| Date | Title | Description |
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| Jun 24, 2025 | Health Business Group Advises Great Point Partners on Investment in Eutecma | Healthcare strategy consulting
Boutique consulting firm supported commercial due diligence for sustainable pharmaceutical packaging deal
Eutecma has built a strong reputation for high-performance, sustainable packaging. We’re excited to par... |
| Nov 7, 2024 | Health Business Group Advises TT Capital Partners on Investment in Collaborating Docs | Healthcare strategy consulting
Innovative company matches nurse practitioners and supervising physicians
Collaborating Docs is uniquely positioned to meet the increasing demand for advanced practice providers. Health Business Group helped v... |
| Feb 4, 2016 | The rise of provider sponsored plans | Payer, provider or PayVider?
Accountable Care Organizations enable providers of care to take on some of the functions of health plans and to receive some of the financial rewards as well as the risk. But at least on the Medicare side it can... |
| Jul 30, 2015 | How immigrants help health reform succeed | But the argument for open integration goes far beyond the Medicare story. As I wrote back in 2011 (We need a liberal immigration policy to support health care reform)
Immigrants innovate and create economic growth. This growth is how the co... |
| Jun 25, 2015 | Does prognosis for primary care leave room for optimism? Yes, and here’s why. | A lengthy front-page Boston Globe article (Precarious future for primary care) includes some of the usual laments:
The shortage of primary care physicians is bad and getting worse
Primary care docs don’t make enough money compared to specia... |
| Jun 7, 2015 | Congressman uses veteran status to gain insight on VA health system treatment delays | All of this is a welcome break from the usual bloviating we hear on Capitol Hill when it comes to the VA and other topics. I hope Seth is successful with this approach and that it is contagious among his colleagues!
I do want to point out t... |
| Apr 18, 2014 | Physician ratings edge closer to the mainstream | —
By healthcare consultant David E. Williams of the Health Business Group
Promoted
Covid-19’s terrible toll on diabetes patients. What can be done?
The public health crisis has undermined the economy and made people with chronic conditions ... |
| Apr 17, 2014 | Obamacare signups: More than just the exchange numbers | Focusing just on the 8 million who have signed up through the exchanges actually seriously underestimates ObamaCare’s impact on the number of people with insurance. Consider:
Close to 4 million people have signed up for Medicaid since Octob... |
| Apr 15, 2014 | Zohydro ban: Disagreeing with Governor Patrick | Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is trying to ban Zohydro ER, a new prescription painkiller, under a state of emergency he’s declared to combat opiate abuse. I agree with the Governor that opiate addiction is a huge problem in Massachus... |
| Apr 11, 2014 | Should step therapy and prior authorization be outlawed? | As a society we’ve handed health insurers much of the responsibility for controlling costs, while also imposing a series of constraints on them that limit their scope of action. ObamaCare, which I support, takes this approach even further a... |
| Apr 4, 2014 | Give Boomer Esiason a break on early birth comments | It turns out babies born at 37 or 38 weeks have a lot more health problems then those born at 39 or 40 weeks, even though it doesn’t seem that such a short time difference should be so important. So I hope the reaction to Esiason helps to g... |
| Jan 28, 2014 | When using a free healthcare website, consider the business model | iMedicalApps reveals the business model behind popular websites used by physicians:
Many free apps aren’t really free, though. We talked about the hidden price of free medical apps about two years ago, an issue that was later highlighted in... |
| Dec 18, 2013 | Obamacare may be botched, but the health insurance exchanges are pretty effective | Download: donlanconnected.mp3
Joe Donlan, co-founder and president of ConnectedHealth
With all the fighting over ObamaCare and the botched launch of the federal exchange, it’s easy to lose track of the fact that online insurance marketplace... |
| Nov 21, 2013 | The absolute case for relative value units | Fee-for-service methodologies, especially relative-value units (RVUs), keep creeping back into alternative payment models like capitation. Maybe we should take the hint and adapt RVUs to the new environment rather than throwing them out the... |
| Nov 15, 2013 | When evaluating physician and nurse shortages, consider the source | So yes, let’s have a rational discourse about workforce needs and consider training more people when appropriate. But let’s not get too worked up by self-interested attempts to boost the medical and nursing school industries.
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By David E. ... |
| Nov 6, 2013 | Clinical documentation –my guest post on For the Health of IT | Promoted
Clinical Care Capacity Planning
Learn how to manage clinical care capacity more efficiently during uncertain times.
SAP
Promoted
Covid-19’s terrible toll on diabetes patients. What can be done?
The public health crisis has undermin... |
| Nov 4, 2013 | CPOE that’s easy to use? KLAS gives PatientKeeper top marks (transcript) | Paul Brient: It’s good to be with you, David.
