The Readmore 2014

Sandra Block of USA Today Money reports that the average amount employees will pay for health care is expected to increase 8.9% in 2009. Her column also provides good advice on how to try to control your health care expenses.

According to the Hewitt Associates report the average amount employees will pay for health care is expected to increase 8.9% in 2009. The breakdown:

Premiums
2008 2009
$1,806 $1,946

Out-of- pocket costs
2008 2009
$1,707 $1,880

Total
2008 2009
$3,513 $3,826

Her article advises health consumers to take a close look at their health care options during the open enrollment period. As her article states - the difficulty I find is trying to compare plans/options/covered services/drug benefits/co-pays/deductibles, etc. This process is even tough for a health care lawyer and his lawyer wife. The bulk of Americans don't have the skill and expertise to understand the subtle differences.

The folks at change:healthcare recently published a new survival guide for the health care consumer to better understand the the key terms on health insurance. You can download a free copy of the book, "My Healtcare is Killing Me."

Sandra is a native of my hometown, New Martinsville, West Virginia. Great to see her offering good practical advice to health care consumers.

Today's Charleston Gazette features an article on a Charleston based medical technology company, Nexeon MedSystems.

Mark Bates, M.D., CEO and interventional cardiologist at CAMC has developed a "pro-healing" stent that is lined with protein. The device called PROTEX system may also eliminate the need for heart patients to take blood thinning medications for a year or more after the procedure. Clinical trials on the device are currently underway in Germany. More information can be found on Nexeon MedSystems' website.

Quote from the article:

"It's a protein-lined metal stent that the body thinks is normal artery," Bates said. "Instead of the body thinking it's a foreign body, it lines it with normal cells real quickly. It allows the body and arteries to function normally."

We're not stopping nature from doing its thing," said Bates, who heads Nexeon's offices in Charleston and Carlsbad, Calif. "We're helping nature. The body doesn't recognize [the stent] as something that's not supposed to be there."

About 65 percent of patients across the country now receive drug-releasing stents during cardiac catheterization procedures to open arteries. The remainder have bare-metal stents placed in their vessels.

Congratulations to Dr. Bates on his creativity and forward thinking to bring better heart care to West Virginians and others around the globe.

Val Jones, M.D. has a new home at Getting Better with Dr. Val. Congratulations to Dr. Val on the launch of her hew health care blog.Check out her welcome message and the official press release. If you already follow Dr. Val don't forget to update your blogroll.

Dr. Val is also one of the new co coordinators (along with Colin Son who blogs at Medskool) of Grand Rounds. Be sure to check out Grand Rounds every week if you are involved in the health care industry.

Ben Heywood, co-founder of PatientsLikeMe, outlines simple (but difficult) goals that those in the health 2.0 space must accomplish. Based on his post I take it that he highlighted these during his keynote address at the second Health 2.0 Northeast conference.

His simple but eloquent message to the health 2.0 community:

I believe we, as the eHealth community, need to focus on two major goals: 1) solve patients’ problems, and 2) create business models that allow us to do #1.

Successful companies must show real and tangible benefits directly to the patient consumer. As one who regularly participates in the health information discussion and debate as West Virginia moves forward with its health information network infrastructure -- I often try to step back and ask, like Mr. Heywood, the simple question, "does this help the patient -- why and how?"

To be disruptive and successful the current crop of creative companies have to show a direct and immediate impact on improving care and quality linked to a reduction in cost or a value proposition that the increase in cost is worth such expenditure.

Jen McCabe Gorman at Health Management RX brought attention to a new House of Representative Bill (HR 6898) focused on electronic health information introduced in the 110th Congress by Congressman Pete Stark. The bill was introduced on September 15, 2008, and is currently referred out to committee.

Jen provides some great analysis and brainstorming on the impact of the draft bill in her post, "Breaking News: Congress Wants to Create National eHealthNetwork, Legislate Who Owns Health Data." Well worth a read for anyone interested in health information technology, electronic health information, personal health records, health 2.0 or the future of our health care system.

Jen highlights those sections dealing with who owns the electronic health information. Should it be the government? the provider? the consumer? This key legal concept - ownership of health information -- is a key question to discuss and debate. As I have mentioned in the past (here and here) the consumer health movement may force a change in the traditional legal notion of health information ownership rights.

The draft bill also addresses a variety of other areas - including the regulation of non-covered entities under HIPAA (many of which weren't even contemplated when HIPAA was enacted) who create or handle health information, codification of ONCHIT under HHS and empowering them with various tasks, creating Medicare related incentives for adoption and modifying other sections of the current HIPAA privacy standards. I haven't had a chance to read through the full bill and spend time reading the related materials but look forward to further analyzing.

For more information about HR 6898 (The Health-e Information Technology Act of 2008) check out Congressman Stark's website information about the legislation:

• Summary
• Introduction Statement
• Press Release
• Section by Section Analysis
• Privacy and Security Provisions
• Incentives

To locate the current status of the bill check out Thomas. I suspect that there will be little movement on the bill this Congressional session - but it does give insight into what might be coming down the road.

Last week two new California data privacy and security bills were signed into law. Senate Bill 541 and Assembly Bill 211 set new breach disclosure standards and require security controls for preventing unauthorized access to patient data.

I previously posted about the bills before they were finalized. Computer World, "New health care privacy laws heighten need for HIPAA compliance in California," provides background and a good overview on the scope of the laws with great links to additional information.

Those who do health care business in California should take a close look at these new laws.

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog relays a incident involving a subpoena issued to a medical blogger related to anonymous comments made on his blog.

The incident involved medical blogger, Westby Fisher, MD (Dr. Wes), who was subpoenaed for a discovery deposition to determine whether he knew the anonymous commenter who left a comment on a post.

Interesting reading for medical and health care bloggers.

UPDATE: Kevin MD provides follow up commentary and his position on comment moderation. Any health bloggers looking at the advantages/disadvantages of blog post comment moderation should take a look at Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act of 1996.

Basically, Section 230 gives protections to users and providers of computer services by not making them liable for information published by another information content provider. As a blogger you can be both a user and provider. Bloggers are "users" when they create content for blogs and "providers" when they allow others to comment on blog posts. The legal question on comment moderation involves whether your active participating in moderating the comments makes you the "publisher" of the comment rather than just the "provider" of the comment. To date I don't believe this question has been fully addressed or answered by the courts.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has some great resource materials (and cases) for bloggers to learn more about the Section 230 protections. Check out the EFF "Legal Guide for Bloggers."