Bluetooth Tooth Brush–Send Your Brushing Habits to Your Dentist, Please Not This.….

How far is monitoring going to go?  If you read the article the author goes on to say that their doctor could careless about the numbers from their Fitbit as they probably don’t have time for that, which brings up a good question as to how much monitoring do doctors have time for and what kind of monitoring?

According to the article it will also play music and have some social networking capabilities..oh great…does anyone care about your tooth brushing experience?  It will sell for around $50 to include a stand.  I guess if you are a parent and want to monitor kids brushing their teeth it could provide some use but why not watch or ask them.  You kids might flush the brushes down the toilet too. It reminds me of the story from the UK a couple years ago to where they used heart monitors with children to see if they took an interest and the kids trashed them. 

The monitor tells when the brush is in your mouth and taking action…augh…I like my sonic care tooth brush but it’s there to clean teeth and not to monitor or entertain.  No doubt someone will figure out how to make sure your cellphone has all the data.  I could just see a dentist with the data who would probably tell the kids to talk it over with your parents as he/she is not there to handle part of oral therapy.  If you don’t know when to open mouth and drink water, well guess what, there’s a bottle for that with blue tooth too, although that could be combined with the brush to tell you when to rinse? <grin>. 

A Blue Tooth Hydration Smart Bottle Using Sensor Fusion Algorithms With Smart Phones To Tell You When To Drink Water

For medications there’s already this thing, the blue tooth inhaler which I have not mentioned for a while but if it’s sending data and you were let’s say late with an inhale and you ended up sick, would your insurance deny your claim if this were all monitored?  They want to monitor everyone but can’t get their own data out there with minimal flaws. 

The Minder Wireless Device Connects to Collect Patient Medical Data and Transmit Via Wireless Network to Medical Record Systems Via HL7 Standards

If some of the folks who create some of these novelty type products could only switch years and create some life saving devices instead!  Right now with the economy such a device is not really a staple either but I’m sure Twitter will be full of tweets all over this one <grin>.  BD 

Blue Tooth Inhaler

Want to really embrace the quantitative self? Forget tracking your sleep and start tracking your dental hygiene. Beam Technologies, a year-old startup, is set to introduce a Bluetooth-enabled toothbrush and app that will launch next month. The toothbrush contains a sensor and Bluetooth radio that will send your brushing information to a smartphone app. Later versions will also track how long you spent in certain areas of the mouth and might add some kind of gamification layer to help encourage better brushing.

Alex X. Frommeyer, the CEO and founder of Beam, says the Beam Brush should hit shelves in early March and retail for about $50 for the base and $3 for a replaceable brush head. The Android app is ready, and the iOS app should be ready when the toothbrush launches or soon after. His startup, which is based in Louisville, Ky., is set to close on an initial round of funding in a few weeks. He didn’t disclose the amount but said it is less than $1 million.

Frommeyer will let the app play songs and may incorporate a social element or game element into the process. At first this seems bizarre (although maybe not to those people who share their pictures of their dinners), but as a parent I would love one of these things so I can monitor how often my daughter brushes her teeth without standing right there in the bathroom.

Of course medical data is a touchy subject and one that’s governed by laws such as HIPAA, but if this is a way to bring user-generated data from devices such as the beam Brush or a FitBit (see disclosure) into doctors’ offices, I’m interested. My own doctor showed absolutely no interest in the data collected from my FitBit, even though she does ask me to tell her what I’ve eaten in the last 24 hours every time I see her.

http://gigaom.com/2012/02/10/bits-meet-bite-check-out-the-connected-toothbrush/?utm_source=social&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=jkontherun

Technorati Tags: Cambridge Consultants,wireless,bluetooth,Altran,Continua Health Alliance,healthcare,medical devices,devices reporting data,technology,VenaHub,Minder,Toothbrush,dentistry

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Attack of the Killer Algorithms Part 13–Bank of America Style - Flawed Data With Credit Scoring Agencies–Dead Man Banking And Currently A Consumer Under Attack

Yes here we have one more story about flawed data which is on the rise in the US with data aggregation services.  Certainly there have always been few errors and most have normally been corrected quickly in the past, but when you think about all the sources today that access the same data it’s a snowball effect as that correction may have to travel many paths to reach all of those using “and selling” that data. 

If you read here often enough you know I talk privacy and data quite frequently as when you have servers running 24/7 making life impacting decision about us that you can’t see, talk to or touch, it is frustrating to say the least.  Combine that with a customer service department that can only elaborate to you what is shown on their computer screen and yes it is frustrating.  This situation is not limited to just banking as other transactional industries have incurred this as well. 

Let’s go back a ways to a story I did about HeatlhGrades when I found my former doctor who had been dead for 8 years still listed and honoring HealthNet insurance.  They rely on data sources that may not be updated and in this case we found a ton of errors, other dead doctors, doctors affiliated with hospitals where they had never set foot and in one instance a person who had never been a doctor but was an administrator with an IPA.  Below is a post I made back in October of 2010 that has some further links and issues with some of this erroneous data in healthcare and crooks live on it too.  HealthGrades has since this time merged with a marketing company so perhaps the data will get cleaned up or we may get better at marketing dead doctors for that matter <grin>.

Dead Doctors and Inaccurate MD Listings On the Web Can Be a Real Hunting Ground of Information to Mine For Crooks Relative to Fraudulent Medical Billing

Here’s another great example of flawed data from last year when the City of Buffalo paid out over $2 million with insurance premiums on many of their employees who had been dead for years.  This stuff makes it tough for the living.  The Social Security death index has 31k living people listed as “dead” too. 

City of Buffalo Has Paid Over $2 Million to Provide Health Insurance for Hundreds of Dead People-Some as Many as 4 Years

Here’s the Killer Algorithms Chapter 8 which is well worth reading when you see how data is used and sometimes abused.  North Carolina kicked out CoreLogic from mining data as many state servers are slowing down to a crawl due to all the data mining activity and some states have had to install software to keep them out and worse yet, some of the folks mining this data don’t pay for the quarterly updates on you and I so as consumers we are now chasing flawed data we can’t fix as a result.  That is what is sounds like is happening to this man at Bank of America.

Consumers Lose More Privacy With New CoreLogic Credit Reporting–”Score” Marketed For Insurers and Employers To Gain Information-California Prohibits Potential Employers – From Using As Jan 1 - Killer Algorithms Part 8

Aggregated information contains flaws…this is the problem.  Score would not agree to go on camera the video states.  Again I said I do hope our new Consumer Financial Czar knows about math and the Attack of the Killer Algorithms.

