always lie about why they did what they did, whether what they did is a merger, acquisition, affiliation or strategic partnership. The only correct answer is “for economic reasons.” They made a deal to preserve revenue or profits or to increase revenue or profits. That’s it. Sorry.
By Don Woodlock – Healthcare has always been an industry of technology and innovation. The list of significant advances which made a real difference is impressive: clean water, the introduction of anesthesia, the invention of the stethoscope, developing nursing into a skilled profession, germ theory, vaccinations, X-rays – the list goes on.
By David Burda – With a little extra effort, you always can find something revealing in surveys of healthcare executives, even when a multi-billion dollar, vertically integrated incumbent healthcare company sponsors the survey.
By David Burda – By now, we all know that hospitals’ level of compliance with the new price transparency rule would not be described as robust. It’s whatever the opposite of robust is. Feeble? Pathetic? Weak? There’s been a lot of speculation as to why even at this point, nearly 18 months after the rule went into effect.
By David Burda – I’ve never been much for company-sponsored surveys. They’re all self-serving, and they reach the same inevitable conclusion: our customers need or want what we’re selling, and you should, too.