Given the current 42% US obesity rate and powerful results from the new anti-obesity medications (AOMs), employers and others responsible for healthcare benefits decisions are feeling pressure to add coverage for these expensive AOMs to employee health benefits plans. However, with a recent study showing 65% weight regain after patients stop taking their AOM meds, …
There is an intense media focus on the arrival of a new class of Anti Obesity Medications (AOMs) and a robust national discussion to clarify their value (“bang for the buck”) given the mix of positives (significant clinical benefits) and negatives (side effects, weight regain on stopping, and high price tag). This is the first …
Silver Fern’s team couldn’t wait to attend AHIP 2022 in person this year!Over the two-and-a-half-day conference, speakers presented on topics such as health equity, virtual care, care at home, personalized medicine, and what all of this means in a post-COVID world. Here’s a quick summary of some of the key themes raised at AHIP and …
Continue reading “Silver Fern on the Road and Sharing Our Insights!”
Healthcare-at-home services, including routine care in the home, remote home monitoring (RHM), and remote therapeutic monitoring (RTM), have exploded onto the healthcare scene. These services have been bolstered by new, post-COVID CPT codes. For example, Medicare-, Medicaid-, and commercial eligibility for RHM is no longer the exception, but the norm. McKinsey estimates, “Up to $265 …
Continue reading “Taking Healthcare at Home to the Next Level with More Personalized Care”
The start of the new year is a great time to consider the trends of the last year and look forward to what will come in 2022. The healthcare system certainly saw its fair share of disruption and innovation during 2020 and 2021. What will 2022 bring? Here are Silver Fern’s predictions for five trends …
Continue reading “Trends in Chronic Disease Care and Prevention in 2022”
As of mid-November 2021, the US Covid-19 death toll is about 757,000 from 47 million cases. There is broad consensus across the medical community that the most effective way for individuals to avoid the most serious consequences of Covid and for communities to stop the spread is through vaccination. With the Delta variant mostly in …
Our nation faces persistent health risks from a deluge of industrial chemicals from modern farming practices; food manufacturing and packaging systems; pharmaceutical drugs; nutritional supplements; and personal care and home cleaning products. The ubiquitous presence of chemicals today is evidenced by studies detecting many foreign chemicals in the umbilical cords of pregnant women. As noted …
This post explores the healing power of fruits and vegetables and the need for clinicians to become more involved in national strategies that encourage Americans to eat more of them. Research shows that eating more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and seeds as part of a broader lifestyle medicine strategy – especially combined with weight loss …
Our previous posts have highlighted the dramatic and recent changes in lifestyles in the US, most impactfully changes in our national diet, which have created an epidemic of obesity and chronic health conditions. This post explores the opportunity for us to have a national focus, led by emerging new healthcare innovators, on the family unit …
Continue reading “Empowering families to be healthier and happier in 2021 and beyond”
This post looks at a third treatment option for patients living with type 2 diabetes: intensive lifestyle change to achieve remission. Our two previous posts in this series covered medication management, which focuses on diabetes control, and gastric surgery, which focuses on remission – defined as achieving normal blood glucose without diabetes pills or injections. …