So now in the credit area we have FICO mismatching data sources here combining credit scores with a new set of algorithms they call Medication Adherence Scores.  How long before you get denied credit based on some data that they have scored you and said you will not take your prescriptions let’s say if you have a diabetes or heart condition?  This is not part of a smart decision making process but rather one more attempt to sell flawed data as tech companies and credit companies make big bucks marketing mismatched data and will go all out and pull all strings to make a case for it with steroid marketing. 

CoreLogic has formed a partnership with FICO who is already in the process of selling algorithms with mismatched data which connects public information about you and combines it with your credit score to tell if you as a medical patient will take your prescriptions.

Somebody needs to start calling some of these folks on “mis matched data” the discriminates as now we have “Discrimination by the Algorithm” and it’s showing in more places all the time.  Last time I wrote about the FICO mismatched data it all ended up over at the Daily Kos via another publisher as an awareness.  No wonder nobody can make a decision when mismatched data is used in such fashions. 

In this situation one of the possible reasons listed is the man’s last name and again another big issue with connecting the wrong data sources as folks trying to find a job have problems here too with good folks being connected erroneously to others with similar names that may have a criminal record, like this story where this woman says you just don’t know where the next “attack” will come from next. 

Flawed Data–Mined by Corporations Online Provides Background Checks Riddled With Errors–Attack of the Killer Algorithms Part 7

This man in this story with Bank of America is definitely under the “Attack of the Killer Algorithms”. 

Companies make big dollars selling your data and Walgreens said not too long ago that their data selling business was valued at just under $800 million so one wonders are filling prescriptions a side line business for getting that data.  We should license and tax these folks. 

The Alternative Millionaire’s Tax–License and Tax Big Corporations Who Mine and Sell Taxpayer Data They Get for Free From the Internet-Phase One to Restore Middle Class With Transparency, Disclosure and Money

Banks and other financial entities buy and sell you as well and when you take a look at what is happening to this man, how many times have they sold his data and to who?  Good question and only “the shadow” knows.  In the recent mortgage settlement how much of our data was sold and created profits?  This is another good question as we saw with all the mismatched data cases in the news, someone didn’t pay attention to connecting all the data properly.  As a matter of fact Hedge Funds and and High Frequency traders are buying and selling consumer data at a rate faster than Facebook so again how much of our consumer data is floating around there too, whether it be actual data or “profiles” as some sell?

High Frequency Traders Using Social Networks and Growing Rapidly With Algorithms That Find, Sort and Leverage-Growing At A Rate Faster Than Facebook

Some put games out there to entertain you while they scrape data to give the naïve consumer an enjoyable process while the algorithms work behind the scenes.  

Gamification–You Have Won and Now We Know All About You - It Didn’t Cost One Cent-Insurance Companies Have Games To Find Out More About You Too– “Attack of Killer Algorithms” Chapter 11

So how and when will this man’s data be corrected and how much time is it taking on his part to fix all of this and he did not input the data so the middle class when errors are created are becoming “data chasers” to fix what corporate America messes up.  This is just one example but again time to ask about who’s collecting what data and are they held accountable to fix it when problems arise as it’s not always that “bad middle class consumer” at fault.  We can spend days and hours working on this and we have little jobs to do as well and thus so how much of our time is consumed with fixing the “data needs” of corporate America I ask?  Back in August of 2009 when the Madoff news hit, I made this post and do we need a department of algorithms to certify we are getting non flawed data and correct calculations? 

“Department of Algorithms – Do We Need One of These to Regulate Upcoming Laws?

The reason I mention this is due to a story like this Quant on Wall Street who for 3 years used his flawed data out there and didn’t fix it until the SEC came knocking and this HFT that was fined over their problems with their algorithms. 

High Frequency Trading Firm Fined $850k for Losing Control of an Algorithm in Rapid Succession Buying–Bad Math and Some Killer Algos At Work- Keep Occupying…

Not only this but let’s look at the hardware side of this with the servers being over clocked…maybe not a good idea today with the speeds of transactions taking place and when the rogue algorithms hit are you going end up frying your hardware too in the IT area?  When I did training for Intel I used to see quite a few kids who melted down their processors on their PC and servers are just one big PC of sorts if you want to look at it that way. 

Gamers Are Not the Only Ones to Over Clock Processors-Turns Out It’s Done on Wall Street To Run Those Algorithms at Rocket Speed

So now, can we and how much of the data produced by banks is accurate?  For that matter in view of the case settled this week, did MERS also add some cash to their stash selling our data in the midst of all their other record problems?  It’s a good question to ponder and think about when you see all the flaws everywhere else in the credit areas and all those cashing in on selling our data.  I used to write queries and code that match documents and data and if you hurry the job along for the pursuit of money, these things get messed up and what kind of audit trails are kept on all of this aggregated data? 

This man is dead, many others on the internet have died and still live with aggregated data today so again, when are we going to demand accountability with mathematical formulas and get some algorithms that are accurate that we can trust running out there?  Everyone talks about compliance and I think that word should be used hand in hand with audit and certification, especially with some of the formulas running out there that attack consumers, and thus I started this series called the Attack of the Killer Algorithms as that’s what it all boils down to.  You can read the full summary at the link below and these are all public cases and information that has been written elsewhere before I connected some dots here, but let’s starting looking at this big picture and work towards accurate results instead of desired results so we all have peace of mind soon. 

Attack of the Killer Algorithms–Digest & Links for All Chapters–See How the Math and Crafty Formulas Today Running on Servers 24/7 Make Life Impacting Decisions About You

One insurance company is very well up there in the IT business and they make a lot of profits from their technology interests and I did a short summary on a few of them so don’t forget how with mergers and acquisitions, the company as you knew it a few years ago may have new business models today based on business intelligence algorithms and the selling and combining data for profit. 

United Healthcare Preparing to Roll Out New Contracts To Pay Doctors& Hospitals For Meeting Goals and Keeping Costs Down– Plenty of Subsidiaries to Provide Some of the Technology And/Or Products & Generate Income–Subsidiary Watch

If you read the links here to my prior posts you may find some real eye openers here and I do this as an attempt to educate and help those and myself find answers as to the logic or illogic used today as to why things happen.  The video at the link below is well worth watching as you will gain some huge insight as to how all of this works behind the scenes and all of it is not bad or wrong, but there’s enough of an element with spun data and algorithms for desired results floating around out there that make life miserable for the rest of us. 

