"In Case You Missed It" Healthcare Daily Digest for Friday, 14 December

What started as a pejorative — “Obamacare” — is now a commonly used term to describe the Affordable Care Act or in lieu of the phrase “healthcare reform.” And by “commonly used” we mean: it’s going to be almost the only thing we talk about in 2013 until Kate Middleton has her baby. Over at the Money section of msn.com, James R. Gorrie worries what all this affordable healthcare will do to healthcare companies. Absent the benefit to a lot of sick people, Gorrie thinks we all should be paying attention to healthcare REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts). They leverage the increasingly aging demographics of our country and advances in medical science, according to Gorrie, as well as paying out “90% of taxable income as dividends, in some cases even in bankruptcy.” Over at Forbes.com, though, contributor Michael Bell questions whether Obamacare will actually make healthcare cheaper. “Does the law actually do anything to change the way that healthcare in this country is delivered so that overall costs go down without sacrificing quality? I don’t think so.” Christopher Flavelle at Bloomberg News has a modest proposal to help with rising healthcare costs: pay doctors less. “It’s worth asking whether doctors, who account for almost one-fifth of health spending, really need the special treatment.” (One wonders if Flavelle writes under a pseudonym, or how comfortable he feels seeing his primary care physician now that this piece is in print.) Someone with the title of “futurist” and who isn’t pulling our leg about it and was at least smart enough not to list himself as “psychic” suggests that “the Obama administration’s landmark health care reform law won’t control rising costs.” The futurist, however, doesn’t suggest what will — leading many, or at least me, to wonder: really? Futurist?

Here are some other headlines you may have missed:

As Long As Your 2013 Resolution is Not to Get Sick…: “More and more employers are offering high-deductible health plans, or HDHPs,” reports CollateralBenefits.com. The write-up is mostly pro-HDHPs, ticking off benefits with phrases like “pre-tax dollars” and “lower premiums.” You have to get to the end to any sort of con-side: “Some workers, however, focus on the higher deductibles, rather than on the long-term benefits.” This puts the onus on the allegedly short-sighted gripers without necessarily looking at it from those workers’ point of view: higher deductibles means less money in a paycheck, and not everyone works at a job for the love of employment.

Guidance On HIPAA Privacy Rules: The Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights published a comprehensive report offering solutions on de-identifying protected health information in order to keep it out of the purview of HIPAA’s privacy rule. “As a way to mitigate HIPAA Privacy Rule exposure, covered entities de-identify information that would otherwise be PHI if it were not de-identified.”

Never Doubt the Power of a Crowd in Silly Hats: Pennsylvanian union members — specifically those of the Service Employees International Union — donned plastic top hats and acted out scenes from Dickens’s A Christmas Carol to protest the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce’s alleged meddling: “Union members accused the chamber of putting its lobbying weight behind tax and budget cuts they say will amount to a stocking full of coal for middle class Americans who depend on Medicare for health care or who work in hospitals and nursing homes.” The Chamber was impressed with the Victorian carol: “I think it’s unfortunate we take such crucial policy issues and reduce them to sophomoric pranks,” said chamber President Gene Barr.

A Short Play About the Medical Device Tax: Medical Device Tax Industry: Will you maybe think about dropping the tax increase on medical device companies?. Obama: No.

Connecticut Nursing Home Workers to Return to Jobs: While the striking workers of Parsippany, N.J.-based HealthBridge Management are returning to their jobs, there’s still a lot of bad blood between HealthBridge and the returning employees — which should make this year’s Christmas party a terrific treat (for people who don’t work there and sneak in to watch the tension — meet me in 10 minutes if you want to carpool).

More Physicians Adopting Electronic Health Records: According to a piece on Becker’s Hospital Review, “There has been a 66 percent increase in the percentage of physicians meeting at least five meaningful use core objectives. You can read that story in conjunction with this story, “Healthcare information technology adoption will be fueled by patient demand. And then review your HIPAA policies because that’s a lot of data ripe for the malfeasance.

Mazel tov, Kelsey-Seybold Clinic!: “Houston-based Kelsey-Seybold Clinic is the first in the nation to be recognized as an accountable care organization, a designation indicating it’s proven to deliver coordinated, affordable, quality care.”

Walmart Continues Being Terrific: If I’m reading this headline correctly — “Walmart Workers At Risk In States Rejecting Obamacare Medicaid Expansion. Let me know if I missed something.

Read it? Love it? Want more of it? Make sure you register on insidePatientFinance.com today for the weekly Patient Finance insider and you won’t miss the ongoing great content from our site!