health consumers

See the following -

A Bleak First Week: 99.6% Of Healthcare.gov Visitors Did NOT Enroll In Obamacare

Matt Pace | Compete | October 15, 2013

Since October 1st, Americans living in the 50 states and Washington, D.C. can purchase healthcare through exchanges as part of the Affordable Care Act [...]. Little information has been made available by the administration on the level of interest these exchanges have received or more importantly the number of consumers who actually enrolled, although the rollout has been plagued with widespread reports of system outages and bugs. Read More »

Consumers Get Serious About Their EMRs

Bernie Monegain | Healthcare IT News | September 16, 2013

As patient engagement grows, a new survey indicates that a growing number of U.S. consumers (41 percent) would be willing to switch doctors to gain online access to their own electronic medical records. Doctors, though, are not as eager to make the change. Read More »

In Mass., You Can Now Get Prices For Health Care In Advance (But It’s No T.J. Maxx)

Martha Bebinger | Wbur.org | October 8, 2013

“How much will my MRI cost?” It sounds like a simple question. But before Oct. 1, it was very difficult to get an answer. Now, Massachusetts is pulling back the curtain on what has been a largely secret world of health care prices. A new state law says health insurers must be able to tell members, in advance, how much a test, treatment or surgery will cost. Read More »

Limited EHR Access To Lead Patients To Switch Providers?

Kyle Murphy | EHR Intelligence | September 17, 2013

As eligible hospitals and professionals in the EHR Incentive Programs already know, Stage 2 Meaningful Use ups the ante on patient engagement by requiring these providers to exceed certain thresholds for patient access to health information. But why should providers care about EHR patient access? Read More »

What Health Care Needs Are Some Zombies

Finally, some good health care news: according to Accenture, half of digital health start-ups are going to fail within two years. No, really: that's the good news. Accenture projects that funding for digital start-ups is going to boom over the next few years, reaching $6.5b annually by 2017.  Their analysis categorized four key areas of funding from 2008 - 2013: infrastructure ($2.9b), treatment ($2.6b), engagement ($2.6b), and diagnosis ($2.1b).  They stress that the start-ups that will succeed will do so by combining capabilities across the four areas, such as by use of integrated Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud and Sensor technologies ("SMACS"). This boom shouldn't come as much of a surprise...

Read More »

Why States Are Doing Obamacare Better

Sam Baker | Nextgov | October 24, 2013

A small—and somewhat surprising—handful of states are implementing Obamacare much more effectively than the Obama administration. Read More »