Context is Everything–More About the Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception–Professor Siefe Lecture Given at Google’s New York Office–Big Healthcare Focus

Corporate US will keep running the formulas and it makes money for them as all you have to do is see the stock reports and gains, meanwhile back at the ranch, inequality continues to grow as mere middle class humans don’t stand a chance and sadly until some of this is addressed it will continue to get worse and I hope this man gets back to a “living” status as he works through his “Attack of the Killer Algorithms”.  BD 

Arthur Livingston, of Prosperity, S.C., may feel prosperous and alive, but his credit report says, "File not scored because subject is deceased."

That's because Livingston's bank, Bank of America, has been reporting him as deceased to the three major credit agencies since May 2009, he said.

Bank of America has still not resolved the issue, even after media attention, causing headaches for Livingston, 39, and his family in South Carolina.

A regional manager of a chemical company, Livingston, discovered the dilemma when he tried to obtain a loan from a mortgage company in October. The problem may have begun when Livingston, who said he has been a Bank of America customer for 14 years, sold his home in May 2009.

Five months since he discovered the problem, Bank of America still does not have a solution, and his mortgage company has not been able to obtain his credit score to give him a loan for his new home, which he said is the "major problem" with being "deceased." He also fears the inactivity on his credit will negatively affect his credit score.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/banking-nightmare-bank-america-declares-live-south-carolina/story?id=15548009#.TzVMYMhMiWU

Technorati Tags: Attack of the Killer Algoirthms,math,algos,Bank of America,dead doctors,aggregation,homes,legal,lawsuits,MERS,technology,privacy,abuse,social networks

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Microsoft HealthVault Connects to Astra Candelis Cloud Imaging Solutions–Take Your Ultra-Sound Images With You

It was just a couple days ago I wrote about endoscopy imaging for HealthVault and now we can ultrasounds to the list of images you can store in your PHR.  One nice feature is to not have to wait for someone to prepare a DVD of images.  BD 

Multi-Media Data Sharing Comes to HealthVault PHR–Store and Share Your Endoscopic Videos From Physicians

Candelis’ ASTRA cloud-hosted suite of services is providing for the secure transferring of patient digital medical images and studies to patients’ Microsoft HealthVault accounts upon their request. 
Microsoft HealthVault is a personal health application platform that lets consumers gather, store and share health information online. 
These services benefit patients in a number of ways:

• Patients can obtain control of, archive and easily access their medical images stored in HealthVault from any Internet connection.
• Patients will have full control over their data and can grant access to family members or caregivers as they desire. As an example, expectant couples can easily share Ultrasound images of their baby with loved ones.
• Patients can avoid unnecessary duplicate imaging procedures and associated healthcare costs.

The connection of Candelis’ ASTRA Services with the HealthVault platform also benefits healthcare providers in the following ways:

• Access to past imagery can provide caregivers with more information to help improve patient care
• Costly CD/DVD publishing and distribution can be eliminated

http://www.candelis.com/products/MHV

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,HeatlhVault,PHR,heatlhcare,HealthIT,patients,medical records,imaging,ultrasound,doctors

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United Healthcare Preparing to Roll Out New Contracts To Pay Doctors& Hospitals For Meeting Goals and Keeping Costs Down– Plenty of Subsidiaries to Provide Some of the Technology And/Or Products & Generate Income–Subsidiary Watch

Very few ever make notice of the subsidiaries that some of the huge conglomerates have today and United has plenty and if you read here often enough you can just use the search term “subsidiary watch” and you can find a slew of them.  One just wonders at what point things cross sometimes.  As an example if providing a hearing aid from a United subsidiary that is cheaper than all others out there to a senior, does that qualify an MD for a bonus?  I don’t know but it’s their system so they could, right?  In some areas new enrollees get them for signing up if they need one and this is a United subsidiary that distributes them in the US they created last year. 

UnitedHealthCare Throws in Free Hearing Aids for Those Who Enroll In AARP Medicare Advantage, HMO & POS Plans in Miami-Dade County From Their New Subsidiary

Maybe the doctor is still using paper, well guess what they own a couple electronic medical record companies via subsidiaries to sell the doctors one, so they could win here again with all going to the main profit pot. Here’s a subsidiary they bought in 2010 that is focused on HIE but they have an EMR to sell too and this one has had some kind of support from the AMA for quite a while. 

Axolotl (A Subsidiary of Ingenix) Creates Reporting and Analytics Solution for Health Information Exchanges–Algorithms for HIE–Business Intelligence -Subsidiary Watch

This one goes back a ways but yet another subsidiary with an EMR powered by Ingenix as it was announced and Care Tracker EHR has been around for years.

ClickFreeMD Selling Software EHR, Practice Management Bundled Records Solution–Emphasis on AMA Endorsement And Software “Powered” by Ingenix–Tethered or Untethered

Ingenix (Subsidiary of United Health Group) Marketing Care Tracker EHR To Community Health Centers–Subsidiary Watch

In another area, save money and get more patients in clinical trials, got a sub for that too and I think they still own this one but it’s hard to keep track of. 

Ingenix (Subsidiary of United Health Group) Sells i3 Clinical Trials And Creates Life Sciences Group-Subsidiary Watch

The algorithms are there with analytics and this has been a long time area of focus for the company as we all remember the algorithms used for the out of network payments that shorted MDs for around 15 years and all the other big carriers used those numbers to as they got licensed from United. 

AMA Has Online Assistance and Forms For Filing Claims For UnitedHealthCare/Ingenix

Ingenix has been renamed to Optum so those two names get used interchanged quite a bit.

Ingenix (Subsidiary of United Health Care) Buys QualityMetric – More Algorithmic Formulas To Choose From To Identify Future Risk and Cost

Ingenix (UnitedHealthCare Subsidiary) Creates Desktop Software for Employers to Analyze Employee Benefit Use To Help Cut Costs – More Analytics and Algorithms To Save That Buck

If working with a large hospital that uses Epic Medical Records, they created a new clearinghouse to work with that system and others to scrub the doctors claims and MDs can pay for this.

OptumInsight (A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of United HealthCare Optum Division) Creates Medical Clearinghouse Integrated With Epic Practice Management Software-Subsidiary Watch

In addition via China Gate and CanReg they also can introduce drugs and devices to the FDA and steer the beginning path of what we end us using once approved and again monitor clinical trials here too.

