RWL Newsletter #29
Greetings from Durham! First week of spring semester here at UNH kicked off with our missing the first day of classes because of snow. That's New Hampshire for you!
Lots of interesting things happening in Washington this past week. I'm not sure how much fire is behind the smoke, and frankly I don't feel like sharing anything about Mr. Trump just yet.
Read
What: from Time Magazine, What Happens When Doctors Only Take Cash, by Haley Sweetland Edwards
http://time.com/4649914/why-the-doctor-takes-only-cash/
Why: I find the concept of cash only practices fascinating. I haven't had a chance to talk to anyone who actually works in or operates one, but I think the idea has merit. Everyone in healthcare delivery knows how much money is spent on dealing with the payment for services - all the money spent on billing and collections. The system we have is a form of what economists call price discrimination, which means that different buyers pay different rates for the same good or service. How much you pay for a particular healthcare service depends on which insurer you have, or if you have insurance. Everyone pays something different. Colleges are really good at price discimination, too. Theoretically, price discrimination is actually a good thing - but it requires the qualification that it is a good thing in a free market. Since healthcare is a heavily regulated market, a dose of competition from a provider who can skirt around the regulations dealing with financing is certainly a good thing.
Watch
What: Chase Jarvis interviews Austin Kleon
https://youtu.be/0NUuidxfink
Why: In my organizational behavior course this semester I am requiring my students to have personal blogs and to write a primer on organizational behavior that they will share freely on the web. The idea is that they need to create a positive, professional web presence so that people can start finding them. That idea is partially informed by my reading of Austin Kleon's book, Show Your Work. Kleon is awesome, and although his primary audience is artists and creatives, I think there is a lot of good advice for healthcare executives in his writing as well. I've used his other book, Steal Like an Artist when I have taught creativity in my previous MBA programs.
Listen
What: Russ Roberts interviews Sam Quinones about his book, Dreamland
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/01/sam_quinones_on.html
Why: I'll just clip the podcast description - "How did heroin spread beyond big cities in America? What's the connection between heroin and America's opioid problem? Sam Quinones, author of Dreamland, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the explosion in heroin use and how one small Mexican town changed how heroin was produced and sold in America. That in turn became entangled with the growth in the use of pain-killers as recreational drugs. Drawing on the investigative reporting that culminated in his book, Quinones lays out the recent history and economics of the growth in heroin and pain-killer usage and the lost lives along the way." I really like how Quinones talks about both the supply and demand for opioids.
That's it for this week! Have a happy and safe New Year and I'll talk to you again next year!
If you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://tinyletter.com/markbonica
I' d love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line by e-mail, or you can tweet to me at @bonicatalent .
Thanks for reading and see you next week!
Mark
Mark J. Bonica, Ph.D., MBA, MS
Assistant Professor
Department of Health Management and Policy
University of New Hampshire
(603) 862-0598
mark.bonica@unh.edu
Health Leader Forge Podcast: http://healthleaderforge.org
Twitter: @bonicatalent
"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor." - Henry David Thoreau