Book Description
Professor Herzlinger documents how the consumer-driven health care movement is being implemented and its impact on insurers, providers, new intermediaries, and governments. With additional contributions by health care’s leading strategists, innovators, regulators and scholars, Consumer-Driven Health Care presents a compelling vision of a health care system built to satisfy the people it serves.
This comprehensive resource includes the most important thinking on the topic and compelling case studies of consumer-driven health care (CDHC) in action, here and abroad, including new consumer-driven intermediaries for information and support; types of insurance plans; focused factories for delivering health care; personalized drugs and devices; and government roles.
Download Description
Professor Herzlinger documents how the consumer-driven health care movement is being implemented and its impact on insurers, providers, new intermediaries, and governments. With additional contributions by health care’s leading strategists, innovators, regulators and scholars, Consumer-Driven Health Care presents a compelling vision of a health care system built to satisfy the people it serves.
This comprehensive resource includes the most important thinking on the topic and compelling case studies of consumer-driven health care (CDHC) in action, here and abroad, including new consumer-driven intermediaries for information and support; types of insurance plans; focused factories for delivering health care; personalized drugs and devices; and government roles.
Customer Reviews:
How to empower health care consumers.......2006-06-06
Although this book was written a few years ago, the issues addressed in it by Regina Herzlinger and other contributors seem even more relevant - indeed, more urgent - now than they were in 2004. How does Herzlinger characterize consumer-driven health care? It is "fundamentally about empowering health care consumers - all of us - with control, choice, and information." Such control will "reward innovative insurers and providers for creating the higher-quality, lower-cost services we want and deserve." What would be the role of government? She asserts that "government will protect us with financial assistance and oversight, not micromanagement."
The material in this substantial volume is organized within five Parts. Herzlkinger wrote the first, "Why We Need Consumer-Driven Health Care," then edited the contributions by others which comprise Parts Two-Five. She also wrote Chapter 78, "A Health Care SEC: The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth." For most of us who are not health care professionals, this volume provides about as much information as we could possibly need, much less process. I especially appreciate the fact that Herzlinger and her associate contributors make a conscious effort to avoid jargon, vague theories, oblique hypotheses, etc. They obviously believe that major health care issues are too important to be packaged as flimflam, swamp gas, and flapdoodle. Hence their rigorous focus on explaining (from a variety of perspectives) why consumer-driven health care is needed, and, how to establish and then sustain it.
Of special interest to me were these chapters whose titles correctly indicated what their respective authors discuss:
Chapter 5, "Health Care Productivity," Herzlinger
Chapter 20, "An Insurance CEO's Perspective on Consumer-Driven Health Care," Leonard D. Schaeffer (Chairman and CEO, WellPoint Health Networks)
Chapter 25, "Challenges of Consumer-Driven Health Care," Eugene D. Hill III
Chapter 34, "The Role of Information: J.D. Power's Paradigm Lessons from the Automotive Industry," J.D. Power III
Chapter 52, "Consumer-Driven Health Care: Management Matters," Richard M.J. Bohmer, Amy C. Edmondson, and Gary P. Pisano
Given the fact that this volume offers a total of 81 chapters, my guess is that each reader will find at least 10-15 of special interest to her or him. I presume to suggest, also, that many of those subjects which may seem to be of least interest and value will, in fact, generously reward a careful reading. It remains for each reader to review the Contents and then decide what to read and in which sequence.
Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to check out Michael Porter and Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg's Redefining Health Care: Creating Value-Based Competition, and two books by Lawton Robert Burns and his Wharton associates: The Health Care Value Chain: Producers, Purchasers, and Providers, and, The Business of Healthcare Innovation.
