Kelley Weiss's blog

With less than a year to go before the full rollout of Obamacare, many business owners are still scratching their heads over what it will mean for them.

In fact, most still wrongly believe they’ll have to offer health insurance to their employees, according to a recent eHealth survey.

Clicking that thumbs-up “like” button on Facebook is moving beyond cute baby photos and hip new restaurants in town. Now hospitals are joining the mix.

A recent article published in the American Journal of Medical Quality says positive endorsements on Facebook could actually mean something about hospital quality.

Researchers looked at two measures: 30-day mortality rates and patient satisfaction. 

The study found that hospitals with higher patient death rates got fewer “likes.” It also found that people who “like” a hospital on Facebook are more likely to recommend it.

As if fitting into your favorite pair of “skinny jeans” isn’t enough…your boss might give you a discount on your health insurance if you do.

It’s a growing trend these days for companies to offer incentives – or the proverbial carrot – to get workers in better shape.

Don Powell is the CEO and president of the American Institute for Preventive Medicine. He advises about 13,000 corporations around the country, including unions and the military, about implementing wellness programs.

If you work at a small business and have health insurance, odds are about 50-50 that you’ll have a high-deductible health plan according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey.

This kind of coverage asks employees to pick up more of the tab for their health care costs. Workers pay out-of-pocket for health care expenses until they reach the deductible. Then the insurance kicks in.

The idea is to make consumers savvier about health care costs by asking them to spend their own money first. At the same time, the employer can save money by shifting more of the costs to the consumer.

Every year thousands of patients get free prescription drugs to manage illnesses ranging from diabetes to heart disease. Pharmaceutical companies donate the medications that are usually set aside for low-income patients who don’t have health insurance.

But this can involve a burdensome paperwork process.

That’s where Damon Taugher, director of the non-profit humanitarian group Direct Relief USA, comes in. His organization has decades of experience getting medical aid to disaster-stricken areas – as in Haiti after the earthquake that hit two years ago.

Taugher says he wanted to apply the same principles to what he calls a domestic health care crisis in the United States.