UnitedHealth Brings on More Doctors in ‘Arms Race’ with Hospitals; Boston Marathon Survivors Spark Health Care Advances

UnitedHealth Brings on More Doctors

Disruptors are circling the health care industry, and UnitedHealth Group Inc., the biggest U.S. health insurer, has built an army of tens of thousands of physicians to fend off invaders, reports Zachary Tracer for Bloomberg. The article discusses an “arms race” between insurers and hospitals to acquire doctors. “The goal is to better control the means of production in their key markets,” said John Gorman, who runs consulting firm Gorman Health Group and works with insurers.

Boston Marathon Survivors Spark Health Care Advances

In the five years since the Boston Marathon bombing, medical science has made promising advances in amputations and artificial limbs, in part because of lessons learned from the victims and research dollars made available as a result of the attack, reports Philip Marcelo of the Associated Press.  

Millennial Consumerism is Shaping Health Care

New research shows millennials are more apt to use non-traditional ways to engage with the health care system, writes Erin Dietsche for MedCity News. A 2017 survey found millennials are utilizing technology by checking the rating of hospitals, using online health cost tracking tools and researching more information about their providers online. 

Research Links Brain Injuries to Dementia

 A large study offers more evidence of a link between traumatic brain injuries and dementia later in life, with repeated injuries and severe ones posing the greatest danger, reports the Associated Press. Researchers analyzed 36 years of health records of 2.8 million people in Denmark and found that the risk of dementia was 24 percent higher for people with a traumatic brain injury compared with people without one.