Well, that was ridiculous. I mean, really. (And yes, “I” – this is Julie Barnes. I write these posts. It is a new year — time to drop the royal “we” so the Maverick team doesn’t get blamed for the weird things I say here.) So… I don’t know about you, but I found this week to be totally ridiculous. The post-holiday rush of everything – meetings, planning meetings, planning to plan meetings, graciously accepting everyone’s apologies for sounding like a chain-smoking Demi Moore because they are recovering from being sick. Or they are just plain sick. Naturally, all of this reminds me of a movie: The Meg. A completely ridiculous, poorly-acted movie, premised on the impossibility of a massive prehistoric shark coming after humans, that – naturally – has a more ridiculous sequel. Does that remind anyone of anything this election year? I explain how to deal with this ridiculous situation in the One Thoughtful Paragraph below.
Is there any ridiculous news to report on in the health information policy space? Why, yes. Yes there is:
- Politico, reflecting some sort of editorial decision to say something every few minutes about artificial intelligence, wrote no less than 10 stories about AI in the last few days. These are the ones about healthcare we found interesting: here, here. Not to be outdone, Axios and Becker’s contributed to the constant AI-in-healthcare news cycle.
- Provider trade associations – American Hospital Association and Medical Group Management Association – sent letters to CMS and ONC arguing that the proposed disincentives for information blocking are too harsh. You can decide if the disincentives are ridiculous or if complaining about penalties to block needed health information is ridiculous.
- Starting on January 1, 2024, the Transparency in Coverage rule requires health plans to tell enrolled members all the prices for all the in-network provider rates for items and services covered by their insurance coverage. Plans are also supposed to give members an estimate of their out-of-pocket cost responsibility. This wouldn’t be ridiculous if anyone – ever – used these tools to make cost-effective health care choices.
OK, here’s what you do in this ridiculous new year. You figure out how to make light of an intense and serious situation. For an educational video, watch John Mulaney’s horse-loose-in-a-hospital monologue. (No, really, just take a minute to do that now. It is worth it.) Then, click here to register for our totally free webinar so you can be mercifully off-camera while you listen to all the health care policy and market activity that you totally forgot about but need to know to do a good job this year. (Hurry, the free webinar is this Monday, January 8, 2024.) Next, hop a plane and go to Las Vegas or San Francisco, where you will find many people gathered at health care tech conferences who will also be pretending things are normal and that it made sense to pay $800 per night for a room. (Note: Everyone will ignore the fact that there may be a horse loose in a hospital soon.) After this, it will feel totally natural to be reading an endless stream of how artificial intelligence is taking over our healthcare system. Luckily for me, there is no shortage of movies to refer you to that explain how a hero saves us from a ridiculous set of AI-supported devices. These One Thoughtful Paragraphs may even write themselves.
