Milliman tracks the average cost of health care for a family and issues an annual report. The 2012 version is out, showing that average family costs are over $20,000 for…
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Among government health care programs, the Part D prescription drug benefit in Medicare has been extremely successful, costing less than projected. Beneficiaries also are satisfied with the program, which consists…
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The Government Accounting Office reports on initial results from the Medicare competitive bidding program for durable medical equipment, finding that it appeared to have succeeded in reducing spending, while not…
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This week's Potpourri contains tasty morsels of health care nutrition, including geographic variation in cardiac procedures, barriers to shared decision-making, issues in the credibility of survey-based research, the value of…
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The Commonwealth Fund puts out yet another report decrying the sorry American health system, which has by far the highest per capita costs and supposedly no better outcomes. It is…
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Our final post on the EMD Serono Specialty Digest, with reference to specialty pharmacy provider trends, oncology and outcomes and comparative effectiveness research.
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A continuation of information from the EMD Serono Specialty Digest, with a focus on trends in spending and utilization management.
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EMD Serono puts out an annual report on specialty drug use that is outstanding. This year's edition carries on the tradition with a plethora of useful data and charts based…
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This edition of our data-packed Potpourri focuses on hospital readmissions, use of computer physician order entry systems, what employers will do after 2014 when all of the health law kicks…
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Pay-for-performance programs have enough problems demonstrating that they actually work to improve outcomes and now the Government Accounting Office has identified another potential problem for these initiatives--the federal fraud and…
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A new paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research examines whether greater use of health information technology has added to hospital productivity. The authors find that while the investment…
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The only way to know if something really works is to have credible experimental research. A review of clinical decision support research suggests that they can improve health care processes…
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Articles posted online in the journal Health Affairs provide a glimpse into the status of electronic medical record penetration in physician practices and hospitals. Progress is generally slow, especially among…
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Another tremendous edition of our Potpourri, featuring accountable care organization results, waste in our health system, self-referral costs, calculating hospital readmission rates and the benefits, if any, of telemonitoring frail…
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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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