Williams: Paul, I saw a new report out by KLAS that gives a PatientKeeper product a very high rating. Tell me what that’s about.
Brient: KLAS contacted us earlier this year. They have a series o... |
| Oct 31, 2013 | Listen: PatientKeeper CEO discusses state of hospital information technology | PatientKeeper CEO Paul Brient was a technology and business whiz kid when I met him 20 years ago at business school and then worked with him at the Boston Consulting Group. So I’m not at all surprised to see his company churning out award w... |
| Oct 29, 2013 | Medicare cuts: Hospitals don’t make it up on volume | Our analysis revealed an important relationship between Medicare prices and the volume of inpatient services. Although some analysts worry that price cuts will lead hospitals to “make it up on volume,” our results suggest the opposite:Medic... |
| Oct 10, 2013 | Gowns and gloves in the ICU: Part of the infection control solution | The researchers did not find a statistically significant reduction in another bacteria, vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus, (VRE) or in a combination outcome of either VRE or MRSA ,which [study author] Harris says was surprising.
“However, d... |
| Sep 9, 2013 | Creating health exchange confusion: WSJ style | When a person turns 65 life gets a lot easier on the health insurance front as the federal government takes over the vast majority of costs. As a result, a retiree on Medicare is much cheaper for an employer to provide health care benefits ... |
| Sep 4, 2013 | Eagerly awaiting the death of defensive medicine | A 2010 survey of physicians found that doctors thought 26 percent of health care costs were due to defensive medicine.
Although there may be a knee-jerk reaction to test more rather than less, there’s no evidence that the amount of testing ... |
| Aug 19, 2013 | Patient experience measures debut in Minnesota | “For the first time, people in Minnesota can get information about the experience that other patients, like them, have had at physician practices across the state,” said Jim Chase, MNCM president. “The survey includes important information ... |
| Jul 29, 2013 | Leapfrog starts to expose the high cost of hospital rework | There are caveats to this analogy, but the basic idea is sound.
Congratulations to Leapfrog for putting this tool out there.
—————–
By David E. Williams of the Health Business Group.
Promoted
This Patient Experience Checklist Is Your Key To... |
| Jul 1, 2013 | Physician Compare: Still unimpressive | After that I checked out some of the individual listings. There’s very little there now. The only thing about quality is what programs they are participating in, e.g., PQRS. Nothing on the results.
If Physician Compare adds data, as the Kai... |
| Apr 29, 2013 | Oncologists get serious about drug prices | It’s hard for policy wonks, politicians or health plans to be viewed credibly when promoting health care cost containment. Discussion quickly turns to “rationing,” and “death panels,” which no one wants to be associated with, and as a resul... |
| Apr 17, 2013 | Of course hospitals make money from complications! | In a fee-for-service model, hospitals get paid for what they do, not what outcomes are achieved. So if something goes wrong in surgery the hospital usually gets to bill for the ICU, another surgery, extra days in the hospital, etc. Unless t... |
| Medicare cuts: Hospitals don’t make it up on volume | The Affordable Care Act purports to reduce the deficit, yet critics expect (or at least claim to expect) that it will actually be a budget buster. A Health Affairs article (When Medicare Cuts Hospital Prices, Seniors Use Less Inpatient Care... |
| Creating health exchange confusion: WSJ style | I was a bit surprised by the front-page headline and accompanying article in the weekend Wall Street Journal (IBM to Move Retirees Off Its Health Rolls). The headline and subtext of the article are that IBM is ending health benefits for ret... |
| Listen: PatientKeeper CEO discusses state of hospital information technology | PatientKeeper CEO Paul Brient was a technology and business whiz kid when I met him 20 years ago at business school and then worked with him at the Boston Consulting Group. So I’m not at all surprised to see his company churning out award w... |
| When evaluating physician and nurse shortages, consider the source | ‘Alarming’ Physician Shortages Lie Ahead, according to a HealthLeaders headline that’s bound to raise your blood pressure. Chances are you’ve seen even scarier articles about the looming nursing shortage, with predictions of a shortage of h... |
| Clinical documentation –my guest post on For the Health of IT | Health care reform, technology changes and patient expectations are driving major shifts in clinical documentation. My guest post at For the Health of IT, a Nuance Communications, Inc. blog lays out key trends and describes ways that provid... |
| Does prognosis for primary care leave room for optimism? Yes, and here’s why. | A lengthy front-page Boston Globe article (Precarious future for primary care) includes some of the usual laments:
The shortage of primary care physicians is bad and getting worse
Primary care docs don’t make enough money compared to specia... |
| Should step therapy and prior authorization be outlawed? | In ‘Fail first’ fails patients in the Boston Sunday Globe, a patient with depression decries his health plan’s use of “step therapy,” which requires members to try less expensive drugs before switching to pricier products. This is a brave a... |
| CPOE that’s easy to use? KLAS gives PatientKeeper top marks (transcript) | This is the transcript of my recent podcast with PatientKeeper CEO Paul Brient.
