In the not-too-distant-future, Dr. Jim Woodburn says, patients can reach their doctors on the phone.If that doesn’t sound too impressive, consider this: The doctor can literally see the patient, access medical histories, listen to heartbeats and check the eyes, ears, nose and throat — all from the other side of the country.“Telemedicine is going to [...]

Highlights of the important and the interesting from the world of healthcare:Wellpoint suffers third security glitch of last 3.5 years: A security glitch at a WellPoint website may have publicly exposed the medical records and credit card numbers of about 470,000 customers, the third such breach the Indianapolis-based health insurer has reported in the last [...]

Highlights of the important and the interesting from the world of healthcare:Wellpoint bets on telehealth: Wellpoint plans to join UnitedHealthcare in offering online video chat services to members, another signal that telehealth’s long-awaited time might finally be here. Wellpoint’s telehealth program, which uses American Well’s software, will be offered in “select areas”–meaning the company isn’t [...]

Highlights of the important and the interesting from the world of healthcare:VCs look to skirt proposed tax changes: While it’s far from certain that the proposal will pass Congress, changes may be coming to tax laws that would treat profits by venture capital and private equity firms like profits by, uh, just about everyone else. [...]

Highlights of the important and the interesting from the world of healthcare:What makes a healthcare expert? The Health Care Renewal blog isn’t happy about the media portraying leaders of healthcare organizations who have no clinical experience as experts in the field of healthcare. The blog’s Dr. Roy M. Poses points to one Boston Herald report [...]

Highlights of the important and the interesting from the world of healthcare:Why we must change how primary care docs get paid: A study of how primary care doctors at one Philadelphia practice spend their time yields some disturbing results, and further shows why primary care is becoming a less-and-less desirable field to enter. Each primary [...]

“Are you ready to listen about the demise of our industry?” one med tech executive asked another at today’s LifeScience Alley luncheon.“Yes, I’m morbidly interested,” the other joked back.Such gallows humor pervades the medical device industry these days. And not without good reason. For months, I’ve heard panelist after panelist, expert after expert, executive after [...]

NovoLogix Inc. is not the easiest company to understand. But it does have a colorful past and an intriguing future.Once a $400 million force in the home-health care market, the former Ancillary Care Management has remade itself into a software-as-a-service company that focuses on helping payers manage claims relating to fast growing demand for expensive [...]

In a country seemingly founded on the idea that competition is a universally Good Thing, you’d think the U.S. would have a decent amount of competition in our health insurance markets. Not so much.

The runaway popularity of robotic prostate surgery is a case study in the triumph of marketing over medicine, and for that reason, it could be a glimpse into the future.