United Healthcare (Optum) Owns A Consulting Firm for FDA Drug and Device Approvals, Clinical Trials–CanReg - Subsidiary Watch

They have a lot of coding software so if the bonuses are out of reach and doctors need help there, maybe they can sell this too?

Ingenix (Wholly Owned Technology Subsidiary of UnitedHealth to Acquire A-Life Coding Software/Services–Tons of Money and Profit With Coding Transactions and Algorithms - Subsidiary Watch

If you don’t know enough about your patients, well there’s some algorithms for that too:)

QualityMetric/Ingenix (United HealthCare) Receives Patent for Patient Health Survey Algorithms-Subsidiary Watch

Even these folks who somewhat compete on analytics use some of the Ignenix software solutions…

TriZetto Group, Owned by Apax Partners-London Based Private Equity Firm, Rolls Out Payer Based PHR

As we continue on into wellness, they own some of those companies and this one, Red Brick who does behavioral analytics uses the Ingenix or Optum software and algorithms for this business.  This is the employer side but Docs you are going to have to somehow get those employers into this as your patient’s health is at risk and they use biometrics so they get the data. 

Behavioral Underwriting With Biometric Employee Screenings – Red Brick Secures 3 More Clients

We have a little data selling going on here too with patient prescription records so they have the data on you, your patients somewhere in a subsidiary with the algorithms to guide you to profit.

The VA is in business with United via the acquisition of Picis and with other hospitals.  Picis is a global provider of innovative information solutions that enable rapid and sustained delivery of clinical, financial and operational results in the high-acuity care areas of the hospital.

Ingenix (Subsidiary of UnitedHealthGroup) Buys Picis Hospital Software Analytics Company – Algorithms of Healthcare Continue To Grow

They certainly have all the subsidiaries that could handle the consulting side of this if used and there many more subsidiaries but too numerous to find them all, so in the search to have better care, contracts and Health IT, one just wonders how many subsidiaries will come into play with contracts?  It’s a question anyone would ask when you look at such a huge portfolio of varied companies from IT, to clinical and some areas outside of this realm too.  There are a couple others with a good amount of subsidiaries out there and one just wonders at times how aggregation of data and information systems has an affect today when contracts are awarded. 

Subsidiary Watch-Corporate Conglomerate Insurers Reduce Compensation Contracts Using One Subsidiary Then Market Same MDs With Another Subsidiary in Health IT

Not too long ago there was a study that said it costs doctors $83k a year to handle the administrative paperwork from health insurers so certainly with all the subsidiaries here is there an answer for that one?

Health Insurance Paper Work Costs Doctors an Average of $83k a Year

In November of 2011 we had this acquisition with buying an HMO managed care company. 

UnitedHealthCare Buys Another Company XLHealth HMO Medicare Advantage Managed Care With Heavy Analytics–Subsidiary Watch

“We supplement regular physician care by collecting and analyzing clinical and administrative data – including medical history and health attitudes – and then coordinating customized preventive care plans for Medicare beneficiaries.

In my neck of the woods we also had this huge acquisition of a doctor’s group in the OC and the crying towels were out on this one as it represents such a huge chunk of managed care business and of course I would guess when it comes to contracts and addressing costs would this be focused on owned subsidiaries first?  Those were the fears and questions folks mentioned. 

United Healthcare Acquisition of Monarch Healthcare HMO Already Causing Confusion and Access Problems for Blue Shield Patients in Orange County

Last but not least there’s the bank built on contributions from HSA savings accounts as I understand that also serves to create loans too and some of those have been in the news as well. 

UnitedHealth Group Owns a Bank With Deposits Surpassing a Billion – OptumHealth Bank FDIC Insured

So how does this all come together with as big as the conglomerate is and do subsidiaries stand to increase their business in this route to new contracts? Does the process of “clinical integration” involve other subsidiaries and exactly how does this work for bonuses for doctors?  Sure seems like there’s a lot of gray and areas for subsidiaries to potentially secure income to the overall behemoth bottom line.  BD  

Efforts to change how Americans pay for health care are gathering momentum on a national scale as UnitedHealth Group Inc., the largest U.S. health insurer, becomes the latest carrier to say it is overhauling its fees for medical providers.

UnitedHealth, like other insurers, is targeting the traditional system that pays hospitals and doctors for each service provided, rewarding them for more care but not necessarily better care. Under the new plan the carrier is rolling out, part of medical providers' compensation could be tied to goals such as avoiding hospital readmissions and ensuring patients get recommended screenings.

UnitedHealth has been trying such efforts on a more limited scale, but now the company says it plans to roll out new contracts nationwide that could include financial rewards for care the company considers high-quality and efficient, and in some cases potentially withhold expected increases if certain standards aren't met. UnitedHealth has more than 5,500 hospitals and 550,000 doctors in its network.

UnitedHealth's plans stretch beyond primary care to include hospitals and physician groups in other specialties.  Eventually "most higher volume hospitals and medical groups" would be included, the document says. The company covers more than 34 million people in total, with around 26 million of them in commercial plans.

Much of the cost under both projections wouldn't be locked in, since it would be tied to bonuses that providers would get only if they hit certain goals; indeed, those payments may be calculated as a share of the overall savings achieved. The documents said that some pieces of the new payments may be in lieu of increases to traditional fees.

The amount of the incentives could vary widely, UnitedHealth officials said.

UnitedHealth also said it could offer "clinical integration" fees for providers that make changes aimed at better tracking patients' conditions and coordinating their care. This would include the model known as "patient-centered medical homes," which are typically set up by primary-care doctors, but the fees could also be available to other providers making similar efforts.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203315804577211660010608608.html

Technorati Tags: UnitedHealthcare,Ingenix,I3,ChinaGate,FDA,China,medical devices,drugs,heatlhcare,mergers and acquisitions,Optum,Medicare,AARP,Intricom,software

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Christ Hospital In New Jersey Files Bankruptcy After Prime Healthcare Withdrew Its Purchase to Buy

This is kind of scary but it looks like when a hospital has an offer from Prime, that’s going to be the last one you are going to get.  This hospital is not too far from another hospitals so maybe it’s not too bad but hate to see any close.  Again it looks like it’s take us or leave us here with Prime Offers.  In Hawaii two hospitals closed over Christmas and now there are no hospitals that can provide transplant surgeries on the island, again their deal with Prime fell through too.  Back in 2008 I did a series called Desperate Hospitals and they were on the list back then. It does have a rather large cardio center as well.  BD 

Hawaii Medical Center Closes Emergency Rooms As New Buyer for the Facility Fell Through And Facilities Will Be Closed When All Patients Have Been Transferred

The collapse of a deal to buy an ailing Jersey City hospital could renew merger talks in Hudson County, where a state-authorized report recommended that three hospitals consolidate services to save money.