Huge but a litle simplistic.......2005-01-18
Sub-Title: Implications for Providers, Players, and Policy-Makers --,Citizen participation, Consumer satisfaction, Evaluation, Health & Fitness, Health Care Administration, Health Care Delivery, Health Care Issues, Health Policy, Health planning, Health/Fitness, Medical / Nursing, Patient Compliance, Patient satisfaction, Health systems & services, Medical / Administration, Personal & public health, Medical ==If your interests or profession lies in any area of health care this is a book that you almost have to have. In its almost 1,000 pages nearly every aspect of health care coverage is discussed. The format of the book includes some 200 pages written by Professor Herslinger followed by some 72 articles written by some 93 participants in a conference she held. As you would expect, the quality of the papers vary greatly. ==There are also a few reasons to disagree with some of Professor Herslingers basic thesis. She seems to believe that health insurers would compete in a fair market place to provide care to anyone. This is simply not true. If an insurance company can pre-select to eliminate giving any coverage at all to the sicker or more risky patients, it is to their benefit. An AIDS patient, with a requirement for expensive drugs can be folded into the coverage written for a large group, but an individual policy would have to be very expensive, or simply not written at all. The coverage of such patients is covered with what I think are unrealistic assumptions. ==The book presents a series of views that are just a bit simplistic, but which are forming a part of the national debate on health care. The information is needed if only to be aware of the discussion.
Thoughtful Contribution.......2004-07-26
In Consumer-Driven Health Care, Regina E. Herzlinger, a leading health care thought leader and a professor at the Harvard Business School, provides a thought-provoking look inside a new, powerful force slowly transforming America's dysfunctional health care industry. Consumer-Driven Health Care builds on her popular 1997 book Market-Driven Health Care: Who Wins, Who Loses in the Transformation of America's Largest Service Industry.
In the first part of her new 900-page book, Dr. Herzlinger makes a convincing case about how and why health care is broken and why market-based solutions - which empower consumers - are best. She restates the case she made in Market-Driven Health Care for putting consumers directly in charge of their own decisions (picking insurance plans, making medical decisions).
Through transparency of information, a realignment of incentives, and new tools to support decision-making by patients, the consumer-driven model gives individuals a clear stake in their own health care. While not unique to other parts of the US economy, the approach is a radical departure for the $1.7 trillion health care market. As Dr. Herzlinger makes clear in her energetic analysis, the absence of these proven market-based tools goes a long to explain why health care became our most inefficient, outdated, and error-prone industry.
The second part - about 80 percent of the book - is a collection of 73 think pieces written by 92 other experts. With short introductions by Dr. Herzlinger, these articles serve as a useful initial knowledge base for a growing field with an uncertain future.
The book has its limitations. For example, Dr. Herzlinger's case for the consumer-driven model fails to address the Medicare and Medicaid systems. It also leaves a variety of practical transition and execution issues unaddressed, although these are beyond the purpose of this volume. Because articles were written several years ago as part of a conference and most of the writers lack purchaser-side experience, the book also does not deal with the growing list of market-based reforms underway by large employers and innovative health plans.
In addition, since the field is still in its infancy, Dr. Herzlinger is a business researcher, and the contributors are largely wide-eyed entrepreneurs, the book will likely frustrate health policy wonks and others stuck in the technical minutia and ideological fights that characterize most health care discussions. But then, that's just as well. Too often analysts forget that health care is a business and operates as a market, albeit a flawed one insulated from tools proven to drive quality and efficiency. And we need all the wide-eyed, out-of-the-box thinking we can get.
Dr. Herzlinger also has her detractors. It reminds me of the old joke that there are two kinds of people in the world: people who like Wayne Newton and people who don't. Well, it seems that health care wonkdom is divided by those who like Reggie Herzlinger's ideas and those who don't. However, given the massive problems in American health care, her plain-spoken, business-savvy contributions remain as useful as they are provocative.
For a good primer on consumer-driven health care, I recommend you start with Let's Put Consumers in Charge of Health Care, a concise article by Dr. Herzlinger in Harvard Business Review (July 2002 issue). Available here on Amazon ($7, PDF).
Book Description
In the battle for U.S. health care, patients and doctors are losing.
Who Killed Health Care? shows how to win the war.
