Kevin Roche

Oct 31 2016

Zimmer Biomet has purchased telerehabilitation service vendor RespondWell.

http://medcitynews.com/2016/10/zimmer-biomet-snaps-up-interactive-telerehabilitation-business-respondwell/?rf=1

Oct 31 2016

Kaiser Health Benefits Survey Part 1

By Kevin Roche Commentary No Comments

The annual Kaiser Family Foundation survey of employment-based health benefits reveals continued cost stress.

Oct 28 2016

Behavioral health IT vendor Netsmart Technologies is making what it hopes is an intelligent acquisitions, buying long-term care software firm HealthMEDX.

http://medcitynews.com/2016/10/netsmart-acquires-healthmedx/?rf=1

Oct 28 2016

Research in Health Affairs finds that Medicare hospice spending rose to almost $16 billion in 2015, up from $10.4 billion in 2007, and that this spending has significant geographic variation, suggesting an opportunity to ensure appropriate use of the setting.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/35/10/1902.abstract

Oct 28 2016

Braincheck, a mobile app for evaluating brain health, has raised $3 million. Another example where the investors might have wanted to use the product before investing.

https://www.pehub.com/2016/10/braincheck-scores-3-mln/

Oct 28 2016

New Primary Care Models

By Kevin Roche Commentary No Comments

A paper from PWC's Health Research Institute focuses on new primary care models.

Oct 27 2016

Better Approaches to Measuring Hospital Readmission Issues

By Kevin Roche Commentary No Comments

Research published in Health Affairs suggests that shorter measuring periods may more accurately identify problematic hospital readmissions.

Oct 26 2016

A study in Health Affairs confirms that using a limited provider network results in lower premiums, around 7% less on average, for plans on the health insurance exchanges, but many consumers are unaware of the consequences of a limited network, which may not include their usual providers, and that 7% doesn't seem like much in light of the horrendous premium rises expected for 2017.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/35/10/1842.abstract

Oct 26 2016

As many would suspect, a study regarding prostate cancer in the journal Medical Care finds that compliance with process quality measures has no relationship to true outcomes such as complications and patient satisfaction and quality of life.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Impact+of+Adherence+to+Quality+Measures+for+Localized%0D%0AProstate+Cancer+on+Patient-reported+Health-related%0D%0AQuality+of+Life+Outcomes%2C+Patient+Satisfaction%2C+and%0D%0ATreatment-related+Complications

Oct 26 2016

Expanding Medicaid Coverage in Oregon Led to More ER and Physician Utilization

By Kevin Roche Commentary No Comments

In a shocking, just shocking finding, further research confirms that if you give people free health care, they will use a lot of it.

Oct 25 2016

An analysis from Blues plans in Texas, Illinois, Oklahoma, Montana and New Mexico finds that high deductible plans reduce health spending by 9.2% over three years, on a pre and post high deductible plan enrollment basis. Little methodological information was given so hard to evaluate credibility of the study, but the results are consistent with other findings.

http://www.hcsc.com/consumer_directed_health_plans.html

Oct 25 2016

2017 Insurance Exchange Premiums to be Dramatically Higher

By Kevin Roche Commentary No Comments

Even the Administration has now acknowledged that premiums for the benchmark silver plans on the reform law's insurance exchanges will rise at a huge rate.

Oct 25 2016