Christ Hospital filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week, after a private company, Prime Healthcare, withdrew its offer to purchase the money-losing hospital. The failed bid could lead Christ and two other hospitals -- Bayonne Medical Center and Jersey City Medical Center -- to combine services as recommended in the market study.

Prime leaders and Christ Hospital attorneys also faced tough questions from health regulators and the New Jersey attorney general’s office, including queries about billing practices based on findings of a yearlong investigation by California Watch. The nonprofit investigative news operation has identified a pattern at Prime Healthcare of billing Medicare for treatment of rare conditions among its elderly patients – conditions that enable the chain to reap lucrative bonus payments.

http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/12/0208/0100/

Technorati Tags: Christ hospital,healthcare,HeatlhIT,money,budgets,bankruptcy,patients,doctors,jobs,economy

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Walgreens Using Social Networks to Send Ads To Mobile Phones for Promotional Sale Items When You Check In at the Store –Will Sperm Check Make the List?

More marketing, what can I say as it was in the news today that Walgreens will begin selling the test which is fine and in one’s own home might just be the place for this product for use.  I wonder though, being a new product will it show up with coupons and promo ads?  Companies have done that for years to promote new products so when you check in with Four Square and are in the store and your profile says you are “male” will a coupon pop up? 

LocaResponse is the name of the marketing company, but is just me only, when I’m in a store that’s kind of the one time I want pull my nose out of my cell phone and look around like we do when we shop, so for me, this is an annoyance and I will be sure to turn OFF my phone location finder and I have a Windows phone so done easy enough and I don’t use Facebook either so no burning desire there about missing a coupon.  As a matter of fact I have a habit of turning down most coupons and despise brining out the drug store card they scan at check out.  My privacy is worth more than the 50 cents or less that I may save.

The Sperm Check product is $40 and they are also betting on women to get enticed as well and boy I can see some family fights possible on this one if one checks out ok and the other does not.  “Sperm Check, aisle 5”.  This gets marketed sadly as a “blame” thing and it’s not that it’s rather a search for information as I see it.  Walgreens is losing the foot traffic though from Blue Cross members though as they have to elsewhere.

Anthem Blue Cross Members Will No Longer Be Able to Fill Prescriptions at Walgreens After January 1, 2012

Who knows you might be buying insurance in the store soon as well as we all watch the competition here and Walgreens make a ton of money selling their data and you wonder if products are a second line business when their CFO said their data selling business is worth just under $800 million.  Pay close attention to that fact and give that some thoughts.  BD 

Walgreens Going to Sell Health Insurance? Data Information Connections Are Alive to Mine for Potential Premiums Rates & Chronic Conditions–Insurance Subsidiary Alert

Retailers have long turned to circulars and signage to tell customers what packaged goods are in-store. In recent weeks at Walgreens, the mobile check-in has been following suit.

Using a tool from startup LocalResponse, Walgreens finds public check-ins at its stores and sends users reply messages via Twitter. For example, when customers check in to any of the chain's 8,000 stores through mobile apps such as Foursquare or Yelp and publish "I'm here!" to Twitter, Walgreens messages back: "Check out Halls new cough drops in the cold aisle."

Walgreens has a long-standing relationship with cough-suppressant Halls for promotions in stores and on its website. In the effort, Walgreens sent out 5,000 Halls messages in January via Twitter.

http://creativity-online.com/news/walgreens-turns-checkins-into-modernday-circular/232606

Technorati Tags: Sperm check,Walgreens,marketing,healthcare,ads,reality,signage,Yelp,Four Square,privacy

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Competition is So Vicious with Fast Food Companies, Jack in the Box Had to Succumb to a Bacon Milkshake that Contain No Bacon

Yes this one takes the cake for the dumbest food and nutrition article of the week or maybe even the century for that matter.  If you don’t get how you are marketed just by reading about this milk shake, well there may not be much hope for you to tell the difference today between good marketing and this kind of stuff. 

Obviously this a a ploy for some media attention for that it did the trick as it ended up here.  How many marketing people does Jack in the Box have?  One few over the cuckoos nest on this one as I did chuckle over it as I’m sure most everyone else did.  I didn’t even get this announcement in my email box which was surprising as every day I get a slew of nutrition experts, so maybe this one was a hard one for PR agencies to tackle. I hear about Charles Barkley’s fat ass at least once a week with a company trying to sell wagering money on dieting and take this for what it is, marketing and media attention.  BD

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new contestant in the who-can-top-this outrageous new fast food item: the bacon milkshake from Jack in the Box.
The bacon shake is made with no actual bacon, just real vanilla ice cream, bacon-flavored syrup, whipped topping and a maraschino cherry, according to the website. We were thinking this had to be the most trayf food known to mankind before we saw the ingredient list. We'll get to the nutritional info in a minute.

OK, let's get to the good stuff. A 16-ounce bacon shake weighs in at 773 calories, 28 grams of saturated fat, 2 grams of trans fat and 75 grams of sugar. Hankering for a 24-ounce size? That'll be 1,081 calories, 37 grams of saturated fat, 3 grams of trans fat and 108 grams of sugar. Mmmmm. We're saying that ironically.

http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-bacon-milkshake-jack-in-the-box-20120208,0,4234279.story?track=rss

Technorati Tags: milkshake,Jack in the Box,food,nutrition,diets,calories,fat,sugar,silly

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Multi-Media Data Sharing Comes to HealthVault PHR–Store and Share Your Endoscopic Videos From Physicians

Back in August of 2011 Cook Medical announced the endoscope and it’s availability and now with the HD camera it looks like you get some really good graphics with endoscopic procedures and have the opportunity to store them in your PHR with HealthVault.  First we had the opportunity for doctors to share and collaborate and now you store your own once your doctors has made the video available.  I have several interviews over the years with Cook Medical who is the largest privately owned device and technology company in the US.  The device for the physician’s side is touch screen. 

