We enter the year's home stretch with a great Potpourri, focusing on comparison friction in Part D plan shopping, a Harris poll on health-related internet use, the effect of aging…
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A new Rand report explores the use of health information technology to assist consumers in managing their health and making decisions about health care coverage. As health care coverage changes,…
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As Medicare pays more and more of the nation's total health bill, its decisions on what products and services it will reimburse for are more significant for vendors and for…
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Increased disease prevalence has been hypothesized to be behind much of the growth in health spending. New research published in Health Affairs finds that prevalence growth accounts for little of…
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Maryland is unique among the states in having an all-payer hospital rate regulation system. The most recent report on the system's performance shows that it is continuing to constrain the…
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Another wonderful collection of health care research summaries, including a GAO report on likely effects of the MLR rule, physician work intensity, reducing hospital-acquired infections, discharge followup and hospital readmissions,…
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A Kaiser Family Foundation report surveys state managed care Medicaid programs, finding a surge in utilization of health plans and addition of eligibility categories to the plans. A great variety…
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A paper prepared by Mathematica for the New York State Health Foundation discussions readmissions in the state and evaluates proposed methods of reducing those readmissions. Just in New York, billions…
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Hospitals and other providers have expressed concern that health plan consolidation jeopardizes the adequacy of reimbursement to providers but a new piece of research indicates that hospital consolidation is a…
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New research provides stronger evidence that using electronic health records may improve quality of care according to some measures more than continuing to use paper medical records, at least for…
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The leaves begin to fall but not the quality of our Potpourri, this week including useful data on hospital readmissions in the VA system, what makes top hospitals successful, the…
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A McKinsey Quarterly article explores why the market for better home health care technologies seems to be developing so slowly, particularly in light of rapidly growing demand and suggests changes…
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A new Cochrane Review finds very minimal evidence to suggest that efforts aimed at improving quality of care by creating financial rewards or penalties for primary care physicians are having…
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The evidence continues to pile up that higher provider unit costs in the United States are the primary driver of our much higher than average per capita national health spending.…
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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.