Is this dream going to come true?   Do you believe the “gotcha” clauses will be eradicated?  My cynical side wonders….

Below is a reprint of the press release sent out by HHS today, just in case you missed it.    

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                 Contact: HHS Press Office

February 8, 2012                                                                                           (202) 690-6343

 Health Reform to Require Insurers to Use Plain anguage in Describing Health Plan Benefits, Coverage

People in the market for health insurance will soon have clear, understandable and straightforward information on what health plans will cover, what limitations or conditions will apply, and what they will pay for services thanks to the Affordable Care Act – the health reform law – according to final regulations published today. 

The new rules, published jointly by the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and Treasury require health insurers to eliminate technical or confusing language from their marketing materials that sometimes make it difficult for consumers to understand exactly what they are buying. The new rules will also make it easier for people and employers to directly compare one plan to another.

 “Consumers, for the first time, will really be able to clearly comprehend the sometimes confusing language insurance plans often use in marketing,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “This will give them a new edge in deciding which plan will best suit their needs and those of their families or employees.”

 Under the rule announced today, health insurers must provide consumers with clear, consistent and comparable summary information about their health plan benefits and coverage. The new forms, which will be available beginning, or soon after, September 23, will be a critical resource for the roughly 150 million Americans with private health insurance today.

 Specifically, these rules will ensure consumers have access to two key documents that will help them understand and evaluate their health insurance choices:

 ·       A short, easy-to-understand Summary of Benefits and Coverage ( or “SBC”); and

·       A uniform glossary of terms commonly used in health insurance coverage, such as “deductible” and “co-payment.”

All health plans and insurers will provide an SBC to shoppers and enrollees at important points in the enrollment process, such upon application and at renewal. In the past, health insurers would only provide selective details on a policy before it was purchased.

A key feature of the SBC is a new, standardized plan comparison tool called “coverage examples,” similar to the Nutrition Facts label required for packaged foods. The coverage examples will illustrate sample medical situations and describe how much coverage the plan would provide in an event such as having a baby (normal delivery) or managing Type II diabetes (routine maintenance, well-controlled) These examples will help consumers understand and compare what they would have to pay under each plan they are considering.

Today’s rules finalize the proposed rules issued in August 2011. Input was received from such stakeholders as the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) and a working group composed of health insurance-related consumer advocacy organizations, health insurers, health care professionals, patient advocates including those representing people with limited English proficiency, and others. The final rules aim to ensure strong consumer information while minimizing paperwork and cost.

To view the template for the summary of benefits and coverage, visit: http://cciio.cms.gov/programs/consumer/summaryandglossary/index.html

To view the Final Rule, visit: https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2012-03228.pdf

Other technical information is available at: http://cciio.cms.gov/resources/other/index.html#sbcug

For more information on the rules announced today, visit: http://www.healthcare.gov/news/factsheets/2011/08/labels08172011a.html

http://www.healthcare.gov/news/factsheets/2011/08/labels08172011a.html#

Whoa!  That phrase woke me up during the Mobile Apps workshop hosted by the Advertising Federation of Baton Rouge, featuring speaker David Jacobs, digital and creative strategist at the Tombras Group in Tennessee.

More wake-up calls:  Did you know that you can buy advertising on mobile apps?  I’m not talking about the Bejeweled Blitz game app, I’m thinking the CNN News app for Ipads or the Mobile Website version of ESPN.   Mobile ad revenues are already at $11 billion.  

If you are thinking that the Ipad market share doesn’t really matter — Oops!  The Ipad is now 15% of the Personal Computer market folks!  PC sales are down, tablet sales are up. 

By 2012, the pundits predict that more people will consume the Internet through mobile devices than through PCs. 

Pushaw the naysayers cry.  Well, then, why is Google trying to buy Morotola Mobility with a $12.5 Billion cash deal?  Mobile web traffic is 16% of all traffic. 

(If you want to check out mobile advertising, Motricity and other companies like it, claim they can reach your target demographic — right down to the zip code — and help you get into this new advertising channel quickly.)

And yes, the communications landscape just keeps a changing.  You can try to find the slides at the AAF-BR website where the slides are posted, but their site was down when I checked in.  David is on LinkedIn though.  Just tell him AAF-Baton Rouge sent you, and I’m sure he’d share the info.

StumbleUpon Gets More Traffic Than Facebook or Twitter

I’ve been negligent in using this bookmarking site — but no more! 

Are you using StumbleUpon and getting great results?  Please share a success story with us.

For my more visual PR friends, here is a screen shot.  It’s worth a click. 

The information you share with your publics can lengthen and improve their lives.   Or it can change their  minds about important policies.