Cook Medical Introduces Endoscope With an HD Camera Attached- Portable Imaging System for Urologists

“With high definition video and still-image capture capabilities in a compact, portable setup, endogo HD allows a physician to share and review exam findings with the patient or family immediately following the exam, at the patient’s bedside or in a waiting room. A resident can also share captures with the attending physician, which may reduce the need for repeat procedures. With the endogo HD, OR imaging capabilities can now be available throughout the facility, wherever a procedure is performed. The combination of data acquisition, storage, management and the synchronization of patient folders in an easy-to-use Web application makes it possible to send an image or video over a secured connection to a referring doctor outside the facility.”

If you do not have a HealthVault account, there’s always a permanent link on the Medical Quack to the site to find out more information, as it is right above the quick and easy utility to find clinical trials.

HealthVault also has a nice dicom viewer for Windows users and perhaps soon they will develop it for other operating system but you can store your shared dicom images in the Azure cloud with HealthVault as well.  This feature became available last April.  It is kind of surprising today if you end up in an ER room that some of them do not have a viewer on their available computers either.  You can read more at the link below on how the “connection center” works with dicom image storage and it’s not bad at all with pretty good clarity.  BD 

HealthVault Begins Storing Medical Images (Dicom) Using Windows Azure Cloud Services With Full Encryption

Envisionier, the leader in portable endoscopic capture and data integration, today announced the first endoscopic multimedia integration between Microsoft HealthVault and the eGoWorks® application. This connection enables a patient to access, view and share their endoscopic multimedia information stored within HealthVault, an online service for managing personal health information.

With a patient’s permission, surgeons using eGoWorks services will have the option to share medical image exams and associated reports directly with a patient authorized HealthVault account. Patients will generate a secure challenge and password combination that will allow the patient to “pick up” the data and move it into their personal HealthVault record.

David Guy, Envisionier’s CEO states, “By connecting with HealthVault, Envisionier seeks to improve the exchange of pertinent medical endoscopic data that has been tethered to legacy video tower systems or EMR systems unable to direct connect. The integration with HealthVault allows the patient to control their medical data ”

“Patients are the clear winners with Envisionier eGoWorks’ new HealthVault connection. Not only can individuals now easily share endoscopic multimedia and reports among members of their care team; they can also be confident that they’ll have access to the information for years to come to better detect trends and changes in their health. We’re excited to have Envisionier as an ally in our journey to empower patients to take charge of their family’s care” stated Sean Nolan, Microsoft Distinguished Engineer.
eGoWorks®’s connection to HealthVault enables electronic movement of data rather than patients transporting records, reducing time and cost associated with redundant exams while additionally creating a longitudinal endoscopic record for the patient to share with primary care physicians and specialists.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/2/prweb9168795.htm

Technorati Tags: Healthvault,PHR,personal heatlh records,healthcare,HealthIT,egoWorks,data,endoscopy,medical imaging,HD,Cook Medical,Microsoft

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Colonoscopies–The Bait and Switch on Screenings–If Polyps Are Found You Get A Bill-Some Other Screenings Too–Killer Algorithms Part 12–Medical Billing Codes Style

The whole definition here as it comes down is that if you are fine then it is preventive healthcare, find a poly and now it is diagnostic care, and that’s kind of the way the coding works.  Wait until ICD10 charges in on this one as this could get very complicated with the type of polyp, etc. 

Medicare and private insurers ask for money and the fees can be as high as $3000, so many patient thinking the screenings are free are surprised.  Again, touching on codding is is preventive or diagnostic?  If nothing is found that part is pretty easy to code but when a polyp is found all coding hell breaks loose.  No wonder Ozzie Osbourne is running  a contest for a colonoscopy, I guess we do need prizes for these:)  If you happened to read this recent article, then you know it’s part of hospital marketing to get you in there too if you have good insurance for screenings as they need revenue as hospitals are cutting budgets and laying off, and a couple in Hawaii at Christmas time closed down as they ran out of money. 

At A Time When Medicare is Looking to Cut Down on Re-Admissions Hospitals are Marketing to Find New Admissions As A Source of Revenue

Some doctors say it is so complicated now with coding that there’s really no way to be 100% sure you have coded correctly and are pushing for screenings to be free, polyps or no polyps.  It’s to the point that a representative of the California Association of Underwriters advises patients to not discuss any other health concerns while you are there for your screening! 

Well folks, we are back to the Killer Algorithms here that do the formulas for the coding as stated in the title above.  The healthcare law made many of the “screenings” free, but if they are codes diagnostic, then it’s no longer a screening..had to be a good bunch of analytics guys who wrote this up as this is math and formulas even over the heads of attorneys.  BD 

Patients are getting charged as much as $3,000 for screenings they thought would be free under a federal health care reform mandate that promises free preventive care.

The year-old provision compels new insurance policies to cover colonoscopies, mammograms, blood pressure screenings, HIV tests and many other procedures aimed at early detection of health problems, with no co-pays or deductibles. But doctors say the requirement — designed to make it easier to get care — may morph into a roadblock because some patients are getting billed when certain preventive procedures reveal growths that could become cancer.

"I think it stinks. The ludicrous thing is the reason you do screening is to find something," said Dr. Jack Rotenberg, a digestive system specialist in Oxnard, Calif., suggesting that charging people when problems are diagnosed is the definition of bait and switch.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2017392079_webscreens03.html

Technorati Tags: data,revenue cycling,investors,algoirthms,math,profit,patients,privacy,hospitals,consultants,business,coding,screenings

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DEA Raids 2 CVS Stores in Florida and Suspends License of Drug Distributor Cardinal Health–Lots of Oxycodone

This has to be some publicity CVS and Cardinal didn’t want and this happened in Lakeland, Florida.  There’s a pending hearing on February 13th for Cardinal.  We all have read what a huge drug problem there is in Florida with drugs. 

The “OxyContin Express” in Florida – Pain Management Abuse Documentary

Two other pharmacies were also raided that had high volumes of of oxycodone.  If noting else this might be a wake up call to other pharmacies to check their records before the DEA shows up.  Cardinal stated they had already stopped shipping to a couple of the pharmacies and then after their license was suspended, no more to the CVS stores.  BD 

(Reuters) - Agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration raided two CVS pharmacies in Florida as part of an effort to curb the abuse of prescription painkillers and other potentially addictive substances.

The action on Saturday came one day after the agency suspended the license of drug distributor Cardinal Health Inc to ship such products from its facility in Lakeland, Florida. Cardinal immediately obtained a restraining order allowing it to continue shipments pending a hearing on February 13.

