Wired & waiting.

Disease management was supposed to be the next big thing in health care, thanks largely to the breathtaking pace of advances in technology. But so far reports of a disease management revolution have been premature. While technology vendors promise that their devices can save millions and keep patients healthier longer, providers have been reluctant to make the large investments necessary until they have proof of a payoff. Formal studies and reliable statistics to provide such proof are sorely lacking, although anecdotal evidence appears to signal high hopes for the future.

Wiring up, reaching out.

Taking another step in our Most Wired project, we conducted cyber-interviews with health plans and asked them to tell us just how wired they are. Find out how well they connect to members and employers, which HR and educational services they offer online, and whether they do business with doctors and hospitals electronically. Plus: profiles of major info tech undertakings at six health plans. They range from a $78,000 intranet to a $4 million data warehouse. But while the six projects differ in cost, they overlap in purpose: putting more information into the hands of doctors, hospitals, employers, and consumers. In doing that, they show what being wired is all about.

Budget battlers ... profiles.

If managed care discounts give you a headache, you'll get a migraine figuring your losses from the 1997 Balanced Budget Act--they're an 8 on the Richter scale, says one hospital policy pro. The savvy aren't waiting to act: Around the country, hospitals are fighting the cuts on the national front and battling back at home. H&HN profiles five.

The Health Care 250.

In health care, one sector's surge can mean another's stall. So goes the story for companies that make up our first-ever Health Care 250, a ranking of 1998 performance compiled for H&HN by the HealthCare Markets Group. "It's a far cry from the halcyon days of 1995," says John Cumming, the group's managing director, "when health care stocks gained an average of 40 percent."

Boom vs. bust.

Bad luck, bad timing, bad management: Whatever the cause, many of yesterday's Wall Street highfliers have crash-landed. Our Executive Chartbook takes a look at some of health care's current stock leaders, weighing out why they might--or might not--fall in the months ahead.

Off target.

Leave it to the market. It's our collective corrective, the American way of problem-solving. So it's no surprise that we looked to the market to stop runaway health care costs. For awhile, it seemed to work. Medicare HMOs, physician practice management, risk contracting, and other innovations boomed. Then came the setbacks, exposing health care's complexities and contradictions--and reminding us that nothing escapes market discipline.

Health care's 100 most wired.

They're wired all right, and America's 100 most techno-savvy hospitals and health systems share one more thing: a commitment to using technology to link with employees, patients, suppliers, and insurers. "We want to be a health care travel agency for our community," says one chief information officer. "And we see Internet technology as a key."

Another vicious cycle?

Just when HMOs seemed to break the old indemnity underwriting cycle, along came last year's landslide losses. Now analysts see a more deliberate pattern shaping up: When profits soar, marketers win rate cuts. When the bottom line finally bottoms out, underwriters prevail--and rate hikes follow.

You never call. Health plans overlook an easy step to keeping seniors satisfied.

Oh, the simplicity. A new survey shows that health plans overlook a basic tool of marketing to Medicare enrollees and staying in their good graces: the phone call. When fingers do the walking, satisfaction takes a hike.