http://healthandwellenssassociation.com

is gearing up for one of the most exciting conferences yet! We have a lot to share and I wanted to communicate with each and every one of you about our long awaited certification programs which we have launched!

Are you Certifiable?

The HRC offers a Certification Program that is aimed at improving your education and providing you with that competitive edge you’ve been looking for. The program is focused on providing transparency, education and communication. The certification requires 8 hours of educational training, followed by an online exam. In addition to these excellent designations you can also earn SPHR and Continuing Education Credits all at the same time!

Below you will find the program listed and link to more information about becoming certified in Healthcare Reform. You will not only be able to boast your designation on your business cards but you will be able to post the Certification Seal on your business networking sites and your website! Also, once you have passed the exam you will receive your certificate of completion via email and you can submit your expenses for reimbursement for this valuable education!

You can Become Certified October 24-26, 2012 On the Beach~ Fort Lauderdale/Miami

Certified Healthcare Reform Specialist™

http://healthcareconference.com/certified-healthcare-reform-specialist.html

The best way to predict your future is to create it!

For more information on how to register for the conference and for the Certified Healthcare Reform Specialist™ visit the following link:

http://www.healthcarereformconference.com/registration.html

Our Agenda says it all

See the rich content that will be covered at the conference.

http://www.healthcarereformconference.com/agenda0.html

Our goal is to give you the most information possible for your unique industry in order to get you the best return on your investment. We are committed to your growth and are excited to be a part of your continuing education and betterment.

Employer Free VIP Pass

Once again we have been able to cover registration to attend our three day event for Employers that are Human Resource and Benefit Managers/Decision Makers for your benefit plans! This Employer Free VIP Pass is a $695 value!

To be considered for the Employer Free VIP Pass and attend the Healthcare Reform Conference visit the following link:

http://employerhealthcarecongress.com/employer-free-vip-pass.html

A complimentary pass will include:
-Access to all four Employer Healthcare & Benefits Congress’s educational sessions, seminars and workshops: Voluntary Benefits & Limited Medical, Corporate Wellness, Self Funding & Workers Compensation, and Healthcare Reform
-Access to the Employer Healthcare & Benefits Congress Exhibit Hall
-Access to the networking software where you can schedule your 16 one-on-one meetings
-Access to the Medical Tourism & Global Benefits Congress Exhibit Hall
-Access to all Medical Tourism & Global Benefits Congress Sessions
For more information about our Certification Programs or our Employer Free VIP Pass email us at
info@HealthcareReformMagazine.com

I look forward to seeing you On the Beach!

Best,

Jenny Dodson
Executive Congress Manager
561-790-1176

http://www.healthcarereformmagazine.com/.

The 26th issue of Health Care Reform Magazine features an article by Maureen Young with tips to help employers keep employees motivated for health and wellness throughout the year. In “The Inspired Workplace” piece, LeAura Alderson takes readers on a vivid journey throughout an office designed to ignite healthy activity amongst employees.

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Health Care Reform Magazine is also the official sponsor of the 4th Annual Health Care Reform Conference, http://healthcarereformconference.com/, which will take place October 24-26th, 2012~On the Beach in Ft. Lauderdale/Miami Beach.

In it’s 3rd year, the National Healthcare Reform Conference is part of one the largest employee benefits conference and it brings together hundreds of senior level benefits managers/HR, insurers, TPA’s, and agents involved and effected by healthcare reform.
When you register for The 4th Annual Employer Healthcare & Benefits Congress, you automatically gain access to the Self Funding Employer Healthcare & Workers Compensation Conference, Voluntary Benefits & Limited Medical Conference, Corporate Wellness Conference, and National Healthcare Reform Conference, the Global Benefits Conference, and the 5th World Medical Tourism & Global Healthcare Congress. Last year’s event in 2011 had approximately 2,000 attendees making the event one of the largest employee benefits conferences of its kind.

For more information please contact:
Juel Grange
Associate Editor
Health Care Reform Magazine

I think one of the problems we are facing with the declining health of Americans is that we are trying to tackle the problem on too large of a basis; a macro level, when we should be focusing on a micro level. I think some insurance companies or employers think we can significantly change the way employees think, act and behave, and so we try to implement large programs to encourage these monumental changes. The truth of the reality is that we need to think small, atfirst. We need to get individuals to want to change, and it doesn’t need to be a big step. Even a little step, can be like a ripple in a pond that has much larger implications, because once an individual takes that small step and wants to become healthy, a true transformation will happen. As an industry, we need to focus on where motivation lies at the core of the employees.

