In Case You Missed It — Healthcare Daily Digest for Wednesday, 2 January

We’ll ease into today’s Daily Digest. Make sure you stretch. Watch your breathing. Did you keep that fitness resolution? It’s all about the now, and other things vaguely heard on episodes of Oprah I’ve sort of half-watched over the holiday break. I love your light.

So — we made it. Kind of. We screeched to a halt before careening over the fiscal cliff and now the economy is SAVED and everything is FINE and what’s that? I’m being told that… really? Oh.

Over on Forbes.com, contributor Bruce Japsen believes “a flood of frustrated physicians are likely to abandon [Medicare],” what with the shenanigans and goings-on about the aforementioned fiscal cliff. (I sure hope we NEVER stop saying that particular phrase for the rest of our LIVES.)

This is irrespective of a “Senate-passed fiscal cliff bill [that] would block for one year a scheduled 27 percent cut in reimbursements for Medicare physicians,” according to a story on RollCall.com. “The bill (HR 8) would keep reimbursement rates steady through Dec. 31, 2013 — providing one more in a series of short-term patches for the Medicare physician payments.”

Other headlines around the Internet today:

• “Tick-tock, Clarice…”: The clock starts ticking in earnest for companies to figure out what they’re going to do about employee healthcare benefits. I’m linking you to a BusinessJournal.com site, and they’re going to send you to the Wall Street Journal, but you’ll need to be a subscriber to get the full story. (And I’m not. I have Strong Feelings about the Wall Street Journal that I’d be willing to share at the drop of an email.)

• A New Layer of Transparency: California hospitals are showing off: “The more than 350 hospitals that do business in California have a new–and relatively rare–layer of transparency.”

• Great News for Guys Named Tom Monaghan!: For the time being, he (via his company Domino’s Farm) doesn’t have to provide contraception as part of his healthcare package to his lady employees. Even if those ladies use, say, birth control pills for things other than controlling births because as we all know very well, no one is better informed about women’s health issues than old guys who run pizza places that deliver in 30 minutes or less. As Monaghan believes: contraception isn’t health care but a “gravely immoral” practice. Mazel tov, Tom!

• Come For the Story About Equipment Costs, Stay for the Picture of the Loneliest Toilet: “A two-year Medicare cost-cutting experiment in San Bernardino and other areas has been wildly successful, officials say, reducing the price of certain medical equipment by 42 percent and saving the government and taxpayers more than $200 million nationwide.”

• How’s That ICD-10 Implementation Coming Along?: Morgan Hunter Healthcare is offering a short primer on the key dates and requirements in 2013 for your 1 October 2014 deadline.” So, get to it!

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