David E. Williams: This is David Williams from the Health Business Group. I’m speaking today with Paul Brient, CEO of PatientKeeper.
Paul, nice to be with you t... |
| Physician ratings edge closer to the mainstream | Doctor ratings and reviews have gotten a bad name, especially from doctors. There are concerns about their validity and usefulness. And while I share these worries I also believe ratings and reviews are important and have the potential to b... |
| Give Boomer Esiason a break on early birth comments | Retired football star and current radio host Boomer Esiason has opened the floodgates of righteous indignation by suggesting that the Mets second baseman should have encouraged his wife to have a scheduled C-section before opening day. That... |
| The rise of provider sponsored plans | Payer, provider or PayVider?
Accountable Care Organizations enable providers of care to take on some of the functions of health plans and to receive some of the financial rewards as well as the risk. But at least on the Medicare side it can... |
| Zohydro ban: Disagreeing with Governor Patrick | Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is trying to ban Zohydro ER, a new prescription painkiller, under a state of emergency he’s declared to combat opiate abuse. I agree with the Governor that opiate addiction is a huge problem in Massachus... |
| Oncologists get serious about drug prices | It’s hard for policy wonks, politicians or health plans to be viewed credibly when promoting health care cost containment. Discussion quickly turns to “rationing,” and “death panels,” which no one wants to be associated with, and as a resul... |
| Patient experience measures debut in Minnesota | Minnesota residents now have a robust, objective resource to compare the patient experience of care across medical clinics. The statewide Quality Reporting and Measurement System, created by a state reform initiative in 2008, has already ro... |
| The absolute case for relative value units | Fee-for-service methodologies, especially relative-value units (RVUs), keep creeping back into alternative payment models like capitation. Maybe we should take the hint and adapt RVUs to the new environment rather than throwing them out the... |
| Physician Compare: Still unimpressive | My friend, Jordan Rau at Kaiser Health News reports that Medicare is upgrading its doctor ratings website, Physician Compare to get ready to provide more robust information as part of the Affordable Care Act. The site is intended to include... |
| Eagerly awaiting the death of defensive medicine | I’ve always been annoyed by proponents and defenders of defensive medicine, i.e., doctors ordering unnecessary tests to stave off lawsuits. Not always, but often enough, it is a case of physicians shirking responsibility, blaming others, an... |
| Obamacare may be botched, but the health insurance exchanges are pretty effective | Download: donlanconnected.mp3
Joe Donlan, co-founder and president of ConnectedHealth
With all the fighting over ObamaCare and the botched launch of the federal exchange, it’s easy to lose track of the fact that online insurance marketplace... |
| Gowns and gloves in the ICU: Part of the infection control solution | It’s good to see health care providers continue to work on strategies to reduce health care acquired infections. Handwashing is a key component —but hospitals struggle to achieve compliance and are now turning to patients to be the bad cop,... |
| When using a free healthcare website, consider the business model | Is a free lunch worth the price?
When Google first came along I assumed that their business plan was to get users addicted to search and then start charging for searches. But it turns out they were a lot savvier than that. Instead of thinki... |
| Obamacare signups: More than just the exchange numbers | All that hyperbole for nothing!
President Obama just announced that 8 million people signed up for coverage on federal and state health insurance exchanges during the initial open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare... |
| Leapfrog starts to expose the high cost of hospital rework | The Leapfrog Group is riling up hospitals with a hidden surcharge calculator designed to show employers how much of their health care premium is devoted to paying for medical errors at the hospitals where their employees obtain care. The pr... |
| How immigrants help health reform succeed | Medicare turns 50 today, which has provided an opportunity for all manner of retrospectives and speculation about what the future holds. The Partnership for a New American Economy is publicizing one of my favorite arguments: that immigrants... |
| Congressman uses veteran status to gain insight on VA health system treatment delays | Congressman Seth Moulton was an inspiring candidate: a Marine and Harvard Business School grad with strong leadership skills who wanted to serve the country in Washington. Despite the cynicism I and many others have for politicians, this gu... |
| Of course hospitals make money from complications! | A new JAMA article (Relationship Between Occurrence of Surgical Complications and Hospital Finances) by a variety of health care wonks including some of my former Boston Consulting Group colleagues demonstrates that hospitals make more mone... |