Our challenge is truly the fact of that matter that we are all busy in our daily work lives and caught up with family at home. In today’s culture, it can be overwhelming to fully engage in a healthy lifestyle. Between the constant distractions on TV, unhealthy food everywhere, and the fact walking has become an art form and we simply drive from place to pace, it can be a true challenge to eat right and find time to exercise.

Here’s a thought- Let’s stop focusing on saying that we want employees to “engage” in healthy behavior, and instead, focus on motivating employees to want to engage in one simple, healthy behavior. If employees set an attainable goal, one that makes them feel better about themselves when they take action, they will strive to achieve even more. Once we can accomplish this, only then can we get employees to engage in an overall healthier lifestyle.

Today’s catch phrase: We need to start purchasing quality, not quantity.

Unless you spend a lot of time at conferences where health policy wonks mainly talk to each other, I bet you didn’t even realize this was a problem. When you get a flu shot, do you search out providers who will give you the most injections for the same copayment? Don’t we all?… Oops, I guess not. More likely, you search out a doctor or nurse who will give you the right serum with the least amount of pain. If so, hooray for you! You’re already choosing quality over quantity.

If you needed a knee replacement, a colonoscopy or an MRI scan, would you search around for providers who offer two procedures for the price of one? Or would you try to find a provider who would do the procedure only once, the right way, with no mistakes? If the latter, then rest assured. You’re not the cause of our problems.

But, then, who is?

The Problem. The real problem in our health care system is not that people are choosing quantity over quality. Or quality over quantity. Or any combination of the two.

As I explained in my last Health Alert, our problem is that we have smart people and dumb payment systems. The smart people are the patients and the doctors — each pursuing his own self-interest. The dumb payment systems are the reimbursement formulas of the large, bureaucratic, impersonal third-party payers.

Although in popular lore, the big insurance company is the abuser of the hapless patient or the conscientious doctor, the truth is much more often the other way around. Doctors and patients are more likely to outsmart and abuse the insurance companies.

The abuse occurs because everyone faces perverse incentives. Patients with first dollar coverage have an incentive to consume health care until its value approaches zero. Or, until it approaches the value of the time it takes to get the care. Patients aren’t ignoring value. Quite the contrary. They are seeking out care until the value equals the marginal cost of care to them.

On the provider side, the perverse incentive is to maximize against reimbursement formulas. For example, if the formula pays for office visits, but doesn’t pay for phone calls or e-mail, doctors will schedule lots of office visits and avoid phone calls and e-mail. This isn’t an issue of quantity versus quality; it’s an issue of doing what you get paid to do. (Don’t most people in the world get paid to do what they do?)

The Wrong Solution. The solution embedded in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will make the incentives even more perverse than they now are. Patients will have even more first dollar coverage for all manner of preventive care. They will respond by trying to obtain more pap smears, more mammograms, more colonoscopies, etc., that they probably don’t need and wouldn’t obtain if they had to pay with their own money. Never mind that we have nowhere near the supply of medical personnel that meet this surge in demand. In the very act of trying, they will waste resources, drive up costs and crowd out patients with more legitimate medical needs. And because there is no copayment or deductible, patients will have no incentive to seek out cost-effective care — say, at walk-in clinics.

On the provider side, reimbursement formulas will intrude even more into the decisions doctors make. Even so, I’ll put my money on the doctors. They will figure out how to game the system, no matter how much planning the bean counters devote to it. If all else fails, the doctors will buy computer programs that tell them how to maximize income under the next set of rules. On the surface, these initiatives appear to many to represent radical change. In fact, this approach is largely a continuation of what has been going on in Medicare for the past two decades.

The Right Solution. As we have said many times at this blog, in every health care market where third-party payers are nowhere to be found, we don’t have a problem of value purchasing. Cosmetic surgery, Lasik surgery, walk-in clinics, surgi-centers, specialty phone and email doctor services, concierge doctors, international medical tourism — you name it. Wherever providers must compete on price, they almost always compete on quality as well.

Of course, we can’t get rid of health insurance entirely, and that shouldn’t be our goal anyway. But as we have explained before, insurance need not prevent patients from making marginal decisions and it need not prevent providers from competing for patients on price and quality.

