Last night’s “60 Minutes” broadcast featured a lawsuit over the consolidation of a large health system in Northern California, which used its monopolistic capabilities to drive up the price of healthcare. The segment included KHC friend and past conference speaker Elizabeth Mitchell, CEO for the Pacific Business Group on Health, […]
Affordability
Hospital Price Study Reveals Kentucky Lower than National Rates but Disconnect Between Quality and Cost in Kentucky’s Hospitals
Prices paid by employers to Kentucky hospitals continue to be less than the national average but more than twice the rate paid to Medicare, while quality still lags behind the rest of the country, according to a national study released this month. RAND 3.0, the third in a series of […]
Driving Affordability Through Hospital Price Transparency
A Community Health Forum December 1, 2020 U.S. employers spend billions of dollars on healthcare services. However, a lack of information limits the ability of employers to monitor the prices negotiated on their behalf, to implement innovative insurance benefit designs, and to ensure insurers are negotiating favorable prices. If employers […]
Recent Studies Reveal Variation in Price and Quality Among Kentucky’s Hospitals
New Hospital Safety Grade state rankings by the nonprofit The Leapfrog Group shows Kentucky ranks 33rd in overall hospital safety. This, when paired with the new study released last week by RAND, reiterates that hospitals in the Commonwealth vary in both price and quality.
Action items to address healthcare affordability in the region identified at Community Health Forum
It’s no secret that we have a problem with healthcare affordability in this country. Each day, there are new headlines that highlight this problem. We are all familiar with these headlines. But what do we do about it? That’s exactly what we addressed in last week’s Community Health Forum, “The […]
KHC Joins Coalitions Across the Country to Address Healthcare Affordability
Kentucky, like the rest of the United States, has a problem. Healthcare costs continue to rise. However, paying more for healthcare does not mean we get better healthcare services, and it does not mean we are healthier as a result. We pay too much for care and it is causing financial, […]
National Alliance Spring Coalition Meeting Focuses on Healthcare Price, Waste, and Quality
Teresa Couts, Stephanie Clouser, Natalie Middaugh, and I traveled to Chicago last week for the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions spring meeting and the National Health Leadership Council meeting. The spring coalition meeting is an opportunity for coalitions to learn from one another and to discuss strategic direction of […]