Tag: Behavioral healthcare

Favorite Technology Tools

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I know that most of you work in behavioral health organizations. You probably use the technology that is provided to you even if you know of better tools that would make your work life smoother and easier. After all, the goal is to serve consumers of substance abuse and mental health services, not to the be the coolest technology shop around.

But maybe that is not totally the case. . . . Do you have a favorite technology tool that you love to use in your practice or workplace or at home? Is there something that has become so indispensable that you cannot imagine getting along without it?

I am not a big searcher for new software programs or apps for my Android cell phone or Amazon Fire. I tend to try things that are offered by family or friends, choose the ones that work for me, and then leave well enough alone. If I have chosen well, the updates offered by the company from whom I have purchased the product almost always keep up with and even anticipate my needs. But that is not always the case.

A few years ago, I was considering creating a training video for our electronic claims module. I saw some information about a program named Camtasia Studio, by TechSmith. I liked the description so much that I tried the free demo.

I was in love! This program does everything I need a video-creation tool to do, and it does it simply. I started with Camtasia 4 and am now at version 7.1. Like I said, when I find a tool that works for me, I tend to stick with it.

This is the sort of video you can create with Camtasia.

When I first started doing these movies, I let our web server handle them and just gave the direct link to the file to the customers we wanted to see them. This got the training module into the right hands, but did not make the video available at large.

Now I want to go farther. I want to be able to create videos and to embed them here on my blog or on our web site. Even though I am not an expert video maker, I want to create more of them and get them out there. The more I do, the better I will get at them.

What cool tools do you have that you rely on every day? Is there some program or app that you cannot do without?

Please tell me what you think. Your feedback and comments are always appreciated.

Psychology Podcasts: Current info on the Internet

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I know all of you have huge amounts of time on your hands, right? Of course, that is not true. We are all terribly pressed for time. One way that many busy professionals have learned to increase their exposure to recent information in their fields of expertise is through listening to podcasts on an iPod or other mp3 or mp4 player.

Wikipedia defines podcast as “a type of digital media consisting of an episodic series of files (either audio or video) subscribed to and downloaded through web syndication.”

Those of you are under 30 are asking why I am defining the word podcast. Certainly, everyone knows what a podcast is. I am doing so because there are many of us in the 40+ age group who have never listened to or viewed a podcast, even if we know what it is. We are still getting up to speed!

I wanted to let you know that American Psychological Association (APA) mentioned the growing availability of psychology podcasts in the January edition of the Monitor on Psychology. There are shows that focus on the brain and behavior, others on the mind, others are interviews with psychologists and neuroscience researchers. It is an extensive list!

Obviously, there are lots of ways to find podcasts that might interest you. A quick Google search for ‘Podcast Directories’ turned up 63,600,000 results. You are bound to find some interesting ones in these listings.

I have not yet downloaded podcasts. I do, however, have benefit of listening to some of those Seth has downloaded. One of my favorites is Science Friday, an NPR radio program that also uses the podcast format. They frequently have psychology and mental health-related shows.

I hope you will try out some of these resources to determine if they are a good way for you to access information in your field of expertise. If you are already hooked on podcasts, please share the names of some of those you like, whether related to behavioral health or to other areas.

 

 

Who’s Making Money from Healthcare Reform?

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Before I get too far into this post, let me be clear about a couple of assumptions.

1. I am an advocate of Healthcare Reform. I was disappointed in the bill that finally passed because I believe it was not a strong enough protection for consumers. Given that, I am glad we have a healthcare reform law on the books.

2. I believe that most consumers would benefit in the greatest possible way from a single payer system. This could be modeled on Medicare or utilize some other possibilities, but I think a single payer system is the only way we will ever get a healthcare system that truly meets the needs of most consumers and costs the least.

Given those assumptions, you will understand my reaction when I read a new article in FierceHealthPayer, a weekly newsletter for healthcare plan executives. If you are involved in the purchase of health insurance for your organization, the title of the article, Insurers Profit from Health Reform, will come as no surprise to you. Of course insurers are the primary ones who will profit from health reform in its current incarnation.

After dropping almost $90 million to oppose the health reform law, repeatedly claiming its provisions would raise costs and disrupt coverage, health insurers actually have benefited the most from the law, according to a Bloomberg Government report released Thursday.

The article goes on to explain that most of the increases in revenue are the result of these companies expanding into government programs. You see, even though Medicaid and Medicare are government programs, they are often administered by private insurance companies. With the expected expansion of the Medicaid program mandated by the Affordable Care Act, there should be even more income growth for insurance companies.

So who’s going to lose money on healthcare reform? Guess what….it’s us again. Those of us who purchase insurance in the private marketplace were subjected to 9% increases on average in 2011…increases aimed at covering the costs of the mandates of the healthcare reform law long before required by the law. That way, we absorb the costs and the insurance companies get to go on paying their executives outrageous salaries and making their profits.