About the Author
John C. Goodman is president and CEO and Kellye Wright Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. He is widely known as the “Father of Health Savings Accounts.”

http://healthblog.ncpa.org/value-purchasing/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=HA#more-14901

Or would you be willing to give up these amenities in return for a less costly experience?

What brings this to mind are some charts at Austin Frakt’s blog — showing international comparisons of the costs of common procedures. For example, the chart below suggests that we spend a lot more than other countries for normal baby delivery. In fact, we’re paying about two to three times the developed country average.
About the Author
John C. Goodman is president and CEO and Kellye Wright Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. He is widely known as the “Father of Health Savings Accounts.”

Austin then delivers the coup des gras: In addition to all this extra spending, we also have higher infant and maternal mortality rates than everybody else.
But if you are willing to forgo what I am calling the “amenities” of care, you can have a baby delivered in the U.S. for less than the OECD average. And if you stick with the prenatal regime, your expected infant mortality will be below the OECD average. Details below the fold.

As readers of this blog know, we have been critical of international cost comparisons that show we spend more and get less. The reasons are: (1) normal market forces have been so completely suppressed in health care all over the developed world, that spending data in no way reflects the true costs of resources used; (2) making the data even more suspect, other countries do more than we do to shift costs and disguise costs; (3) if you count up real inputs — doctors, nurses, hospital beds, etc., per capita — we arguably spend less than the OECD average; and (4) such outcome measures as life expectancy and mortality compare our heterogeneous population with the homogenous populations of Europe, instead of comparing Europeans with Americans of European descent.
There are two other points we have previously made that are also worth reiteration: (1) with respect to real resource use, there is nothing other countries are doing that we Americans cannot do on our own; and (2) far from needing government help, if we want to copy methods of other countries, we mainly need government to get out of the way.
All that said, one of the things I (and others) generally ignore is the role, importance and cost of amenities. This is a mistake. In a system in which the money price of care is basically zero and there is excess capacity, there is nothing left for providers to do but compete on amenities!
Okay, time to fulfill my previous promise. Here is something from our book, Handbook on State Health Care Reform:
Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas…delivers 16,000 babies a year — more than any other hospital in the nation. Almost all the mothers are uninsured. The vast majority are Hispanic (82 percent) and illegal (70 percent). By almost any definition, these mothers are “at risk.” But among those who take advantage of Parkland’s prenatal program (more than 90 percent), the infant mortality rate is only half the national average. How does Parkland do it? By being very good at what they do. Despite being a publicly funded health delivery system, Parkland operates what Regina Herzlinger, of Harvard University, has described in other contexts as a “focused factory.” They are so good at delivering babies, they produce an annually updated, internationally praised textbook on how to deliver babies, and their methods are being copied in Britain and other countries.
However, Parkland’s methods will not satisfy everybody. Prenatal care is delivered in clinics staffed by nurses, not doctors. Hospital deliveries are usually executed by midwives rather than OBGYNs. And like public hospitals in Toronto and London, Parkland is perpetually overcrowded. In fact it is not unusual to find patients on beds in hallways.
Although Parkland is quite good at some things, it is not as good at others. As is the case with many other inner-city public hospitals, patients who do not face life-or-death emergencies can wait hours for care in Parkland’s emergency room. A migraine headache patient might wait all day. In fact, almost any nonemergency service involves inordinate waiting. Getting a refill on a phoned-in prescription, for example, can typically take three days. By contrast, Dallas-area Walgreens stores refill prescriptions in less than an hour and some Walgreens outlets will do it in the middle of the night.
So why not replicate Parkland’s baby delivery system all over the country? One thing standing in the way is government. If all of Parkland’s 16,000 expectant mothers were enrolled in Medicaid or had private insurance, for example, much of what Parkland does might not be possible:
Prenatal care delivered by nurses rather than doctors might not be allowed under many states’ Medicaid rules. Ditto for deliveries performed by midwives. And under typical state insurance regulations, patients with private coverage would be encouraged to see OBGYNs (because of zero patient cost sharing), where the cost would be higher and the overall quality of the pregnancy/delivery episode might not be as good (because of fragmented care).

About the Author
John C. Goodman is president and CEO and Kellye Wright Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. He is widely known as the “Father of Health Savings Accounts.”

