Gilead's new Hep C drug costs $84,000 for a 12 week course of treatment and PBMs and payers are determined not to pay it. The latest in the battles over the frightening rise in specialty drug use and spending.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-27/at-84-000-gilead-hepatitis-c-drug-sets-off-payer-revolt.htmlThe socioeconomic makeup of a Part D plan's enrollees may affect it's scores on performance measures, which can have important downstream effects, according to research published in Health Affairs.
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With the proliferation of quality measures, a timely research piece in Health Affairs suggests that out of 13 common AHRQ indications, 7 account for 93% of the total benefits of compliance with the measures. The number of measures could be cut back on without affecting quality and lowering compliance costs and confusion.
http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/33/1/132.abstractA JAMA viewpoint discusses how to reconcile evidence-based medicine and patient preferences, with a focus on the importance of recognizing informed patient choices, even when they may conflict with the best research evidence represented by a guideline.
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1763247A Wall Street Journal article discusses the reaction to the Veteran's Administration decision to let nurse practitioners treat patients without physician supervision, which many doctors oppose, largely in a bid to protect their turf.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304856504579340603947983912?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304856504579340603947983912.htmlHaving continuous health insurance for a number of years before becoming a Medicare beneficiary is associated with lower Medicare spending according to a recent Government Accounting Office report, but only…
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TigerText, which does something related to using a mobile app to communicate between health providers, has raised $21 million in a Series B round.
http://medcitynews.com/2014/01/buoyed-byod-trend-tigertext-raises-21m-series-b-round/?utm_source=MedCity+News+Subscribers&utm_campaign=c242a18946-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c05cce483a-c242a18946-67648197MediSwipe, which provides software and equipment to the medical and recreational marijuana markets, has received a $1.1 million investment from a private equity fund. To be blunt, not a high amount, but enough to keep them from going to pot.
http://www.pehub.com/2014/01/mediswipe-to-receive-1-1-mln/Noted health economist Uwe Reinhardt, in a JAMA viewpoint, suggests that price transparency is a "disruptive innovation" for health care, particularly when linked to reference pricing. This assumes, however, that patients are more interested in price than in a relationship with a particular doctor, and that consumers have sufficient incentives to care about price.
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1769895About 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.