For example, this blog post about the power of truth in healthcare from Thom Dahlborg on the Hospital Impact blog gives a glimpse into how a 5.4% increase in healthcare costs can truthfully be a good thing.  But the public won’t know that if the PR person in charge of the press release doesn’t reveal it.

It’s a thoughtful and important discussion that we must all have with ourselves.  How do you define truth in your PR materials?   How do you manage the riddle of what is really truth?

Patient Advocate Alicia Cole shared this story with the IHI Patient Advocacy group on Facebook.  One surgeon at Cedar-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Dr. Shirin Towfigh, is reporting a six fold drop in infection rates by probing post-surgical wounds each day with a cotton swab. 

The story didn’t include any opposing views, much scientific evidence or additional sources — but it could be the start of a robust medical conversation.  I wonder what triggered the physician to try this in the first place?  

Alicia’s story is buried deeper in the story — she developed a life-threatening infection in a hospital that she says didn’t place a high priority on cleanliness.    (Perhaps there is a connection here:  could cotton swab wound probing serve as a hand-washing reminder to providers?  Just a thought…)  

Do you know of any other doctors or hospitals testing this treatment?

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Office of Media Affairs

Medicare steps up enforcement of equal visitation and representation rights in hospitals Rules finalized last year empower patients to designate their own visitors, including same-sex partners.  Today, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced new guidance to support enforcement of rules that protect hospital patients’ right to choose their own visitors during a hospital stay, including a visitor who is a same-sex domestic partner.

These rules, finalized by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in November, apply to all hospitals that participate in Medicare and Medicaid. The guidance also supports enforcement of the right of patients to designate the person of their choice, including a same-sex partner, to make medical decisions on their behalf should they become incapacitated. “Couples take a vow to be with each other in sickness and in health and it is unacceptable that, in the past, some same-sex partners were denied the right to visit their loved ones in times of need,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “We are releasing guidance for enforcing new rules that give all patients, including those with same-sex partners, the right to choose who can visit them in the hospital as well as enhancing existing guidance regarding the right to choose who will help make medical decisions on their behalf.”

The rules updated the Conditions of Participation (CoPs), which are the health and safety standards all Medicare- and Medicaid-participating hospitals and critical access hospitals must meet, and apply to all patients of those hospitals even if they are not on Medicare or Medicaid. Among other things, the CoPs require hospitals to explain to all patients their right to choose who may visit them during their inpatient stay, regardless of whether the visitor is a family member, a spouse, a domestic partner (including a same-sex domestic partner), or another type of visitor, as well as their right to withdraw such consent to visitation at any time. Existing CoPs also protect the rights of hospital patients to have representatives who can act on their behalf. HHS has updated the guidance for these rules to emphasize that hospitals should give deference to patients’ wishes concerning their representatives, whether expressed in writing, orally, or through other evidence, unless prohibited by state law.

The guidance issued today is intended to make it easier for family members, including a same-sex domestic partner, to make informed care decisions for loved ones who have become incapacitated. CMS today sent a letter to State Survey Agencies, which conduct on-site inspections of hospitals on behalf of CMS. The letter highlights the equal visitation and representation rights requirements and directs SSAs to be aware of the guidance when evaluating hospitals’ compliance with CoPs. “This announcement is another step toward equal rights for all Americans, and it is another step toward putting the patient at the center of our health care system,” said CMS Administrator Donald M. Berwick, M.D. “All patients should be afforded the same rights and privileges when they enter our health care system, and that includes the same opportunity to see their significant other.”

In other news of interest to the LGBT community, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), another agency of the Department of Health and Human Services, today announced a $248,000 grant to the Fenway Institute to create a National Training and Technical Assistance Center to help community health centers improve the health of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) populations. For more information on the CMS rules issued in November, please visit: http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2010pres/11/20101117a.html For the letter sent to State Survey Agencies, please visit: http://www.cms.gov/SurveyCertificationGenInfo/PMSR/list.asp#TopOfPage. # # #

Recognizing the best of health care public relations management and leadership at its annual conference in Washington, D.C., the PRSA Health Academy honored Tom Vitelli, APR, Fellow PRSA, and John R. Fears, who have demonstrated visionary leadership and a sound understanding of public relations principles.

Click here to view article

Step 8 was something I hadn’t thought about doing that would be worthwhile, for example:

8. Introduce Participants. Formally introducing chat participants to one another promotes participation by giving them someone to talk to. The biggest complaint we hear about chats is that people do not know where to jump in or who to talk to…..

Definitely a “keeper” resource to keep in the Social Media Tools file. 

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