One of the nation's most respected health care analysts, Regina Herzlinger exposes the motives and methods of those who have crippled America's health care system-figures in the insurance, hospital, employment, governmental, and academic sectors. She proves how our current system, which is organized around payers and providers rather than the needs of its users, is dangerously eroding patient welfare and is pushing costs out of the reach of millions.
Who Killed Health Care? then outlines Herzlinger's bold new plan for a consumer-driven system that will deliver affordable, high-quality care to everyone. By putting insurance money in the hands of patients, removing the middleman in the doctor-patient relationship, and giving employers cost relief, consumers and physicians will be empowered to make the system work the way it should. Herzlinger describes in precise detail how her innovative program will provide
- Smaller, disease-focused medical facilities that provide complete care for patients
- A national system of medical records that provides privacy with confidential access by approved practitioners
- Mandatory performance evaluations of all hospitals and all other medical organizations
- Mandatory health insurance with subsidies for those who cannot afford it
Who Killed Health Care? is a call to arms that must be answered; the welfare of every American hangs in the balance.
“A brilliant analysis… A must-read.” – Bill George, Professor, Harvard Business School and Former CEO of Medtronic
“As it becomes more and more obvious to everyone that our current health care system is unsustainable, this is the book that had to be written.” – Daniel H. Johnson, Jr. MD, former president of the American Medical Association
“Regina Herzlinger’s ideas to tackle the crisis of the U.S. health care system are based on keen knowledge of the system’s existing difficulties along with insights that introduce the reader to new streamlined choices that have the potential of getting both quantity and cost under control.” – Joseph Kennedy, founder, chairman, and president, Citizens Energy Corporation, CEO, Citizens Health Care, former representative (D-Mass)
“Regina Herzlinger… offers a vision of the way things can be, should be, and will be sooner or later. The only question is: how long do we have to wait?” – Greg Scandlen, founder, Consumers for Health Choices “Regi Herzlinger has brilliantly articulated a better way – embracing the principles of competition and innovation that cause every other sector of our economy to thrive. Discharging American health care from the ICU can only happen by putting individual Americans – not politicians and bureaucrats – back in charge of their health care decisioins.” – U.S. Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla), M.D. “Following on the heels of her landmark Market-Driven Health Care, Herzlinger lays it on the line with her expose of what many who work in the health care industry have felt in their gut. Now it is articulated in an entertaining and must-read portrayal, with you and me as the only way out.” – Dennis White, executive vice president for strategic development, National Business Coalition on Health “A wonderful Orwellian romp through issues which carry a deadly irony. The killers of health care are, of course, the third parties, each of which has an itchy palm and a commitment to profit or power which exceeds the commitment to service, with each engaging the others within a politically shaped box. Rarely has the case for the public been made with so much force, foresight, and wit, and a better way forward shown so clearly.” – James F. Fries, MD, Professor of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine “You can practically hear the war chants as Professor Herzlinger sets out her view of what’s wrong with the health care system and how to fix it. You’d best read it so you can decide which side you will be on when the battle is joined.” – Paul Levy, CEO, Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, MA “Regina Herzlinger, the nation’s leading expert on consumer-driven health care, has given us a brilliant analysis of the flaws in our health care system and what it will take to get it back on track. Her latest book is a must-read.” – Bill George, Professor of Management Practice, Harvard Business School, Former CEO, Medtronic, and author of Authentic Leadership “You don’t have to agree with her diagnosis and prescription for the U.S. health care system, but you do have to read her book. Once again, Professor Herzlinger has put together a well researched, well written, and very provocative blueprint for the future of health care.” Peter L. Slavin, MD, President, Massachusetts General Hospital
Customer Reviews:
Courageous, confident & creative.......2007-10-08
Of the current crop of books on America's healthcare system, Dr Herzlinger's is the one that really seems to "get it". She offers an extremely well articulated summation of today's healthcare system, and gives full, unabashed credit to those who have made it what it is today. Her passion is strong and her intent is clear - to speak boldly for the health and welfare of America's citizens, its businesses and its future.