The DEA declined to discuss details of the raids, but it plans to hold a news conference at 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT) on Monday "to announce the latest efforts by the Drug Enforcement Administration in its efforts to thwart the diversion of licit pharmaceutical controlled substances."

Controlled substances are those, like stimulants, painkillers and tranquilizers, that can be addictive. Every entity that handles a controlled substance, from the manufacturer to the distributor to the pharmacy to the physician, must register with the agency.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/06/us-dea-raids-idUSTRE8151NA20120206?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FhealthNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Health+News%29

Technorati Tags: CVS,DEA,oxocodone,drugs,prescriptions,healthcare,Florida,Cardinal Healthcare,license,painkillers,stimulants

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Woman Receives Jaw Transplant-Created by a 3D Printer–She Can Swallow Again at 83 Years of Age-Regenerative Printed Medicine

This is pretty amazing and I have reported here before about 3D printing in healthcare with prosthetics being printed.  The post below goes back to 2010 when the 3d Prosthetics were announced and the price seems to be right and perhaps as the technology evolves they could even be lower priced today.

Need a Prosthetic Leg–3D Printing Will be Able to Generate One for You Soon for Around $5000

Probably one of the most interesting videos with printing was to watch an organ be printed.  The link below has more on that area.

Scientists At Wake Forest Grow a Mini Liver From Human Cells–Regenerative Medicine

Now back on track LayerWise is an extremely interesting company as the print dental implants too, sign me up immediately please!  I say that as I have spent around 60k over the years on dental care with implants, going back to the early days. 

The surgical procedure took less time too than normal reconstructive surgery and took only a few hours to print and woman was 83 years old so not a young patient here at all.  This is the first step I have heard of that is basically “printing bones”.  It makes you wonder when they might print hips and knees, although assembly would still be required as there moving parts there but the parts could be printed to assemble.  I found their skull implant of interest as well from their dental company, DentWise. 

For sure this one is a story worth following up to see the progress made after her jaw implant.  Once the process gets even further defined, this could mean big savings with digital dental work for consumers. 

Print me out a dental bridge please <grin>. 

The patient has developed a bone infection that would not heal and normal reconstructive surgery was determined to be a risk due to her age.  BD

From the website:

“Metal Additive Manufacturing is the technology by excellence to produce custom implants or dental structures. Based on 3D patient data acquired by tomography of 3D scanning, implants can be virtually modeled and directly printed in Titanium. The benefits of this approach are reduced theater time and a better aesthetic result.”

“Metal Additive Manufacturing is a NEW and INNOVATIVE solution that enables designers to RETHINK the way complex parts are made.

Metal AM is an additive technology similar to the conventional polymer Rapid Prototyping. Since parts are built layer by layer, THE TERM "UNDERCUT" IS A WORD OF THE PAST. The resulting parts however are AS DURABLE as a conventional part.”

A 3D printer-created lower jaw has been fitted to an 83-year-old woman's face in what doctors say is the first operation of its kind.

The transplant was carried out in June in the Netherlands, but is only now being publicized.  Technicians say the operation's success paves the way for the use of more 3D-printed patient-specific parts.

The implant was made out of titanium powder - heated and fused together by a laser, one layer at a time.

The surgery follows research carried out at the Biomedical Research Institute at Hasselt University in Belgium, and the implant was built by LayerWise - a specialized metal-parts manufacturer based in the same country.

Once completed, the part was given a bioceramic coating. The team said the operation to attach it to the woman's face took four hours, a fifth of the time required for traditional reconstructive surgery.

"Shortly after waking up from the anesthetics the patient spoke a few words, and the day after the patient was able to swallow again," said Dr Jules Poukens from Hasselt University, who led the surgical team.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16907104

Technorati Tags: 3D Printing,technology,surgery,metal,reconstructive surgery,regenerative medicine,healthcare,powder,doctors,hospital,LaserWise

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AMA Asks Congress To Stop Switch From ICD9 to IDC10 With Medical Billing Diagnosis Codes Citing Expense and Administrative Implementation Issues - US Is Only Country That Ties Diagnosis Codes to Reimbursement

Why is it harder in the US for ICD 10 implementation – we are the only country that ties the coding to reimbursement.  This means a ton more money for subsidiaries of insurance companies to cash in bigger.  Nobody pays much attention to all their technology subsidiaries today but they are big and many.  For this matter the AMA is not alone and some of the top Health IT folks in the country feel the same way.

Dr. Halamka Speaks About Health IT–“CIOs are on Overload” and It Would be A Blessing to Stall Off ICD-10 to 2016 - The Straw Breaking the Camel’s Back

Many times with just straight “figurehead” executives who have never written a stick of code to understand the time and mechanics made very questionable decisions and downright refuse to listen to the advice of those who do have a eloquent background.  This is becoming more of a problem as in the past IT folks were able to make the job look easy as we didn’t have as much code working with other code out there, not to mention the expense, so the “pinhead” executives still can’t figure out what is up and what is down. 

ICD-10 One of the Largest, Most Expensive and Riskiest Health IT Translations–Other Countries Use ICD Codes, But US Is the Only Country Using Codes For Reimbursement

This is why we need more “hybrids” in key positions, as Bill Gates said at Berkeley last year to the graduating class; those who have more than one area of focus and expertise will be the ones with the “real” value and who we need in executive and political positions.  He’s right, but we don’t seem to have a Congress that embraces that idea either as most seem to be just  digitally illiterate or “non participants” for the most part with technology (other than Facebook and solitaire) and listen to the figureheads “who have no hands on experience with the mechanics of writing code.” 

It will come back to bite and bite hard as we continue with the “Attacks of the Killer Algorithms”.

Let me say this though, the consultants in Health IT who want to make money will convince you otherwise that we “have” to have these and again double fold here in the fact that the government is still for what ever reason riding this expensive horse and secondly, they want to make money selling more algorithms.  Software, by the way is nothing but a bunch of algorithms working together to quote Bill Gates again. 

