August 2009
2 posts
Awesome story about Dr. Sean Khozin... →
Creating improved access to care According to Khozin, ER overcrowding doesn’t happen because of the uninsured. It happens because patients can’t access their primary care doctors when they need medical attention.
“Despite the fact that you have to wait at the emergency room for five hours, at least you get seen the same day,” he says. “In my practice, you get an...
Now Reading: The Story of Dr. Sidney Garfield: The... →
I’m always inspired by doctors who think that there’s got to be a better way to both deliver and pay for healthcare. This book is a great find:
via Ted Eytan, MD:
Part of my eagerness is the fact that I didn’t enter medicine with the intention of being a Permanente physician; I didn’t even know what that meant, until the end of my residency, when the Group Health medical group in...
July 2009
2 posts
A bit of an update...
We launched a complete overhaul of our site and app on Monday. The launch went well and we’re off and running with only a few inevitable hiccups. In just a few weeks, we’re signing up our first group of beta docs on Hello Health. And the interest from other docs all around the country continues to come in. That’s super exciting for us and we honestly can’t wait to sign all...
Collaboration
Politicians and policy wonks love the Mayo Clinic model because of its quality and outcomes.
This model works well because of collaboration amongst doctors within its walls.
Solo/small medical practices powered by the HelloHealth web-based technology allows collaboration amongst doctors locally, regionally, nationally, and globally.
The web really can make the healthcare world flat.
June 2009
12 posts
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Hello Health clinics would offer medical care... →
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Medicine meets social networking →
Dr. Sean Khozin chatting it up with Crain’s about docs using social media…
Moving forward
There is much chaos and uncertainty in our nation these days. It’s refreshing to band together with docs who truly want to do the right thing and simplify medicine the way it should be.
Let’s step up our efforts through online collaboration at how we transition from our current situation to a Hello Health-powered practice. For example, how do we create peripheral revenue streams...
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Top 10 Most Creative People in Health Care | Fast... →
I’m honored to be included in a list of such great thinkers. Like Rocky Balboa said last week, revolutionizing healthcare will only come from the ground up as a coordinated effort to change how healthcare is delivered in America. If there are only a finite amount of doctor visits in America per year, how do we maximize those visits and make efficient use of them? This is the topic that Washington...
To all those who came to the first Hello Health...
Thank you.
I started my practice on September 24, 2007. Like every doc out there trying to use technology and the internet to go at it by themselves, I too was practicing in a silo of one-to-one communication with frankenstein-like, cobbled together technology. Little did I know that less than two years later, I’d be a part of a phenomenal team and in a position to now start offering...
Breakthrough
rbalboajr:
Modern medical breakthroughs in the last 100 years include antibiotics, vaccines, chemotherapy, surgical techniques, etc.
By far, in the next decade, the most important life-saving public health breakthrough will not be found by pharmaceutical companies or medical device manufacturers.
It will be HOW we DELIVER healthcare
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Before You Get Started
Are You Hello Health Material? We recognize that Hello Health isn’t for everyone. But you are Hello Health Material if you:
still believe that health care can be changed for the better, and doctors can be that change
want to simplify your practice
have even a spark of the entrepreneurial spirit
aren’t afraid to be different
want to spend more time with your patients
...
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Getting Started
Space Case If you’ve decided you want to work out of an office, here are a few recommendations for what to look for in a space, and how to set it up to feel like Hello Health.
Either live near your office, or work near your home. This obviously saves time and cuts back on the stress of commuting.
Go as centrally located and urban as you possibly can, in the most high-traffic area....
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Growing Your Baby
Get Paid We at Hello Health don’t deal with insurance, and all of the payment you receive for using our web app is straight from your patients. Their credit card is on file with us, just like iTunes, so you don’t have to deal with billing. Charge It How you charge, and what you charge for, is up to you— all of the fee settings are within your profile and are automated by Hello Health....
Basics
All the hoopla currently about Obama’s plan to slow down increased healthcare costs is smoke and mirrors. Unfortunately, patients are the only ones who will suffer in the end.
He essentially is asking some of the most aggressive executive management types in industry to cut back on their ability to make money… ain’t gonna happen. Then, government will step in to ration...
“I believe everyone should pay something–something should come out of pocket, not...”
– -hannah
Commentator on Tara Parker-Pope’s Well column on NYT Health blog article, “When Insurance is Bad for Your Health”
Sensible Certification →
The Federal Gov’t is going to determine what health information technology survives in the market, using a certification process. Certified vendors win, others lose.
There’s a growing wave of concern with one particular group of vendors appearing to dominate the conversation with their standard (CCHIT).
This site briefly describes the problem and offers simple action anyone can take...