In this book, Dr. H "socially profiles" of the facets of America's healthcare system, its players and influences. As she describes the symptomatic ills of the US healthcare system, she creates a character to embody the pain, frustration and terminal influence of our current system. Then she leaves us with a treatment plan to consider. Only time will tell if that plan (the CDHC) and the hope it offers, will be part of the answer to America's unsustainable healthcare costs escalation.
"Who Killed..,' should be recognized for what it is; an effort to draw a line in the sands of time regarding rising healthcare expenditures; a warning, an urgent, LOUD wake-up call and a call to action.
Another Tour de Force from Harvard Business School's Dean of Health Care.......2007-08-25
Professor Herzlinger's analysis of the ills facing America's health care industry is compelling, cogent and insightful. This book is another tour de force from the author of Market-Driven Health Care.
Regina's book is so good that my company will give it away to participants as an educational tool to benefits managers at an upcoming conference on Health & Welfare Plan management for Employers.
The Driving Force.......2007-08-15
Dr. Herzlinger...I am glad to see that you are still the driving force for consumerism in health care!
Anthony E. Meyer
Co-Founder and Director
Extend Health, Inc. (fka Extend Benefits Group)
Finally, a "no holds barred" description of the war going on between physicians, insurance companies, hospitals and our govt........2007-08-14
Finally, someone is saying what must be said about the debate that goes on everyday regarding health care costs in America and what should be done about it. We have two choices.
The first is to move toward a government sponsored single payor system, in which physicians are relegated to the role of civil servants, even more abused and demoralized than they are today. In this system, managerial and technical innovation is penalized out of existence, patients have little or no choice, and care is rationed to control costs. This seems to be the direction our federal government is heading. In this system, health care is considered a right.
But does anyone really have the God given right to demand the services of another human being? Would this not be indentured servitude? Doesn't this go against what our country stands for?
The second is a consumer driven free market system, in which the actual consumer of a health service is allowed to chose where and with what intensity his or her care is delivered. In this system free market forces shape cost and availability of services and providers of health services are accountable to their customers.
This book is the most accurate description of this war for control of the massive health care budget this reader has ever experienced. If you are one of the participants in the war, you will not be able to put this book down. As a physician, I really appreciate Dr. Herzlinger's acknowledgment that physician's still are most closely aligned with their patient's best interests.
This is truly a great book!
Regina Herzlinger's work is indeed enlightening.......2007-07-31
I have read your book and have gained a whole perspective on health care. I myself have been caught in the maze of being uninsured, under insured, on medicaid in my lifetime. I raised (still contributing) 3 daughters 2 of which have chronic medical conditions. My son passed away at 6 and half years of age from the same illness that has kept us in the maze!
For the longest time I believed in the concept of "Universal Health care." People in crisis will grab hold of whatever they can. Too many times we see people make job choices not based on talent, ability or a desire to improve themselves based on an insurance plan. I know this all too well! It saddens me that we are bound in this country to the current situation based on financial fear! I am increasingly becoming of a different mindset. I believe more now than ever that choice, and the opportunity to benefit from those choices need to be the driving force in the development of a consumer driven health care system.
I have had the opportunity to talk to many people coming from many different perspectives on this issue. It is troubling and there are solutions. I was amazed at how much we are all in the dark. Your book sheds a much needed light on the situation. I referred as many people as I could toward your work.
I quote you, ""Insurance costs are so high that we have over 46 million people who go without it, which is a shameful scar on the richest country in the world...to add insult to injury, we receive far too little health care for all this money." We agree, I agree, It is a unjust, unfair and it is time to do something about it!
The concept that the uninsured are actually charged a higher rate needs to be focused on as well, and as I continue on this crusade to educate, empower and advocate for the uninsured, I will continue to educate myself.
We need to end the disparity found in our medical system, and there is no need for any more people like you reference in your book, (J, Morgan).
I highly recommend this book!
