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TIME •

Why Horror Movies and Scaring Yourself Can Make You Feel Less Anxious

I grew up scared of everything: death, the dark, my own face in the bathroom mirror.

Eventually, I learned my bottomless fear belied several anxiety and anxiety-adjacent disorders that I’ve been addressing in adulthood with the help of therapy, medication, and an unlikely third salve: ravenous horror-film consumption.

Contagion got me through the first night of lockdown in 2020, and Daddy’s Head helped me unleash pent-up tears around the anniversary of my dad’s death. I felt my own unspeakable rag...
Design Observer •

The Design of Horror | The Horror of Design: a series

As a dark coper, I’ve long used horror to make sense of life’s trials and better understand the world around me.

Boy, am I leaning on the genre a lot this year.

Payton McCarty-Simas, too. “When I’m sad, I’ll watch Audition,” the film critic and scholar of cinematic American witches told me in a recent conversation, referring to the 1999 Japanese horror film notorious for its shocking final sequence. “But...
Design Observer •

Mirror, mirror: The rise of ‘beauty horror’ amid today’s antifeminist backlash - DesignObserver

With knockouts like “The Substance” and this year’s “The Ugly Stepsister,” the growing, woman-helmed subgenre stands 10 toes (give or take) down on its critiques of gender norms.

INT. GRAND VICTORIAN-ERA HOME – BEDROOM – NIGHT
Elvira scans the lavish bedroom until her eyes, wide and rimmed with sparse, tear-slicked lashes, land on an ottoman. She drags it toward the edge of the four-poster bed and places a bare foot on it. With a log from the gently crackling fire in one hand, and a cleaver in th...
Design Observer •

Your (A)ttent(I)on, please

My attention feels splintered into a million pieces most days. And yet, when Mexican investigative journalist Chantal Flores’ pitch came across my desk, I was suddenly imbued with a single-mindedness I haven’t known since I created my (now-defunct) Facebook account in 2008. 

The resulting story, today’s Big Think, centers an arresting question: Can we tolerate the use of genAI to improve human rights, even as it threatens livelihoods and lives at scale? How would that even work? 

“Ghiblified” art, of all things, may offer some clues.
BrainWise Media •

The Links Between Trauma and Grief

When you go through something difficult, it can feel like your brain is swept up in a gale of emotion. These experiences of stress, trauma and grief are often intense and distressing, but they exist along a continuum: Your responses might be healthy, natural reactions to help you adapt. But some people may experience more severe or persistent responses that can lead to conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or prolonged grief disorder (sometimes referred to as PGD).
Design Observer •

Head in the boughs: ‘Designed Forests’ author Dan Handel on the interspecies influences that shape our thickety relationship with nature

Forests have always borne our mark, carved as indelibly as initials on a tree trunk.

From the Indians and European colonizers who scaled forest planning in the 1800s to the artist–tech bro trio who prototyped a blockchain-enabled, self-managing woodland in the 2010s, architect and curator Dan Handel’s Designed Forests (2024, Routledge) traces the characters and cultural histories of “forest thinking,” a term he c...
HealthLeaders Media •

The Rise of the Interim Revenue Cycle Leader

As health systems face razor-thin margins, executive upheaval, and sky-high expectations, some are calling on a burgeoning type of leader to helm the revenue cycle: the fleet-footed interim exec.

"The demand for interim revenue cycle executives is poised to grow significantly in 2025," wrote WittKieffer consultant Robert Springall in a recent LinkedIn post. "As healthcare systems navigate constant changes and challenges, interim revenue cycle leaders are essential in ensuring smooth operations an...
HealthLeaders Media •

RCM Solutions Are on The Rise. Here's What It Means For Rev Cycle Leaders

RCM technology is booming.

The vendor market could reach anywhere from $343B to nearly $900B globally within the next decade, according to new projections from Straits Research and Coherent Market Insights. The outsourcing portion alone could achieve $170B by 2032, says HTF Market Intelligence (MI), which values it today at $90B globally."

This market is expanding due to the increasing complexity of healthcare billing, a focus on reducing operational costs, and improving cash flow through speciali...
HealthLeaders Media •

Payer-Provider Software: 5 Strategies for Smooth Sailing

For many revenue cycle leaders, 2025 is all about the tech.

Time and again, execs have said they're investing big in AI and advanced analytics to improve team efficiency, payer relations, and patient access. But all too often, shiny new tools that promise to help are doing more harm than good.

"If you've been in the industry long enough, [you've seen] criteria sets in the market that have a tendency to create friction," says Debbie Schardt, DSL, MBA-HCA, RN, assistant vice president of revenue cycl...
HealthLeaders Media •

From Stability to Strategy: Rev Cycle Leaders Gear for Growth in 2025

After years of margin pressure, workforce strife, and pandemic recovery, things are looking up for revenue cycle leaders, according to two new trend reports.

"2025 could mark a turnaround period for the health care sector, driven by innovation, resilience, and strategic growth," write the researchers of Deloitte's 2025 US Health Care Outlook for large systems and plans.

