Weekend update

The House of Representatives votes first on the reconciliation bill and then on the Senate bill beginning at 6 pm ET tonight according to CBS News.

OPM and AHIP put on an interesting FEHBP Carrier conference last week. The keynote speaker was OPM Director John Berry. Director Berry talked about building on the FEHBP’s strong foundation. He wants to bring prescription drug costs under control. He wants to increase the productive use of health information technology. He wants to collect more and better data on health care utilization. He wants to focus on wellness and prevention, which he described as an investment in worker productivity. In this regard, he noted OPM’s investment in its own health center, the creation of the fedsgetfit.gov website, and the First Lady’s campaign against childhood obesity. He strongly encouraged updating tobacco cessation programs. He said that well designed benefit packages should feature wellness and prevention. The agency's call letter for 2011 benefit and rate proposals will describe other priorities. He concluded by saying the retaining leadership in health benefits honors federal service.

Other speakers included CareFirst President and CEO Chet Burrell and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Sr. Vice President Dana Safran MD who discussed their companies efforts to improve health care quality through payment reform.

Gregg Allen, MD, EVP and Medical Director of MedSolutions Inc. touted the health and financial benefits of radiology benefit management (right test and the right time) and accurate diagnosis (proper specialist reads the results).

Hawaii Medical Services Association Senior Vice President Michael Cheng described his company's Web 2.0 system created by American Well, Inc. that allows members to consult with doctors on-line thereby avoiding ER charges in most cases.

A smoking cessation panel called attention to two government sponsored interactive websites -- www.smokefree.gov and women.smokefree.gov (which is targeted at young women smokers) and two stop smoking lines -- 1-800-quit-now and 1-800-44u-quit (National Cancer Institute).

Jay Fritz from OPM reported that the agency is pleased with its Facebook page pilot.OPM plans to continue the Facebook page and create a benefits blog on an opm.gov website that will feature discussion boards like the Facebook page. Representatives from GEHA and United Healthcare spoke about their respective organization's social media efforts. GEHA for example has both Facebook  (774 fans) and Twitter accounts for their members. UHC has a Twitter account for members, and it uses Facebook for employee recruitment. I found that CIGNA also has a Twitter account for members. While I have a personal Facebook account, it's my opinion that lawyers should not use Twitter because Tweets cannot exceed 140 words -- very unprofessional.