Express Scripts is buying EviCore for $3.6 billion. The purchase suggests that ESI recognizes that the PBM business is losing steam and facing price pressures and a move to broader care management capabilities may provide better future returns.
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=69641&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2305687A Magellan report shows that specialty drug costs are a big issue for Medicaid too.
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Trillian Health apparently intents to acquire a trillion companies, as it has made three recent acquisitions to bolster its health data and analytics business, including Expression Health Analytics, Aegis Health, and Clariture Health.
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171003005553/en/Trilliant-Health-Brings-Expression-Health-Analytics-FoldAccording to an AHRQ Statistical Brief, 35% of child visits to a physician were paid for by Medicaid and the average payment per visit by Medicaid was $88 less than that paid by private insurance. Hard-to-imagine that many physicians will continue to serve children covered by Medicaid with kind of gap.
https://meps.ahrq.gov/data_files/publications/st504/stat504.shtml?utm_source=ahrq&utm_medium=en1&utm_term=&utm_content=1&utm_campaign=ahrq_en10_3_2017Research published in Health Affairs finds that high-deductible plans discourage both needed and unnecessary care use.
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A Segal analysis of medical cost trends for 2018 suggests that drug spending is still the major problem.
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A report from Xcenda performs a site of care analysis for cancer treatment.
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Research at JAMA Internal Medicine suggests that doctors who have a financial interest in imaging equipment and a history of low-value imaging, are most likely to do additional low-value imaging for low back and head pain.
http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2653911According to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, comparing online quality ratings of 78 doctors to more objective quality performance measures indicates that online reviews aren't worth much. This is likely because consumers rate quality on much they like a physician and other intangibles.
https://academic.oup.com/jamia/article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jamia/ocx083/4107665/Online-physician-ratings-fail-to-predict-actual?redirectedFrom=fulltextJP Morgan Chase issues a fact-filled report on consumer out-of-pocket spending on health care.
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The Commonwealth Fund releases a brief describing certain employers' effort to manage high-cost patients.
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About this Blog
The Healthy Skeptic is a website about the health care system, and is written by Kevin Roche, who has many years of experience working in the health industry. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements through Roche Consulting, LLC and may be reached at khroche@healthy-skeptic.com.
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