Feedtrail is one of a new breed of customer experience companies. Most health care experiences are captured in paper surveys that end up in H-CAPS and Star ratings. These are very important for how providers and plans get paid but probably don’t actually reflect what happens very well and give very poor feedback to organizations and staff about what’s actually going on. They also don’t give a chance for patients to directly give positive feedback to staff who do a great job–which likely helps them feel good about their work. Feedtrail is working to fix all that. I got a full demo and explanation from founding CEO and chief strategy officer Paul Jaglowski–Matthew Holt
Special Event: The Catalyst @ Health 2.0/Wipfli Survey on the State of Digital Health Results Presentation
TODAY Tuesday, May 11th at 2pm ET/11am PT — RSVP here
Back in November of last year, Catalyst @ Health 2.0, supported by professional services firm Wipfli, launched the Survey on the State of Digital Health, with the goal of creating a comprehensive analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on digital health companies and the rest of the ecosystem. Between the end of 2020 and thru March 2021 we received detailed responses from 300+ digital health aficionados including 180 digital health companies. We’re sure this is the most detailed assessment of what’s happening on the ground in digital health companies you’ll find anywhere.
Join us at 2pm ET/11am PT on Tuesday, May 11th for The Catalyst @ Health 2.0/Wipfli Survey on the State of Digital Health Results Presentation, you’ll see the full results from me & Catalyst’s Elizabeth Brown, hear from Wipfli’s Paul Johnson & Girish Ramachandra, and get reaction to the results from our guests Ryan Johnson, lawyer at Fredrikson & Byron; Sunny Kumar, investor at GSR Ventures;, and digital health CEOs Helena Plater-Zyberk, Supportiv; and Mudit Garg, Qventus.
I think the zoom is full, but you can see it livestreamed below at 11 am PT – 2pm ET – Matthew Holt
The Catalyst @ Health 2.0/Wipfli Survey on the State of Digital Health
By MATTHEW HOLT
Catalyst @ Health 2.0, supported by professional services firm Wipfli, is launching a survey about the state of Digital Health. We hope to get a comprehensive analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on digital health companies and the rest of the ecosystem. This survey should take under 8 minutes to complete (and probably less). For your time we will get you a copy of the results when they are released. As an added bonus TWO respondents drawn at random who complete the survey will get advertising for their company for 6 months on The Health Care Blog (worth $5,000).
We are interested in hearing from leaders working in digital health companies, or those connected to digital health in health systems, payers, life sciences, consulting or investment companies.
To take the survey CLICK HERE
NOTE–None of the data from this survey will be shared by Catalyst @ Health 2.0 (even with our friends at Wipfli) other than as aggregate survey results. So you can be assured that your answers are completely confidential.
Matthew Holt is Co-Chairman of Catalyst @ Health 2.0 & Publisher of THCB
Is Health Insurance Too Cheap?
Researchers at USC recently published a study designed to find out how much people are willing to pay for better drug coverage from their health insurance plan. The question they posed to the general public was straightforward: How much extra money would you pay per month for a health insurance plan that would pay for “specialty drugs” if you need them?
Specialty drugs are expensive new treatments for diseases like leukemia, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis. These drugs often cost tens of thousands of dollars, and in some cases even run into six figures per patient. But these high costs can be accompanied by significant benefit. Gleevec for example can dramatically increase life expectancy for people with otherwise fatal leukemia.
Keep in mind that not only are specialty drugs expensive but they are being used with increasing frequency. According to the USC team, 3 out of 100 people in the United States will use at least one specialty drug in the following year.
How much would you pay to make sure you aren’t responsible to pay for these drugs out of pocket? Would you be willing to give your insurance company an extra $5 per month? $10? Maybe even $20?
The USC team found that, on average, people were willing to spend around $13 extra per month to make sure their health insurance plans cover such specialty drugs. (The study was published in the April issue of Health Affairs, and was led by John Romney.) To put that into perspective, the actuarial cost of such coverage—how much insurance companies would expect to spend per person if everyone obtained such coverage—is around $5 per month.
Time to Make Joint Commission Surveys Public
Can anyone doubt that the recent kerfuffle faced by Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas would have had a greater chance of being avoided if earlier reviews by the CMS-designee, the Joint Commission, would have been made public? Yet, JC surveys are held in confidence. This is a matter of federal law.
Currently, the results of hospital accreditation surveys cannot be accessed by the public under Section 1865 [42 U.S.C. 1395bb] (b) of the Social Security Act, which reads as follows:
“(b) The Secretary may not disclose any accreditation survey (other than a survey with respect to a home health agency) made and released to the Secretary by[615] the American Osteopathic Association[616] or any other national accreditation body, of an entity accredited by such body, except that the Secretary may disclose such a survey and information related to such a survey to the extent such survey and information relate to an enforcement action taken by the Secretary.”
When I was CEO of a hospital, we voluntarily made our JC surveys public, posting them on our corporate website. We felt that it was important for all staff in the hospital to have the chance to review the findings and act on them, and we also felt that public confidence in our hospital would be enhanced by this kind of transparency. While this practice has spread somewhat, most hospitals still do not make their surveys public.
