Fox News Reporter Says She Was Shunned Over Article About Health Condition

Health ArticlesSome individuals complain about their jobs. They moan about work being boring, unchallenging and how the boss doesn’t appreciate their efforts. But imagine working for the Chinese government. They have created the weirdest jobs to hold out their off-the-wall policies. After studying about these weird professions, you would possibly just respect your own job somewhat extra.

Expect an in a single day stay. Most health farms anticipate you to remain overnight for a sure period-a number of days to some weeks, depending in your package and your well being and fitness targets. Most health farms will let you know that it’s tough to control sufferers’ weight-reduction plan and exercise routine as strictly when they are staying off-web site, and that an on-premises keep will ensure you get the most out of your go to. Shortly after the president’s remarks, Mr. Cuomo stated that New York would continue to abide by …

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The Heart Health Continuum at #CES2023 – From Prevention and Monitoring to Healthy Eating and Sleep

“Are we losing the battle against heart disease?” asks the lead article featured in the January 2023 issue of the AARP Bulletin.

 

 

 

 

 

“Despite breathtaking medical advancements since President Harry Truman declared war on heart disease 75 years ago, researchers have observed a disturbing trend that started in 2009: America’s death rate from heart-related conditions is climbing again,” the detailed essay explains.

AARP is in fact a very visible stakeholder in the 2023 CES, collaborating on the AgeTech content track at the tech conference. The track covers all aspects of aging well, from financial health to entertainment, mental acuity and of course, physical health.

And that includes heart health, which is ubiquitous at #CES2023 if you consider the holistic journey of the consumer and her heart, from prevention and fitness to tracking and treatment, and care at home — clinical, social, and nutrition.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To give you a visual idea of what

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Your Home as Clinical Lab: Withings Brings “Your Urine, Your Self” to #CES2023

We’ve all been morphing our homes into our personal HealthQuarters since the start of the coronavirus era. Millions of global health citizens have taken to telehealth who never used a health care “digital front door” before. Other patients adopted remote health monitoring to avoid perennial visits to doctors for managing chronic conditions like diabetes or heart disease.

From the kitchen to the bedroom, our homes have become our health hubs. And now, to the bathroom and specifically, the toilet. Withings, maker of my personally favorite connected weight scale, announced U-Scan, a direct-to-consumer lab test platform that analyzes our urine from the POT – the point-of-toilet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m not being cheeky (sorry again, just too tempted) here — I’ve extolled the promise and virtues of our bathrooms as health destinations for many years, meeting up with tech and home innovators at CES over the past decade+, and keeping track of toilet innovations

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In 2023, We Are All Health Consumers in Search of Value

Every health/care industry stakeholder will be in search of value in 2023, I explain in my latest post written on behalf of Medecision. In this essay, I forecast what’s ahead for hospitals, digital health innovators and investors, employers, pharma, and patients-as-consumers — all firmly focused on value in the new year.

“Inflation may make consumers and the healthcare system sicker,” Deloitte expects, signaling a sort of “unrest” for the healthcare ecosystem.

 

 

 

 

One of the most telling data points I include in my assessment of 2023 comes from GSR Ventures, which polled major health care investors on the now and future state of digital health funding.

This piece chart demonstrates that investors have value-based care on their minds, coupled with the consumerization of health care.

Read more on how (and why) we will all be value-minded consumers of health care in 2023 on the Medecision site.

 

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Wildly off-topic #11 – the Will to Fight

Last night, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke to both Houses of Congress, both parties, and all of us.  He spoke eloquently and passionately, describing the suffering of his people and their total commitment to defeating Russia and reclaiming all Ukrainian lands stolen by Putin.

What Zelenskyy knows – and I mean KNOWS – is the more Putin bombs Ukrainians, the stronger those Ukrainians become, and the more committed they are to seeing this through to Putin’s bitter end.

Net – Putin’s attack on civilian targets will strengthen Ukrainian resolve, not weaken it.

Here’s why.

I had long thought that the horrific bombing campaigns of World War II helped bring the war to a close by battering Germans and Japanese into submission. [full disclosure – my father was a machine gunner, bombardier, and armorer in the 8th Air Force in England during the second World War.]

Boy was I wrong.

