Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Most economics simplify markets and assume that there is one market price. In reality, however, we observe significant price dispersion. Because of this, we see that that searching for the lowest price–while costly–can buyers to superior outcomes. George Stigler (1961) is a seminal paper on the Economics of Information which I will review here. When…
According to Insurance and Technology, health insurer WellPoint has partnered with Zagat’s Survey to allow WellPoint’s members to rate their doctors. Zagat’s will use its 30 point rating system to evaluate all doctors. According to Spirit magazine, patients can grade doctors based on “including doctor availability, office environment, trustworthiness, and communication.” Other websites, such as…
TechCrunch reports on a Facebook application that alerts potential donors to donate blood in times of shortage. Take all Types (TAT) is the name of the innovative non-profit which invented this application. The TAT website wisely states: “There are always shortages of blood throughout the nation, even though there are plenty of potential donors out…
VentureBeat (“…Health 2.0…“) profiles six innovative Health 2.0 firms which were at the 2008 Health 2.0 Conference in San Diego. Each firm on the list aims to reinvent the doctor patient relationship. Included on the list is Carol.com which allows patients to do medical shopping. PharmaSurveyor allows users to enter the medications they are on…
Electronic medical records (EMR) hold the promise of vastly improving the quality of medical care received in the U.S. today. One of the major issues with EMR is privacy however. Patients generally want their doctors to know as much about their health as possible in order to make the best possible medical diagnoses and treatment…
Google’s blog gives a preview of its Google Health application. TechCrunch provides some analysis.
Yesterday, I spoke about the Swiss health care system. One of the main attributes of this system is that patients are allowed to choose from any health care plan and the health insurers can not refuse to cover them. Further, since the insurance benefit is mandated by law, there is very little quality difference between…
Google is everywhere. CNN reports that Google is venturing into health records biz. “Google Inc. will begin storing the medical records of a few thousand people as it tests a long-awaited health service that’s likely to raise more concerns about the volume of sensitive information entrusted to the Internet search leader. The pilot project to…
Adverse selection is often seen as a major impediment to the efficient functioning of insurance markets. Rothschild and Stiglitz (1976) create a model where high risk people buy full insurance while low risk individuals buy partial insurance. Yet empirically, one finds that in some insurance markets, low risk individuals purchase more insurance than high risk…
The Sacramento Business Journal has an interesting article (“Better communication…“) on Kaiser Permanente’s online system for patients called “KP HealthConnect.” The system allows patients to schedule appointments, refill prescriptions, view lab results and email doctors.