Top Sources for Healthcare News

Many professionals in healthcare, health insurance and employee benefits ask me where I find my industry information.  Healthcare changes so quickly, and it’s hard for me to keep up as well.

Below is a list of my top news sources for healthcare:

Axios Vitals

Axios is an online news site that publishes multiple newsletters that are available by free, email subscription.  Axios Vitals is their healthcare newsletter.  It comes out Monday – Friday at about 4:15 AM Eastern Time.  It is written by Tina Reed and is a curation of the most recent healthcare news from across many sources. 

The newsletter has links to all the original sources, whether it be an article from the Kaiser Family Foundation or the Wall Street Journal.  Tina Reed writes great summaries, and the entire newsletter is written intentionally to be skimmed in about 4 minutes.

NOTE: Axios Vitals has paid advertisements that often look like some of the news articles themselves.  You may be familiar with the term ‘sponsored content,’ which essentially means something that looks like a news article that is an advertisement.  These embedded posts within the Axios Vitals newsletter appear to be ‘sponsored content.’

Subscribe to Axios Vitals (along with their other newsletters) HERE.
The Weekly Gist

The Weekly Gist Newsletter is published by the healthcare consulting firm Gist Healthcare.  The consulting partners at Gist Healthcare are Dr. Lisa Bielamowicz and Chas Roads.  Gist Healthcare is a strategy consulting firm for hospital systems, so their newsletter gives employee benefits professionals an inside look at the priorities of hospital systems.

More specifically, the newsletter helps me learn how hospitals are working to increase their revenue by increasing their prices and their patient volume—extracting money from employer-sponsored health plans.

One of the best parts of the newsletter is where the consultants recount anonymous conversations they have had with hospital executives during the past week.  Their conversations give me a better understanding of how hospital executives are thinking and help me see how hospital systems are going to act in the future.

Subscribe to the Gist Healthcare Newsletter HERE.
LinkedIn

As many of you know, LinkedIn has transformed itself from a site where people go to recruit people and find jobs to a business social media destination for industry content sharing.  I post my videos on LinkedIn and have. 3,000-5,000 views per day.

Not only is LinkedIn a great place to share information, but it is also a great place to consume content: links to great articles, videos, etc.

The key to finding great healthcare information in your LinkedIn feed is to follow people that post valuable information.  Here is a brief list of people to follow on LinkedIn who curate helpful healthcare news:

1. Christin (Chris) Deacon: Former Assistant Director of Health Benefit Operations and Policy and Planning for the State of New Jersey
Ms. Deacon is an attorney and successfully ran the multi-billion-dollar health plan for the State of New Jersey employees.  She dramatically controlled cost and increased healthcare quality for New Jersey, and she makes excellent shares on LinkedIn.

Follow Chris Deacon on LinkedIn HERE.
Den Bishop: President of Holmes Murphy

Holmes Murphy is a ‘super regional’ insurance brokerage and consulting firm headquartered in Iowa and with a large presence in the Midwest and Texas.  As the Holmes Murphy president, Den is one of the most thoughtful minds in the industry.  Employers, insurance carriers and the Federal Government call on Den for his expertise.  Den finds great healthcare articles to share, and he writes his own blog as well.

Follow Den Bishop on LinkedIn HERE.

Marshall Allen:  Former ProPublica Healthcare Reporter, Author of the Book ‘Never Pay the First Bill’

Marshall Allen has researched and authored amazing articles on the complex world of healthcare finance and how the current healthcare system exploits patients and employers.  Marshall Allen shares great articles and reshares great articles from others as well… making him a great ‘hub’ of information on LinkedIn.

Follow Marshall Allen on LinkedIn HERE.

These are not all my sources of healthcare information, but they are my first, go-to sites every morning. One cannot glean everything in healthcare at once, so I quickly scan other sources throughout the day and I’ll share more of my sources in future blog posts.

Thanks so much for reading!