Twittering Health Care

Interesting to see this Health Affairs piece discuss the use of social-media analytics in health care.  Medicare released detailed reimbursement information that was synthesized across the Twittersphere.  Some of this work contained serious analytics that gave consumers and health care professionals alike a better feel for the Medicare reimbursement system.  With pressures on Medicare mounting, it is important for hospitals to know what may be their best reimbursement strategies.

Unfortunately, though, it is difficult to see more benefits than simple gamesmanship come from this release of data.  As a large government agency, Medicare does not have the incentives to make the market adjustments.  If some specialties or regions are more expensive than others, patients are not compelled to seek the less costly competition.  The prices will not come to equilibrium.  While Medicare's reimbursements are based on a sophisticated algorithm based on value-neutral analytics, it would be naive to dismiss any political lobbying enters the process.  This New York Times piece shows how the weighting of specialists on Medicare lobbying and advisory boards tends to favor some specialties, such as dermatology, at the expense of others, such as primary care and obstetrics.

While big data, especially in the form of open-source data, is leading to breakthroughs in business, it is hard to see how this will very much impact what is, in the end, a government monopoly.