May 2009
30 posts
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Getting reimbursed from insurance companies takes... →
New York’s Medicaid program, a consistent bottom-of-the-pack finisher in previous years, took an average 161 days — almost half a year — to reimburse doctors, according to the rankings. It fully paid or resolved the claim on the first submission just 62% of the time.
Why spend all your money and time fighting with insurance companies when people are happy to pay you a reasonable rate out of...
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“Labor unions say their members sacrificed pay raises to get health benefits....”
– It’s unfortunate these labor unions are so naive and entitled. They think their insurance coverage is a valuable product. What they don’t realize is that not only is the premium overpriced, but they are also being overdiagnosed with expensive testing and overtreated with expensive...
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Small Firms Face Choice Between Health Coverage... →
We’re working damn hard on building Hello Health for Business (very similar to Zipcar for Business) where employers can create an account on Hello Health and sign up their employees for Hello Health. The employer decides how much of each visit that they cover (anywhere from 0 to 100%) and at the end of the month, the employer gets a bill from Hello Health for all of their employees’ usage. Also,...
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Health Affairs: Take Two Aspirin And Tweet Me In... →
For anyone who missed this article in Health Affairs a few months back:
If you want a glimpse of what health care could look like a few years from now, consider “Hello Health,” the Brooklyn-based primary care practice that is fast becoming an emblem of modern medicine. A paperless, concierge practice that eschews the limitations of insurance-based medicine, Hello Health is popular...
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“Total 2009 medical costs for a typical American family of four, including both...”
– 2 things come to mind when I see these outrageous numbers.
First, managed care companies are beholden to their shareholders via their bottom line. They make money by either increasing their premiums, decreasing services, or both. Negative growth is not in their business plan.
HelloHealth:...
“Some people who advocate for healthcare reform are driven by a bad experience...”
– E-Patient Dave
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Lessons learned from Hello Health Williamsburg
Our space in Williamsburg is a lovely little place that used to be a vintage clothing store before us. We renovated it with the intention of making it homey and inviting and keeping as much of the original details as possible. It fits the neighborhood perfectly. Beyond that, it’s a very humble, simple place - sparsely decorated but done intelligently with a health and wellness theme. There...
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Physician Practices Spend $31 Billion a Year on...
Tell me something I didn’t already know. At least now there is some data to explain to the public and regulators why the insanity around the insurance industry is one of the main factors killing primary care in America.
No sane medical student wants to get into a field so consumed by playing administrative trivial pursuit at such high professional and personal cost.
A close analysis of...
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Please watch this video...
You won’t regret the 13 minutes of your day spent watching this.
Imagine having this built into Hello Health.
We’ve got a bright future everyone.
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So you're interested in being a Hello Health...
Let us know more about you here and we’ll be in touch.
Clayton Christensen: We don't need more doctors,... →
Thank you Clayton. We sure do…
Space
Checking out spaces, rents, leases, etc.
Have 2 in mind. First one 1100 sq ft all on on one floor plus unfinished basement for storage. Used to be restaurant. Rent $3900/month.
Second one 3 floors ~400 sq ft per floor; basement is unfinished (storage). Rent $3400/month.
Both leases are triple net. Both spaces need buildout. Location is ideal with very high foot traffic in very...
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What would be the ideal way to document a visit?
Our platform is progressing ridiculously well…I’m super happy about that. One thing I’m struggling with is how to design the absolute best interface for documenting an in-person and online interaction with a patient. There are a few strategies:
Free text
Templates
Checkboxes
Autocomplete
Autofill
We’ve built this really amazing system where we’ve integrated our...
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Response to orthopedist
HH primary care docs can identify orthos like this guy and refer patients through the platform.
Orthopedics is a procedure-driven specialty that has profited extremely well in the current system. They are the status quo fighting to preserve the current reimbursement system.
With all due respect to this ortho, your lobbyists, your RUC representatives, your national societies have shaped...
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David vs Goliath
Just read Malcolm Gladwell’s piece in the 5/11 New Yorker. Man, that guy can write.
HelloHealth is primary care’s answer to the Goliath managed care and government systems.
We owe it to our patients. They are the ones exposed to and suffering from the risks of overtreatment from our current, bloated, specialty-driven, procedure-dominated American medicine model.
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An email I just received from an orthopedist...
I think your points on primary care are right on. It turns out that specialists do a lot of primary care work as well and get reimbursed at primary care rates for office visits. Perhaps this is because PMD’s are overworked or perhaps we rely on too many consults for medico legal reasons. Most specialists I know however, aren’t spending 30 min with each pt. In fact there are...
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"Is Hello Health a better situation for doctors?"