Book Description
Market-Driven Strategy speaks directly to the needs of health care executives, physician leaders, directors of planning and marketing, clinical managers, and professionals throughout the health care industry who formulate and implement organizational strategy.
Filled with practical advice and up-to-date examples, this detailed playbook of strategies and planning pinpoints the breakdowns in the strategic planning process. It describes effective models, activities, and processes for identifying areas of past strategic failure and reveals concepts for ensuring future success. It also examines the key factors for sound and effective strategic decision making:
- Payer assessment and position
- Physician network assessment and position
- Organizational and financial capabilities and performance
- Merger and alliance positions
- Getting and keeping customers
- Action plan development
Market-Driven Strategy is a breakthrough resource that offers surefire techniques for building on the contributions of the entire organization to win more health care consumers and increase overall market share.
Customer Reviews:
An Excellent Overview.......1998-05-10
We recommend this book to clients of ours who serve on Boards of health care systems. McCracken provides an excellent overview of what is going on in health care delivery today, using up-to-date examples.
The author takes many of the current models of strategic thinking and shows how each model applies or does not apply in a health care environment. She lists the warning signs that something is wrong with the strategic planning---very helpful.
McCracken is well suited to author a book like this.
She has had marketing/strategy roles with urban health care teaching health care systems as well as more rural community hospitals. She thus understands both worlds.
Larry Stybel The Board of Directors' Resource Center
Book Description
The United States does not have a health care system; it has a sickness care system and now the system itself is sick. The costs of health care drain nearly 15% of all the goods and services produced in America, 50% more than other industrialized nations. With benefits costs approaching $10,000 per employee with family coverage and increasing at double-digit rates, this crisis is not only threatening American jobs, but the ability of U.S. companies to survive in the global marketplace. Consumer Driven Health Care is informative and entertaining reading for executives who want to know more about reducing the high costs of health care, consumers unhappy with the growing proportion of their paychecks going to health insurance premiums and co-pays on physician visits and prescription drugs, and health care providers and policy makers looking for a detailed, easy-to-understand explanation of ""America’s Two Trillion Dollar Crisis.""
Customer Reviews:
A treasure of information and solutions........2005-08-27
The government needs to pass this book out to everyone who thinks they understand the health care issues in the US. It not only clarifies the issues with solid information--it actually offers realistic solutions--a rarity in this era. This is the collaboration between a management expert and a medical expert and represents the best, down-to-earth treatment I've seen on this subject.
Health care funding: past, present, and future.......2005-06-29
For anyone who desires information to help design the future equitable funding of the Health Care Delivery System, this is a must read. Pithy view of past, present, and future funding opportunities.
Product Description
Industry experts are hailing The Guidebook as the first quality publication of its kind and a necessary resource to help accelerate the adoption of HSAs.
HealthEquity's CEO and co-founder Stephen Neeleman, MD, authored The Guidebook with renowned authors Hazel Witte, J.D., and Sophie Korczyk, Ph.D. In addition to his duties with HealthEquity, Neeleman is an Assistant Professor of Surgery and a practicing general and trauma surgeon at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Witte and Korczyk previously authored The Complete Idiot's Guide to Managed Health Care (Macmillan 1998).
"In authoring The Guidebook, our goal was to write a book that was very user friendly and could help explain the HSA law in a simple and straightforward way," says Neeleman. "As a practicing physician, I believe that HSAs provide the best opportunity to save health care from becoming an inefficient, costly, poor service government program."
Customer Reviews:
Very Useful Guide.......2006-04-20
The HSA Guidebook book is an excellent resource for all things HSA and it simplifes the very complex IRS regulations into something readable and understandable. Great for employers, employees, or anyone looking to find out more about health plans.
Amazingly Helpful Resource.......2006-02-21
This book is a wonderful resource for anyone who wants to learn about HSAs. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is confused about their new health plan or just wants to learn more about HSAs.
Excellent Resource.......2006-02-16
I use this book all the time. It helps you with all the details of a Health Savings Account. HSA's are great and this book is like the owner's manual for an HSA.