Of the 80 C-suite executives the firm surveyed, 59% are optimistic about their prospects in 2025, up from 52% just a year ago...
DentalPost •

2025 Dental Salary Survey Report

Flexibility, freedom, and autonomy came up repeatedly as wins among dentists of all stripes, with circumstances like private-practice ownership and 4-day work weeks enabling control over clinical and administrative decisions, as well as work-life balance.

Many said their people — both patients and colleagues — are the best part of the job. They derive great meaning from using deft hands and hard-won skills to perform complex and varied procedures, help newer professionals progress in their careers, and restore smiles throughout their communities.
HealthLeaders Media •

Let's Get Digital: How 2 RCM Leaders Are Tapping Tech to Improve Patient Access

RCM leaders are losing patience with barriers to patient access. 

When it comes to complex, expensive procedures, "medical necessity from a payer perspective is not always in alignment with what the physician necessarily says," says Shana Tate, chief revenue officer at Ballad Health, a 20-hospital system serving four states in the Appalachian Highlands (Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky).

It "creates a lot of angst" for everyone involved. Often, "the patient really doesn't know...
HealthLeaders Media •

Payer Practices are Top Health System RCM Stressors. Here's What to Do

Payer practices, which have gripped public consciousness for much of December, are also the leading revenue cycle stressor for healthcare providers, according to recent research from HFMA and Guidehouse.

Among more than 130 system financial executives surveyed, nearly nine in 10 (85.8%) cite health plan patterns like denials and underpayments as one of their top three challenges; more than half (51.5%) finger a related pain point: prior authorization.

It's something RCM leaders have said time and...
HealthLeaders Media •

(Robotic) Hand in Glove? How Nascent Tech Stands to Shape RCM Outsourcing

Within the past few months alone, Mary Washington Healthcare; Hancock Health; and Brookwood Baptist Health, now part of Orlando Health, have made moves to outsource some or all their revenue cycle operations to external vendors.

They're in good company: According to Kaufman Hall's 2023 State of Healthcare Performance Improvement Report, nearly one-third of respondent organizations were pursuing outsourced revenue cycle solutions, up from 27% in the 2022 report.

Whether outsourcing revenue cycle ma...
HealthLeaders Media •

Spark Joy, Vanquish Vapor: How Mass General Brigham Uses Tech to Rev Up RCM

Let's face it: We're not getting any younger.

"Our population [is] getting older, more complex, more challenging, so there's always going to be more volume than we can keep up with," says Michael Mercurio, vice president of revenue cycle operations at Mass General Brigham, a 12-hospital system headquartered in Boston.

For revenue cycle teams, it means the pressure is on "to not only perform well and bring in as much cash as we can as effectively, compliantly, and quickly as we can, but [to] do it...
HealthLeaders Media •

Stuck in denial

HealthLeaders christened 2023 the year of managing denials, but a spate of recent reports suggests revenue cycle leaders could be in for more of an era.

Payer denial activity was chief among the contributors to Community Health Systems' (CHS) net loss of $391 million in the third quarter, according to the Franklin, Tennessee–headquartered organization's report for the fiscal period ending September 30.

"We are seeing some payers aggressively deny payment for medically necessary services that have...
Design & Make •

6 future-focused applications of green building technology

When it comes to experience, green building practitioners are far from green. 

The global green buildings market surpassed $0.5T last year, and could more than double—topping $1T—in the coming decade, fueled by the worldwide sprint to achieve net zero by 2050. 

The industry’s propulsive growth is a necessary step: Globally, the built environment is responsible for roughly 42% of energy consumption, according to Architecture 2030. It’s also a major culprit of environmental degradation, energy u...
Spine Tingler •

Death becomes you, darling

Kill your darlings.

It’s a common adage in writing. Variants will have you murdering kittens or even babies — basically anything precious that you’ve been nurturing on the page to the detriment of your overarching story. It’s about getting cold-blooded and clear-eyed: sacrificing the saccharine for your prose’s higher purpose.

In horror, some creators take this directive literally, making quick work of a would-be final girl...
Healthcare Purchasing News •

Optimizing Sourcing and Logistics: 6 Proven Strategies

For today’s healthcare procurement leader, a focus on the future is crucial to building an operation that stands the test of time.

Sourcing and logistics — the cornerstones of a thriving supply chain — are the right place to start, according to more than 170 leaders surveyed for HPN and SBA’s 2024 Healthcare Procurement and AI report.

“We need to enhance our ability for technological innovation to cope with the changes brought about by various developments,” one respondent notes.

Headwinds range...
Healthcare Purchasing News •

Mastering the 3 ‘P’s of Post-Pandemic Procurement Efficiency: Price, Process, Product

As the healthcare industry recovers from the pandemic’s peak, procurement leaders continue to face uncertain economic conditions, stubborn supply shortages, and a proliferation of new settings in their purview, among other aftershocks.

To overcome these challenges, a relentless focus on efficiency is crucial. According to the 170+ leaders surveyed for HPN and SBA’s 2024 Healthcare Procurement and AI report, efficiency is one of the three key mandates shaping the future of procurement.
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