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Millennials very cost-and-convenience conscious about healthcare

millies

Millennials might be tough medical customers, suggests a Modern Healthcare article.

It reports:

“Providers are watching the millennial generation, which is known in the industry for opting for the convenience and immediacy of retail and urgent care, rather than the traditional appointment-based primary-care relationship….”

{A survey found  that Millennials “are more than twice as likely to research providers on websites such as Yelp, Consumer Reports and Angie’s List, and 32% of millennials said they’ve switched providers when they were dissatisfied, a rate that is 12 percentage points higher than that of other generations.

“A millennial’s dissatisfaction can come from a variety of factors, though cost was highlighted as a major issue. Sixty percent of millennials said cost influenced their evaluation of a provider, and millennials cited it as a significant reason for why they’d leave a provider. Forty-one percent of millennials said they have postponed seeking healthcare because it was too expensive, and 21% said they have a high-deductible health plan….”

“Millennials are also big fans of alternative, retail-style care sites, with 43% of millennials reporting they’ve used an urgent-care site in the past year, and 23% saying they’ve used a retail health clinic in that time frame. Not surprisingly, millennials were less likely to have seen a primary-care physician in the past year.

“Millennials are looking for convenience and customer service, and they’re not necessarily looking for a long-term, in-depth relationship. It’s a pretty big paradigm shift,”  Halee Fischer-Wright, M.D., CEO of the Medical Group Management Association, told Modern Healthcare

To read more, please hit this link.


Baltimore medical center at cutting edge of primary care

 

harborplace

The USS Constellation near Baltimore’s Harborplace.

Greater Baltimore Medical Center seems to be  setting the standard for providing quality primary  care during industry upheaval, reports The Baltimore Sun.

Its “comprehensive medical teams that include physicians, nurses, advanced practitioners, nurse care managers and care coordinators are available for extended hours on weekdays and weekends and are always connected to up-to-the-minute patient data through an electronic health record system,” the paper reports.

“Because the offices are interconnected, a patient can go to any of its sites, regardless of where their regular primary-care physician is located. The patient’s test results and other critical information are also available through any of the locations….”

“What’s more, all offices are recognized as Level 3 patient-centered medical homes by the National Committee for Quality Assurance, the highest designation available. And through a Web-based tool known as myGBMC, patients have 24-hour online access to their electronic health records. Using myGBMC, patients can also securely request prescription refills, look up test results, communicate electronically with their caregivers and request referrals to see specialists.”

 

 


Curadux pioneers new decision guidance model for patients

We just received this press release from a Cambridge Management Group friend, David L. Brown, M.D. We’re very happy to read this  exciting news:

Curadux has pioneered a new healthcare decision guidance model for individuals and families facing advanced illness

AUSTIN, Texas

David L. Brown, M.D., the former chair of the Cleveland Clinic’s Anesthesiology Institute and a recent survivor of his own life-threatening illness, has announced the launch of  Curadux to help patients and families facing advanced illness make wise decisions and avoid overtreatment and undertreatment of their conditions.

“Americans facing advanced illness today are at risk of overtreatment and undertreatment of their conditions because powerful and silent incentives are often driving their healthcare, rather than the patient’s own unique values and goals,” Brown said. “After 38 years of practicing medicine inside the world’s elite healthcare institutions, and as a survivor of my own advanced illness, this is my biggest concern for current and future generations of patients and families. This is why I’m excited to launch Curadux and help solve this problem .”

In 2014, the Institute of Medicine released a landmark report highlighting the unfortunate reality that many Americans aren’t living well in advanced illness. The current health system incentivizes overtreatment which may cause unwanted, invasive, and expensive treatments, as well as unnecessarily prolonged and painful deaths. In the words of the IOM, “the default decision is to treat a disease or condition, no matter how hopeless or painful.” Undertreatment is an equal concern as policymakers, in their quest to reduce healthcare costs, begin to cap payments to providers which may incentivize the minimization of healthcare services for people who may legitimately need them.

Curadux solves these problems by establishing a new functional role called a “Care Guide,” staffed by experienced physicians who are solely dedicated to helping patients and families align their unique values and goals with their healthcare decisions, independently from healthcare payers and providers. Care Guides help patients and families to thoroughly assess their values and goals, understand the detailed implications of their options prepared by their medical teams, and ultimately document their healthcare decision, while also alleviating pressure on their primary care physician.


Contact Info

info@cmg625.com

(617) 230-4965

Wellesley, Mass