At its annual meeting in January, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission explores issues regarding payment for various providers, beneficiary access to care and quality. This January’s presentation on physician issues has some interesting data.
An article by Rand Corp researchers published in Health Affairs indicates that electronic health records and other aspects of health information technology are not fulfilling their promise, whatever that was. The authors give reasons for the disappointing performance and suggest remedies.
Today is the second part of our review of this year’s Sanofi Managed Care Digest, with information of drug coverage and other aspects of health benefits.
Sanofi sponsors the Managed Care Digest Series and just released the 2012-13 edition, which contains a plethora of data on HMOs, PPOs and their use and management of prescription drugs.
Allow drug spending growth has slowed, it is still a significant category of cost and adding drug benefits to Medicare and Medicaid has caused concern about how those drugs are paid for. A report to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services discusses new methods for reimbursing for drugs.
The Center for Health Affairs releases a report regarding opportunities for patient navigation tools and services to improve health care quality and potentially impact spending.
Now that it looks like the health reform law will be fully implemented, agencies are cranking out bushels of regulations. A Kaiser Family Foundation brief summarizes the provisions of three rules that relate to private health insurance and employment-related health benefits.
The Employee Benefits Research Institute publishes its findings from the annual Consumer Engagement in Health Care Survey, finding that enrollment in high-deductible plans continues to grow and that there are demographic and behavioral differences in the enrollees in these plans.
Everyone is kind of on tiptoes, waiting to see if medical cost growth is going to stay relatively stable as it has for the last few years, or begin to increase more rapidly. A report from Truven Health Analytics projects modest growth for the coming year.
In the past few years the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has published several reviews on the evidence for effectiveness of various forms of quality improvement initiatives. Now the Agency releases a summary of these reviews, which show minimal evidence to data for most of them.
One of the things the new reform law does is limit the ability to adjust health insurance premiums on the basis of age. A study from Oliver Wyman examines the likely effect on premiums for younger people, who will be mandated to buy insurance. Not a pretty picture.
A study in the Archives of Internal Medicine looks at the association between various physician characteristics and acquiescence to patient drug requests, finding some interesting correlations.
An article in Health Affairs summarizes the latest from the Office of the Actuary on national health spending in 2011, demonstrating that while spending growth remained relatively quiescent, it appears poised to grow more rapidly.
How much can you trust research? Not a lot sometimes, as an article in Health Affairs demonstrates, using the issue of salt reduction as an example. It turns out that salt is probably not nearly as bad for people’s health as has been postulated.
Many states and local governments have enacted prohibitions on smoking in certain public places, including restaurants and bars. These bans are founded on public health concerns due to inhalation of second-hand smoke. A new study in Health Affairs finds that the smoking bans are associated with fewer hospitalizations for certain conditions.
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 [email protected].
© 2024 Healthy Skeptic.
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