If Republicans and moderate Democrats assert their will, the former group will almost certainly get less and the latter will get more. A numbers game will not be enough, however. To be successful, the second round of reform will have to solve some of the most important problems of ordinary citizens. Problems that ObamaCare does not solve. I believe that means making health insurance portable, affordable and fair.

Portable Insurance. If you took a poll, I believe you would find that the single biggest problem most nonelderly Americans have is lack of portability. If they get laid off, if they quit their job or just retire, they lose their health insurance. If you believe that problem is solved with a health insurance exchange coupled with government subsidies and community-rated premiums, take a look at Massachusetts. If you lose your BlueCross group plan and buy subsidized insurance in the Massachusetts health insurance exchange, you will get insurance that pays doctors little better than Medicaid rates. You’ll move from the head of the waiting lines to the rear. And in the not-too-distant future, you will probably be forced into a very restrictive HMO (called an Accountable Care Organization).

Not what you had in mind? Here’s a better solution.

In most states it is currently illegal for employers to buy individually-owned insurance for their employees with untaxed dollars. They can buy BlueCross group insurance, but not BlueCross individual insurance — even though the insurance may be just as good and has the added advantage of being portable.

To solve this problem, we need to amend the federal law (ERISA/HIPAA) to allow portability nationwide. (See my own suggestion for four steps to portability at the state level.) Note: This proposal would not require employers to buy portable insurance for their employees; it would only allow them to do so.

Affordable Health Insurance. Did you notice the other day that McDonald’s is thinking about ending its insurance for about 30,000 low-wage employees? I suspect Burger King, KFC, Wendy’s and every other fast food restaurant chain will quickly follow suit.
The problem here is best summarized in Barack Obama’s own words. During the Democratic presidential primary, he said to Hillary Clinton, “You want to force people to buy something they cannot afford and then fine them when they don’t buy it.” Ten-dollar-an-hour employees and their employers cannot afford insurance that costs more than $5,000 for individuals and more than $12,000 for families. ObamaCare really is an eat-your-spinach reform for these employees and their families. It offers only mandates and fines. There are no new subsidies!

A similar observation applies to the millions of baby boomers who will retire before they become eligible for Medicare. ObamaCare’s minimum-benefit mandates will make their insurance more expensive than it would have been. Further, above-average-income retirees will get very little help from government if they buy the required insurance in a health insurance exchange and they will face a hefty fine if they don’t buy it.

Even employees who think they have postretirement benefits from an employer may face an unpleasant surprise. The 3M corporation just announced it will be ending its coverage for its retirees and sending them instead to the health insurance exchange.

The answer to these problems is to completely drop the idea of individual and employer mandates and offer reasonable tax relief to people to buy reasonable coverage. But for this approach to work, we must (a) live within our means and (b) deal with everyone fairly.

Fair Health Insurance. We will never get sensible health reform without a leader who levels with the public about the economics of health care. For starters, the public needs to be told that the federal government cannot afford to buy every family (not on Medicare or Medicaid) an insurance plan whose annual premium is $12,000 or more.

What we have to do is take the tax subsidies already in the system and add to them whatever taxpayers are willing to pay and call it a day. Let’s put that number at $3,000 for an adult and $7,500 for a family. Conceivably, one could give more to lower-income families and less to higher-income ones. But in health care, legislators are so quick to abandon any defensible allocation principle, I think the best policy is to provide the same subsidy for everyone.

Instead of the arbitrary, unfair and regressive tax subsidies that pervade the current system as well as ObamaCare, every single adult should get a refundable health insurance tax credit of $3,000. Every family should get $7,500. And that’s that. (On how to do this, see my original Health Affairs article with Mark Pauly and my summary of the Coburn/McCain approach.) Individual choice and market competition are going to have to find ways to make do with those limited subsidies.

What about pre-existing conditions? President Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress have blurred the distinction between people who are uninsured through no fault of their own and people who are willfully uninsured. We can have a workable system in which people who are continuously insured do not lose access to the system merely because they retire or lose their jobs. (I have previously summarized one approach to workable insurance reform.) However, we cannot allow people to game the system by opting not to be insured while healthy (and thus consuming all their income) and then insuring at the rates everyone else pays after they get sick. Such gaming is already threatening the Massachusetts health plan.

Here is what is most interesting about all of this. In solving the problems of ordinary Americans we can go a long way toward cleaning up and fixing the Rube Goldberg contraption commonly called ObamaCare. In helping middle-class voters we can, at the same time, also help everybody else.