Halvorson
Long-time Kaiser Permanente leader George Halvorson previously gave up his CEO post and will soon be relinquishing his chairman position. But he doesn't want anyone to think he's ready to move to a senior condo in Florida.
“I'm definitely not retiring,” said Halvorson, who placed No. 9 in his 11th appearance on Modern Healthcare's 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare ranking. “I'm repotting.”
Read more »
Kaiser Permanente reports it used patient registries, data analytics, dissemination of evidence-based guidelines, sharing of performance metrics and the increased use of prescription drugs to achieve a near doubling of the rate of patients who got their high blood pressure under control. The report highlights the growing focus by healthcare providers and health plans on taking proactive measures to improve population health and management of chronic medical conditions.
Results of the long-term, large-scale and multifaceted effort were published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The lead author is Dr. Marc Jaffe, of the Kaiser Permanente South San Francisco Medical Center.
Read more »
Lee
Some of California’s top insurers, including Kaiser Permanente, are protesting the state’s plans to drop quality ratings from insurance listings when its exchange goes public on Oct. 1.
Covered California executive director Peter Lee told the Los Angeles Times that the data behind existing quality ratings were too out of date. He also fears the plans sold on the exchanges will be very different from the individual policies that formed the basis for the star-based grades (this is movie-land).
Read more »
A University of Texas academic has concluded after pouring over Kaiser Permanente's proposed rates for its exchange offerings in California that the high rate on its lowest-cost health insurance plan is not due to the plan's generosity.
Comparing Kaiser's proposed “bronze” offering to its existing plans for healthy young adults, the researcher wrote on The Incidental Economist blog that the new premium, at $205 a month, will be more than double the old premium. Yet the benefits and available provider network (they both used Kaiser) will be essentially the same.
Read more »
