Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Startup Sees Business Opportunity In Helping Consumers Make Sense Of Medical Bills
With 1-in-5 working-age Americans reporting they had trouble paying their medical bills in the past聽year, according to a Kaiser/Times survey released in January, it鈥檚 no wonder some entrepreneurs want to聽offer solutions. Among them, a聽Bay Area startup called Remedy launched its website last week in hopes of helping consumers fight medical billing errors and overcharges. In some cases, said chief executive and co-founder聽Victor Echevarria, the company will even negotiate聽down balances. (Krasny, 10/7)
The Stop A Suicide Today site is intended to give people a sense of urgency 鈥� to know they can and should intervene when they're concerned a friend or family member might be suicidal, and treat it as a medical emergency 鈥� just as if the loved one were having a heart attack. In 70 percent of cases, a suicidal person聽makes actual statements indicating what he or she is thinking 鈥� sometimes obvious, sometimes more subtle, according to Jacobs. (Jolicoeur, 10/6)
Central Ohio Urology Group put a number to the size of its data breach August 鈥� 300,000. The Gahanna-based health-care provider submitted a report to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which tracks such breaches and has an online database dating to 2009. The urology group's breach is the eighth-largest in the country this year among healthcare providers and is the biggest among Ohio-based providers in the federal database. (Malone, 10/6)