I was interviewed today by two student reporters from the Columbia School of Journalism. One student happened to be a fourth year medical student who took some time off to explore journalism before she moves on to a residency in Ob-Gyn. She asked plenty of questions, but her last one was “Is Hello Health a better situation for doctors?” Here was my response:
Based on our numbers...
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Hello, I'm Sean Khozin, MD, MPH
This is my first post here. I’m an internist with a public health degree and basic science research experience at NCI. I met Jay Parkinson over a year ago and started working out of his cozy Brooklyn apartment on developing what we now know as Hello Health. I currently spend half of my time practicing medicine as a Hello Health physician and the other half on the technology and business...
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Book Club
I’m reading Clay Christensen’s The Innovator’s Prescription. He refers to Kaiser-Permanente as a successful system structured to profit from wellness instead of sickness.
I have noticed policymakers and manager types tend to favor larger systems like KP. Personally, I would not want to be in such a corporate environment. I would rather be in a solo or small practice where I...
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Does telemedicine reduce malpractice risk? →
Kevin, MD:
The conventional wisdom is that practicing medicine over the telephone exposes doctors to potentially more malpractice lawsuits. But, is that really the case? Blogging over at Better Health, physician Alan Dappen, who created an innovative primary care model, suggests not. His practice, which is based on 24/7 physician availability by phone, solves most patients’ concerns half...
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Hello...I'm Jay Parkinson, MD, MPH
I’m a doctor who lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I created a new kind of medical practice on September 24, 2007 summarized by:
Patients would visit my site.
See my embedded Google Calendar.
Choose a time and tell me your symptoms.
My iPhone alerted me.
I’d do a house call.
I’d get paid via PayPal.
I started my practice with $1500. My overhead was almost nothing. I got a lot of press....
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Jealousy & Frustration :(
I’m sitting here in the airport in Minneapolis after speaking this morning to a group of 200 at the ICSI Colloquium on Clinical Quality Improvement. ICSI is an organization that “supports and promotes the use of evidence-based health care in all of its scientific documents and advances improvement in patient safety and efficiency.”
They are a fantastic organization with their...
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High quality health care for all
Health care policy in the US is toxic to high quality primary care. Doing the real work of primary care is punished by policies that drive volume of services/procedures and office visits instead of real care.
Superb access - “I can get care when and how I want and need it”
An excellent relationship over time - “I have a PCP who knows me as a person”
A broad array of...
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Listen
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Huh?
Listening to radio yesterday. Obituary of municipal or state government official. Sad story. But then the reporter referred to him as an “innovative administrator”.
Can anyone explain to me what “innovative administration” is?
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So you are thinking about opening your ideal...
Since 2002 hundreds of clinicians have called, emailed, visited to find out how they might pursue their professional dream practice. Given the phenomenal breakthroughs we’ve seen in reducing overhead, using technology, and practice financing, the range of possible is much greater than it had been in the past.
I’ve seen docs set up ‘home visit only’ practices that serve...
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Hello Health University
Avoiding the productivity hamster wheel is no longer an impossible dream for clinicians. We can start our own practices using new approaches to how the practice is organized and financed. This allows us to focus on delivering great care while still having a life.
Starting your own practice can seem daunting and not every startup practice is successful. This is where Hello Health University...
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What's the best way to connect with Hello Health?
We’re flattered that so many people are contacting us asking about Hello Health and how they can get started as doctors using Hello Health. Thank you very much!
However, it’s a bit difficult to talk with everyone on a one-to-one basis even though we’d like to get to know each and every one of you. So…we’ve created a few different ways to connect with us and help you...
Hello Health Wants to Reinvent Health Care |... →
There is a lovely article posted today about Hello Health. Don’t forget to watch the video!
“At Hello Health, doctors are able to practice primary-care medicine at specialist salaries. And Parkinson is not shy about his capitalist instincts. The students at Mt. Sinai, brimming with youthful idealism, are a tougher sell. “How much are you guys in debt?” he asks them....
April 2009
13 posts
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Hello...I'm L. Gordon Moore, MD
Ever since I realized that the practice of medicine was messed up I’ve been searching for ways to make it right. I learned quality improvement, process improvement, simple and realistic approaches to measurement. I learned about open access, office efficiency, the Chronic Care Model. All these parts were great but failed to fully solve the problem.
I opened a prototype practice in...
What is Hello Health for Health Professionals?
Hello Health is a new kind of medical practice powered by our web app that helps you communicate, document, and transact with your patients.
Fast Company: “It’s part electronic medical record, part practice-management system, and part social-networking site, complete with profiles and photos of doctors and patients, all in a secure environment that complies with federal privacy standards.”
...
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