If you want broader choice of doctors in the future, you can expect to pay more for it. UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest insurer by revenues, recently announced the purchase of the managing arm of a 2,300-physician group in Orange County, California – their third such purchase in that county over the past two years. [...]

Should be a top priority for state policy leaders. State implementation plans for these exchanges – online marketplaces where individuals and small businesses can compare and purchase private, subsidized health insurance – must be in place by January 2013. If individual states are not able to demonstrate that implementation is well under way, the federal [...]

Take the time to acquaint yourself with Salman Khan’s approach to revolutionize education by “flipping the classroom:” giving students online video lectures to watch at home, and then do their “homework” in the classroom with teachers available to help on a one-on-one basis. As Khan himself discovered, using technology this way actually humanizes the educational [...]

That was the assessment of one Phoenix hospital CEO after attending a webinar where a new study by the American Hospital Association (AHA) on accountable care organizations (ACOs) was discussed. The study estimates that start-up and first-year costs for an ACO-type approach will run between $11.6 and $26.1 million – far more that CMS’s $1.8 [...]

Is misplaced. The Ds and Rs rail about whose plan to rein in costs and deliver optimum care is best, while two-thirds of Americans are either overweight or obese. The debate focuses on the 95 percent of the health care dollar spent on clinical care – which accounts for about 20 percent of the determinants [...]

Has been a perennial topic of past Arizona Health Futures issue briefs, from looking at the behavioral health care system in The Humpty Dumpty Syndrome to working toward a value-based health care system in Collaborate to Compete. Now, in After the Dust Settles, SLHI analysts look at the impact of budget cuts on Arizona’s most [...]

Will be the topic for May’s webinar hosted by The Arizona Bioethics Network. Jason Robert, PhD, Lincoln Associate Professor of Ethics in Biotechnology and Medicine at ASU, and Shaylona Kirk, MD, will facilitate a discussion of Increasing the Supply of Organs for Transplantation: Strategies and Challenges. The one-hour interactive webinar will be held on Wednesday, [...]

Budget cuts – especially cuts of a deep and enduring nature – can undermine the sustainability of systems of care. And where will we go as a state in the wake of Arizona’s most recent budget decisions? After the Dust Settles: Arizona’s Emerging Healthcare Landscape is the first of a three-part series that examines various [...]

The Arizona Bioethics Network webinar in April will address the topic of Assessing National Health Care Reform: Perspectives on Individual and Community Health. James Hodge Jr., Lincoln Professor of Health Law and Ethics at ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, will facilitate discussion of a number of challenging topics from a perspective you may [...]

A Congressional Budget Office analysis shows that seniors will pay sharply more for their Medicare coverage under the House Republicans’ “Path to Prosperity” plan to reform Medicare and Medicaid. Well, duh. The only way to reduce federal government spending in health care is for beneficiaries and the states to pay more. The only way to [...]