Not too long ago United bought Shared Clarity which was already in the process of collecting “some” data to mine and analyze to sell back to medical device makers to let them know how they perform and secondly to of course look at themselves. 

More Data For Sale Soon With Shared Clarity With United Healthcare Labs and Dignity Health–Crunching Numbers on Medical Devices With Shared Clarity

Dignity Health system is finding itself more connected to subsidiaries of United Healthcare these days and of course it all comes back to money as hospitals are looking at decreased revenues to they partner up with insurers or timageheir subsidiaries to look for new revenue streams.  The way United is doing this too is interesting as McLaren come in as an “owner”…so Dignity is already one and they are are also an owner with Optum 360.  You can read about the revenue cycling subsidiary at Dignity hospitals below.  Dignity is a big Cerner account so United gets some licensing revenue there too with the medical records system since Cerner integrated the Optum revenue cycling module into their system, so with Dignity United is forming more profit revenue streams all the time. 

United Healthcare Adding Yet One More Subsidiary to the Very Large Number of Subs They Already Own/Operate-Optum and dignity Healthcare (A System Wide Cerner EHR Client) Form New Venture Called Optum 360–Subsidiary Watch

One of these days when hospitals can’t pay their bills I guess they’ll hand the keys over to insurance companies like United who are embedded with a variety of subsidiary companies.  In case you missed it, 6 more hospitals in California when up for sale in the last two weeks. 

Hospitals Feeling The ACA Crunch In California As Financially Strapped Daughters of Charity Health System Put Six Hospitals Up For Sale

So basically hospitals are just pinned in and don’t have a lot of alternatives but to work with insurers or their subsidiaries that have money, while on the other hand the same insurers fire doctors who see Medicare advantage patients.  Look at this one, United bids a contract in Maryland and doesn’t have any providers after they win the bid..so it was taken away, but Sebelius loves United. 

The Texas Medical Association has joined the big lawsuit over doctors seeing Medicare Advantage patients getting fired, so with United doctors are just a “contract at will”, just like an employee at will, when they want you gone, cost algorithm says, you’re gone, no explanation required. 

US Appeals Court Refuses Interim Stay Requested By United Healthcare In Connecticut & Refers Matter to 3 Judge Panel While Other State Medical Boards (California and Texas to name 2) Signed On To The Brief To Support The Connecticut State Medical Society

Here’s a good example of the BS patients go through with United in the video below, Hospital was in network, but ER doctor was not.  How in the world is the patient supposed to know if the ER doctor was in network.  This is your wonderful United Healthcare ACO efforts, shuffle it back to the patient.  This is stupid that the ER and hospital were not both in network and you know that’s probably because United likes to go for complex contracts that end up paying doctors sometimes less than Medicare so all this comes back to the patients..so nice data selling arrangement McLaren has going here with United, right?  But don’t worry, United has a cure for some of this and has opened 2 urgent care clinics in Texas and I’m sure there’s more to come soon and this way doctors who work there under contract can be paid at rates that might be less than Medicare too.  Will they put one right across the street from the hospital in the video?  I guess we have to wait and see. 

United Healthcare Now Entering the Urgent Care Clinic Business To Help Keep Patients Out of the ER, Two More Opening In Houston–Subsidiary Watch

This data collection on devices competes directly with the FDA Sentinel Program, why donate when you can sell the data back to the device companies?   BD

FDA Sentinel and “Mini” Sentinel Data Base Is Growing and Becoming A Very Useful Tool

McLaren Health Care Corp. is the latest health system to take an ownership stake in SharedClarity, a joint venture that pairs UnitedHealthcare's claims data with clinical data, medical studies and physician input to improve purchasing decisions for high-priced medical devices.

McLaren, a Flint, Mich.-based health system that operates 10 hospitals, joins Advocate Health Care, Baylor Scott & White Health, and Dignity Health as owners of SharedClarity. The Phoenix-based venture, which Dignity Health and UnitedHealthcare formed in 2012, launched in April of last year.

SharedClarity plans to evaluate the clinical outcomes of 30 devices and then use that information to develop contracts with better pricing for top-performing devices. Teams have completed clinical reviews of two products so far.
The venture still expects to add up to six additional health systems, said Mark West, SharedClarity's president. Now that SharedClarity is producing tangible results, it may be easier to persuade more hospitals to join, he said.
“We were selling a concept and model. It's vapor,” West said. “Over the last year we have gone into practice.”

http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20140203/NEWS/302039973/joint-venture-sharedclarity-adds-mclaren-to-list-of-owners?AllowView=VXQ0UnpwZTVDUFNkL1IzSkUvSHRlRU9yajA4ZEErRmU=

0 comments :

Post a Comment

 
Top
Google Analytics Alternative