Good resource.......2006-02-16
This book contains basic information to make an otherwise scary transition to an HSA easy to handle
Great Book!!.......2006-02-16
My company made me get an HSA and at first I was a little discouraged, so I came on and bought this book to help with the transition and while it's not the kind of book you read cover to cover, it's an amazing reference for practical use, like finding out what types of expenses are tax deductible. Anyway it's a great resource and I'd recommend it to anyone.
Book Description
In Health Care at Risk Timothy Stoltzfus Jost, a leading expert in health law, weighs in on consumer-driven health care (CDHC), which many policymakers and analysts are promoting as the answer to the severe access, cost, and quality problems afflicting the American health care system. The idea behind CDHC is simple: consumers should be encouraged to save for medical care with health savings accounts, rely on these accounts to cover routine medical expenses, and turn to insurance only to cover catastrophic medical events. Advocates of consumer-driven health care believe that if consumers are spending their own money on medical care, they will purchase only services with real value to them. Jost contends that supporters of CDHC rely on oversimplified ideas about health care, health care systems, economics, and human nature.
In this concise, straightforward analysis, Jost challenges the historical and theoretical assumptions on which the consumer-driven health care movement is based and reexamines the empirical evidence that it claims as support. He traces the histories of both private health insurance in the United States and the CDHC movement. The idea animating the drive for consumer-driven health care is that the fundamental problem with the American health care system is what economists call “moral hazard,” the risk that consumers overuse services for which they do not bear the cost. Jost reveals moral hazard as an inadequate explanation of the complex problems plaguing the American health care system, and he points to troubling legal and ethical issues raised by CDHC. He describes how other countries have achieved universal access to high-quality health care at lower cost, without relying extensively on cost sharing, and he concludes with a proposal for how the United States might do the same, incorporating aspects of CDHC while recognizing its limitations.
Product Description
Readers will gain an understanding of health care cost trends and the factors that are driving those costs. Readers will also learn about a number of alternatives employers can use to control costs. Some of those alternatives will apply to all segments of the employee population, and other cost containment tools are targeted to specific populations. Readers will also learn about systemic solutions to the problems of high costs, the uninsured and low quality health care.
Product Description
This manual will compare and contrast not only flexible spending accounts (FSAs) but two plans that are less than two years old - health reimbursement accounts (HRAs) and health savings accounts (HSAs). The manual will concentrate on WHICH plans to use, WHEN you would use them, and WHY we would use one plan and not the other.
Books:
- Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide
- Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life
- Crosley: Two Brothers and a Business Empire That Transformed the Nation
- Dancing Under the Red Star: The Extraordinary Story of Margaret Werner, the Only American Woman to Survive Stalin's Gulag
- Daredevil by Frank Miller & Klaus Janson Omnibus
- Deathlands # 52 - Zero City (Deathlands)
- Dr. Pitcairn's New Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats
- EVERYDAY MATTERS
- Eye of Heaven (Dirk & Steele, Book 5)
- Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy (Fancy Nancy)
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor
- Wheel of the Year: Living the Magical Life
- South Station: A Novel
- The Giant Encyclopedia of Science Activities for Children 3 to 6: More Than 600 Science Activities
- The Marvel Encyclopedia
- Water and Wastewater Calculations Manual
- Unbuilding: Salvaging the Architectural Treasures of Unwanted Houses
- Shelf Life: Romance, Mystery, Drama, and Other Page-Turning Adventures from a Year in a Bookstore
- Taxation, Inflation, and Interest Rates
- Rapid Situation Assessment of Drug Abuse in Maldives
General
| Personal Health
| Health, Mind & Body
| Subjects
| Books
Redefining Health Care: Creating Value-Based Competition on Results
Market-Driven Healthcare: Who Wins, Who Loses in the Transformation of America's Largest Service Industry
The Health Care Value Chain: Producers, Purchasers, and Providers
Who Killed HealthCare?: America's $2 Trillion Medical Problem - and the Consumer-Driven Cure
The Business of Healthcare Innovation
