HMP 721 Blogger

For this blog post I chose to write about Forward, a San-Francisco based startup looking to refashion health care services. Forward is the future of health where doctors meet Silicon Valley technology. The company aims to monitor health through wearable technology and an app to give enhanced medical data. Those who wish to enroll in forward pay a monthly cost of $149 that covers unlimited access to medical staff, baseline screening, wellness and nutrition counseling and constant monitoring. Forward doesn’t aim to lower health costs but works to increase the care and treatment members have. Forward is an innovative health model that relies heavily on technology, like most services do currently. While this startup may draw success early in its career it is not well enough established to be a fix for health insurance. Members of Forward are generally going to be the younger tech-savvy who use technology as part of everyday life. Forward is just the start of companies

For this blog post I found an interesting one from the Kaiser Health News titled, “Trump Administration Plan to Add Medicaid Work Requirement Stirs Fears.” The article goes on to discuss how Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, announced how the federal government will implement work requirements for Medicaid enrollees. This is just the start of changes to come to Medicaid, others to follow include drug testing for enrollees and a time limit on the coverage. While there are many opposed to these changes Verma feels that it would work to improve overall change and hopefully “break the chains of generational poverty (Kaiser Health News).” This proposal isn’t that far off from other government programs such as food stamps. While many oppose this proposal, I feel this could help control costs and offer greater care to all. There is a greater sense of achievement in working towards something rather than sitting back and taking

For this assignment, I chose to report on Richard Silveria the CFO of Boston Medical Center. Silveria has climbed the ladder to an executive position similarly to the way I hope to achieve in my career. He started his studies at UMass Lowell where he originally wanted to go to medical school but majored in education. After completing his undergrad at UMass Lowell, when it was time to look for a job, he decided to “cold call” Choate Symmes Hospital, which is no longer open. He was given a position at Choate Symmes teaching health relations but this job later lead to working with Information Technology. After working for Choate Symmes, Silveria moved on to work for Lawrence General Hospital where he worked on the billing cycle even without a finance background. The executive team was willing to take the risk on him and he worked hard to gather data, engage employees, and slowly started to turn around the billing system. This moment in his career was a defining one a