Book Club: Think Again

You have to read Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant. We all think our minds are open, but we’re wrong. Intelligence is nice, but the critical skills are rethinking, relearning, and the courage to dump baggage. The Dunning-Kruger effect is real – the people with the most confidence…

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CT hospital ownership change rate among highest in US

Over 10% of hospitals in Connecticut changed ownership between 2016 and 2021, according to a federal report using new CMS data. Connecticut and just three other states had hospital ownership change rates over 10%. Most states had rates of 4% or less. Understanding hospital ownership changes and rates of change to identify consolidation in healthcare…

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DSS’s new patient survey has little to say

DSS’s consultants reported on the results from their new patient experience/satisfaction survey for PCMH Plus members at this month’s MAPOC Care Management Committee meeting. The survey is important as the experimental PCMH Plus payment model risks inappropriately denying needed care and cherry-picking more lucrative patients. The main result, revealed in answer to a question, is…

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Good News — Senate passed SB-416 to lower healthcare prices

On Wednesday, the Senate voted 29 to 4 to pass SB-416, An Act Promoting Competition in Contracts Between Health Carriers and Health Providers, without amendments. The bill passed out of the insurance committee unanimously and received overwhelmingly positive feedback in the public hearing. Two lawsuits have been filed against Hartford Healthcare for anti-competitive conduct, driving up…

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Book Club: The Long Fix

I’ve been avoiding reading The Long Fix: Solving America’s Health Crisis with Strategies that Work for Everyone by Vivian Lee. But this semester, one of my students asked if she could read it for her Book Review assignment. I couldn’t really refuse, so I had to read it too. The author, a physician and healthcare…

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CTNJ: Fact Check Shows That Raising Primary Care Spending Doesn’t Lower Total Healthcare Costs

The Office of Health Strategy and their consultants have asserted that it is critical to double spending on primary care in Connecticut to lower skyrocketing  total healthcare costs. It’s very appealing to think that increasing investments in prevention and care management will reduce total costs. It avoids the difficult work of getting large health systems…

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Why is healthcare like this?

Healthcare is complicated. It often doesn’t make sense – to consumers, patients, students, policymakers, providers, administrators, and everyone else. The lack of understanding has discouraged people from engaging and slowed progress toward real reform. We’ve heard from people across the continuum that there is no place to find balanced, comprehensive answers that is understandable and…

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