Let us also not forget that using more codes that are more complex and  difficult add the perfect playground for more software companies to create even more algorithms and again pump up their sales and at some point the bubble will burst when nobody can pay the bill.  In a similar situation, the SEC is mulling over that exact idea too with their “real time” monitoring of transactions to which there are alternatives, but the current idea they are looking at, well again, nobody can afford it so it runs rampant with so many digital illiterates trying to make decisions in this area that don’t want to listen to the experts in this area and boy what an ugly scenario we have building too.  Here’s a classic post from December 2010 and darn it sure likes it’s getting somewhere near this today and when the bubble bursts, I think it will really stink.  BD

Health IT The Next Bubble and How Long Will It Take to Pop–Probably When The Money Runs Out

Washington -- Citing high implementation costs and coinciding federal mandates, the American Medical Association has urged House Speaker John Boehner (R, Ohio) to stop the switch to the new diagnosis coding sets known as ICD-10.

Requiring doctors to use ICD-10 would offer no direct benefit to patient care, said AMA Executive Vice President and CEO James L. Madara, MD, in a Jan. 17 letter to Boehner. He said requiring all physician practices to use new diagnosis codes starting Oct. 1, 2013, also would interfere with concurrent efforts by doctors to implement electronic medical records and satisfy other Medicare quality improvement requirements. AMA delegates adopted policy opposing the switch to the enhanced code sets during the Association's Interim Meeting in November 2011, but Dr. Madara's letter is the next step toward effecting a legislative solution.

ICD-10 contains about 68,000 codes, while the current ICD-9 standard has only about 13,000 codes. The AMA says the switch represents a significant administrative burden, as the costs of implementing ICD-10 range from about $83,000 to $2.7 million depending on the size of the physician practice.

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2012/02/06/gvsb0206.htm

Technorati Tags: ICD,ICD9,ICD10,AMA,costs,bugets,Health IT,doctors,hospitals,healthcare,digital literacy,red tape

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At A Time When Medicare is Looking to Cut Down on Re-Admissions Hospitals are Marketing to Find New Admissions As A Source of Revenue

Yes we are marketed everywhere we turn today and I get mailings from hospitals and don’t mind it much; however if the mailings were to get too specific I might raise an eyebrow as according to this report hospitals are looking to bring in additional revenue and the practices sometimes get pretty close to a dividing line.  If you look at the comment made below, those who can pay and have good insurance are targeted and from a business standpoint every does that to some degree. 

Marketing and consulting firms are selling such services to hospitals but when do they go too far?  They do at times when getting that “extra” edge comes into play and business intelligence analytics are used.  We had a case of that come up to where a consulting firm did go too far and this all came to light when a notebook was stolen with patient records and we had a breach.  Later it was disclosed that actual patient files were shown to Wall Street investors as the hospital was looking to generate more money from investors and the 3rd party went too far and the state of Minnesota is suing them and has at least removed their ability to do business.

Accretive Health Debt Collector Employee Has Laptop Stolen With Non Encrypted Patient Data from 2 Hospitals And Had Access to All the Data Via Revenue Cycling - Patient Information Was Shared With Wall Street Investors – Algorithms For Profit Again?

All this additional marketing is due to the financial status of many hospitals trying to hang on in many areas.  I just posted this week about 2 major hospital systems cutting back on budgets and laying off employees.  Insurers are making record profits as people can’t afford to go to the doctor as they have in the past due to economic times.  Again I think if doctors and hospitals were not already drilled down to this level, they would care less about marketing if the business was there.

We talk about buying and selling data, some hospitals are having to buy outside information as a price to market consumers to, and that brings me around to what I call the Alternative Millionaire’s Tax.  This should be disclosed as to who is selling what kind of data to who on a federal site in the name of transparency.  In addition, the folks selling it are making billions, so license and tax those folks big time. I realize we can’t stop this business and some of it has a place but it is overdone in a lot of areas of business and besides as consumers we should be able to know the who, what and where our data is sold, especially when state servers slow down to a crawl due to all the mining bots.  Some states have had to put software in place to keep them out. 

The Alternative Millionaire’s Tax–License and Tax Big Corporations Who Mine and Sell Taxpayer Data They Get for Free From the Internet-Phase One to Restore Middle Class With Transparency, Disclosure and Money

Also we have to ask and ponder the question too is this results in unnecessary screenings, surgeries, labs, and so on.  There’s a chance that some of it may but separating all maybe hard to do.  What I also found interesting was the mention of a company by the name of CPM, which merged with HeatlhGrades, the company I found was not up to date with records of physicians when I found my former doctor who had been dead for 8 years still alive and well and taking new patients.  They may have cleaned up a bit, but now with having a marketing firm to aggregate data with, what spin will we see next you have to wonder? 

HealthGrades to Merge with CPM Marketing–Will Their Data and Questionable Algorithms Will Be Improved For Consumers?

Depending on the marketing campaign there could be some real cherry picking here taking place so again the fine line as to how mined data is uses is staring us in the face again but does it bring in more revenue to level off charity care ratios?   Some hospitals are even selling health insurance today too.  One of the most bizarre marketing campaigns I have seen is Ozzy Osbourne and the “Win a Colonoscopy” contest.  This is good for awareness but also drives patients to the hospital and never thought I would see the day where you had to “win” one of these:)  BD

The one problem I see with “over marketing” is that after a period of time, consumers get numb, and self included and basically tune out so time will tell the future of hospital marketing as long as economic times put them in a position to where they need to aggressively generate revenue.  BD 

To help devise such campaigns, St. Anthony's and other hospitals share patient data with marketing staff and outside consultants. Anyone with access to patient records is required by federal law to sign non-disclosure agreements.  At an industry conference last year, Provena Health marketing executive Lisa Lagger said such efforts had helped attract higher-paying patients, including those covered by "profitable Blue Cross and less Medicare."

While the practice is legal, most people would be shocked to know their records may be shared with non-medical personnel and outside firms to help hospitals attract business, says Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, an advocacy group based in California.

While hospitals may profit from offering cholesterol tests and mammograms, the big payoff is in what those screenings may lead to — additional tests and procedures, including surgery.

"The old adage in business is that it's easier to sell an existing customer new services rather than find a new customer," says Patrick Kane, senior vice president of marketing at Cape Cod Healthcare in Massachusetts who used such approaches at Wellmont Health System in Kingsport, Tenn.

One of the biggest pluses for hospital executives is that they can track a campaign's success by comparing the amount of services used by targeted consumers with a control group with the same demographic and economic characteristics but who are not sent mailings.

Much of the expertise for such campaigns is provided by three consulting firms — CPM Marketing of Madison, Wis., Medseek of Birmingham, Ala., and New York-based Thomson Reuters. They typically charge hospitals $100,000 a year or more.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/story/2012-01-18/hospital-marketing/52974858/1

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