Shifting health care landscape changes how doctors practice, and for whom

News from the health care marketplace includes changes in how doctors practice -- they are increasingly seeing patients via webcam and working for insurers in insurer-run doctor offices.

The Wall Street Journal: Doctors Move To Webcams
Virtual doctor visit services -- which connect patients from their homes with physicians whom they meet via online video or phone -- are moving into the mainstream, as insurers and employers are increasingly willing to pay for them (Wilde Mathews, 12/20).

NPR: When The Doctor Works For The Insurance Company
Some insurance companies are taking a page out of their own history books: running their own doctors' offices and clinics. Though the strategy previously had mixed results, insurers think that by providing primary care for patients, they might reduce costly diseases and hospital stays in the long run (Samuelson, 12/21).

The health law is also a boon for some technology companies --

Kaiser Health News: Health Law Seen Boosting Xerox, HP
When Tennessee Medicaid Director Darin Gordon walks around his department in an office park north of downtown Nashville, he sees dozens of workers from technology giant Hewlett-Packard. HP's employees help to operate the massive computer systems that run Tennessee Medicaid. ... Growth in the program for the poor has created boom times for data management companies like HP and Xerox. ... Now, with Medicaid poised for broad expansion under the law and with online insurance markets being built in most states, those companies are well-positioned to profit (Galewitz, 12/19). Read the story.