I wonder what it will take for people to finally realize that healthcare and health insurance need not cost so much. I don’t expect it to happen as long as corporations control our government and our lawmakers. I know many folks believe the problem is just the opposite. Government should get out of the middle of the relationship between the healthcare provider and the consumer. Competition and market forces would take care of costs.

What do you think? Who will pay for care for the chronically ill . . . and the chronically mentally ill if we don’t all chip in to do it? Is there enough compassion in the marketplace to assure that children, the poor, and those unable to pay for health insurance because of mental illness will also receive good quality healthcare? Please share your thoughts. I would love some help in understanding how we can assure that we will all get the healthcare we need without spending half our income on health costs.

Resolutions: 2012

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Are you a resolution-maker? Are you gearing up to lose those extra pounds you put on last year? Have you set new goals for your productivity, your work ethic, your family time or your compassion? Some statistics show that 40 – 45% of adult Americans make New Year’s resolutions; if you do so, you have lots of company.

When I was a younger person, I made resolutions every year and worked hard to keep them. In the past several years, my energy has been scattered in too many directions to even make resolutions, much less to keep them.

This year feels somewhat different. I achieved several goals I set for myself personally in the last half of 2011 and doing that has made me more open to a resolution or two in 2012. Both of those I am setting pertain to my work and are shared with me by other members of the SOS team…particularly those of us in customer service.

  1. We have resolved to provide customer service that is strikingly above expectations to our clients. Those who trust us to provide software and support to accomplish their business needs deserve nothing less.
  2. We have resolved to help all of our customers to send their claims electronically . . . especially those who have already purchased our claims module, but who have never begun filing.

Neither of these resolutions is earth-shattering. We hope that makes them reasonable to accomplish. We trust that you will let us know how we are doing.

Please share your resolutions, or let us know why you have decided not to make any.

We hope for a healthy, happy and extraordinarily successful 2012 for all of you!

 

Change in Healthcare is Upon Us…Law or not

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In 1992, when Bill Clinton was elected President of the United States for the first time, I was a member of the Committee for the Advancement of Professional Practice (CAPP) of the American Psychological Association. CAPP is charged with general governance oversight of the Practice Directorate, the part of APA responsible for promoting “the practice of psychology and the availability and accessibility of psychological services, providing resources and services to practicing psychologists in all settings and to the public.”

Our first meeting immediately after the election was highly charged. Staff had been studying President Clinton’s healthcare proposals, and the notion of controlling cost through “managed care.”

President Clinton’s healthcare proposals did not fly, but the industry picked up the notion of controlling costs by managing the care provided to consumers, and psychological practice has never been the same. For private practitioners, “managed care” continues to be a primary obstacle to the practice of psychology. Costs might have been suppressed by managing care, but some would argue that the primary effect of the managed care revolution was the creation of a new industry that made money as the middle-men at the cost of providers. Indeed, after a few years of leveling of the costs of care, the rise has been renewed and expanded.

In mid-November, the Supreme Court of the U.S. agreed to hear an appeal of the Affordable Care Act, our nation’s most recent effort to reform our healthcare system.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear appeals from the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, which is the only court to have struck down the individual mandate because it overstepped Congressional authority and wasn’t justified by the constitutional power “to regulate commerce” or “to lay and collect taxes.” FierceHealthPayer, November 18, 2011

According to editor Dina Overland of FierceHealthPayer newsletter, even a complete overturn of the law would have little significant impact. She believes that consumers like the changes the law is mandating and there is no stopping this train.

Mercom Capital Group, in their HIT Report of November 21, 2011, says the same thing about the massive changes in the healthcare arena at large. Basing their conclusions on a report by PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLC), Mercom reports that health organizations will continue to move forward with changes to their health technology and other innovations because the multiple drivers in the marketplace have finally come to a head. No matter the political or the financial uncertainties, PwC believes this movement will continue. These are changes consumers like, and the movement will continue no matter which market forces might change.

In their HIT Report of November 28, 2011, Mercom reports that Harvard and Aetna will ally to work to improve healthcare costs and quality. The two have formed a research collaborative focused on improving the quality and cost of healthcare. They will use bioinformatics, the interface of computer science and information technology with the fields of biology and medicine, to analyze healthcare data in innovative ways. They will focus on outcomes of various treatments considering quality and cost, factors that predict adherence to medical and drug treatments for chronic diseases, examining how claims and clinical data can be best used to predict disease and follow outcomes, as well as other treatments of data that will emerge over time.

Where is your organization in the midst of this dramatic change in how we manage healthcare? How do you see yourself participating in the sea change that is under way? Where does behavioral healthcare fit into this picture?

Just type in your thoughts below. Thanks for commenting.