Credible

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Wildly off-topic #10 – Manpower

It’s been four months since we talked about Ukraine, a period during which Russia put scores of thousands of poorly-equipped, pretty-much-untrained, and wholly incompetent civilian men into army uniforms (or facsimiles thereof) and fed them into the meat grinder that is Donetsk, Kherson, Bakhmut and surrounding areas.

With this result.

With things on the front lines pretty static, it’s time to think through the factors that will decide who wins. In layperson’s terms, I’d say there are three main drivers

People to do the fighting – today’s topic

Will to fight

Stuff to fight with

Yes, this is pretty basic, but stick with me here.

The “people” need to be found, trained, equipped, clothed, fed and led. These are all hard to do – especially in winter, in Ukraine, after 10 months of often-brutal combat dominated by death-by-artillery.

In addition to the usual recruiting efforts focused on patriotism and

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Pandemic’s impact on workers’ comp financials has been…

A new report ($25 to download) from the National Foundation for Unemployment Compensation and Workers’ Compensation sheds light on the pandemic’s impact on work comp financials.

MCM readers will not be surprised that the impact has been pretty positive – Mark Priven and I predicted this back in September of 2020.

Several key takeaways.

  1.  Medical costs plummeted  – by over $3.5 billion – almost 12%, likely due to lower employment resulting in fewer claims, coupled with the relatively lower cost of COVID-related claims (much more on this here).
  2. Total benefit payments dropped by almost $3.9 billion…
  3. Over the last decade, the national average benefit cost per employee dropped by 10.2% – BEFORE adjusting for inflation. After adjusting for cumulative inflation of 17%, the real decline in benefit cost per employee was 27.3%. 

What does this mean for you?

Workers’ comp financials are pretty strong…for insurers and employers.

Mark Priven is

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The state of work comp pharmacy

is pretty good.

Here are the very preliminary takeaways from the latest Survey of Prescription Drug Management in Workers’ Comp...so far 21 phone interviews completed and several more still to go.

[if you’re new to MCM, we’ve done an annual Survey since 2004, past public reports are here (respondents get a much more detailed version)]

  • Drug spend continues to decline, although at first blush it looks like the drop is less than we’ve seen in recent years
  • Opioid spend is also continuing its downward trend
  • Generic efficiency – the percentage of scripts that could be filled with generics that are filled with generics – is just shy of 100%
  • Payers are still struggling with legacy opioid patients with respondents identifying patient resistance (mostly fear driven), recalcitrant prescribers, attorneys and the lack of regulatory/legislative support as key obstacles
  • Physician dispensing is once again rearing its ugly/profiteering/self-serving/taxpayer-abusing head.
  • Payers want
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Work comp and P&C – diabolical opposites

The property and casualty insurance industry is looking at increasing underwriting losses in 2022...while workers’ comp (which represents perhaps 1/10 of total P&C premiums) continues to be hugely profitable.

Which begs the question..will multi-line insurers try to use work comp to offset lower profits in other lines?

According to the Insurance Information Institute;

The (P&C) industry’s combined ratio — a measure of underwriting profitability in which a number below 100 represents a profit and one above 100 represents a loss – is forecast to be 105.6, a worsening of 6.1 points from 99.5 in 2021. [emphasis added]

Amidst troubling trends from other P&C lines – personal and commercial auto, property, multi-peril and homeowners, workers comp stands out…this from Milliman’s Jason Kurtz:

“The workers compensation line continues to stand alone, with its multi-year run of strong underwriting profitability forecast to continue for 2022 and into 2023-2024.”

Premium rates are

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Work comp rates drop, behavioral health in WC, and workers as assets not costs

Happy Monday – for my American readers, hope your holiday was most excellent.

here’s good stuff you might have missed…

WCRI is hosting a no-cost webinar on Behavioral Health in Workers’ Compensation Thursday Dec 15 at 2 pm eastern. The webinar will discus their recent primer on BH in WC (available here for download)

The good folks at NCCI published their latest take on work comp industry financials...suffice it to say the party continues…although it may be getting close to ending.

courtesy NCCI

The final countrywide analysis of 2021 results shows:

      • WC Calendar Year 2021 private carrier net written premium (NWP) increased from 2020 by 0.5% to $38.2 billion
      • The WC Calendar Year 2021 private carrier combined ratio was 87.2%, and the operating gain was 23.7%

Meanwhile early data makes 2022 look even better; direct written premiums were up almost 10% over 2021, while the loss ratio for the

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