When the Congressional Budget Office and the Board of Trustees of the Medicare trust funds make projections about future Medicare expenditures and revenues, they are required to utilize current law, even when everyone knows it doesn’t reflect likely reality. A memo from the Office of the Actuary presents an alternative, probably more accurate, set of Medicare projections.
Our next report related to consumer-directed, high deductible health insurance plans comes from the Employee Benefit Research Institute and describes the characteristics of people in these plans over the years 2005-2011.
This week we will discuss several high deductible insurance plan reports. The first is from America’s Health Insurance Plans and gives information on details of enrolllment and plan types.
Our Potpourri resumes, with information on consumer trust of insurers and providers, consumer use of online health information, price transparency in health care, imaging rates in integrated health care systems and effectiveness of telephonic depression therapy.
The latest projection on national health spending from the CMS Office of the Actuary is out and published in Health Affairs. It suggests that the very modest reduction in growth rate in the last couple of years is going to end and growth in spending will re-accelerate in the coming years.
Germany has encouraged wellness programs in a manner similar to the US. A new report from the Commonwealth Fund discusses results from the country’s efforts and draws lessons that may be applicable to the United States.
The latest annual report on e-prescribing from SureScripts reveals continued rapid growth. The report also details benefits which appear to flow from greater use of electronic prescribing and opportunities to use the network created by SureScripts to address information sharing in other health care sectors.
PWC’s Health Research Institute is projecting that overall medical cost trend for employment-based health care coverage will be around 7.5% for 2013, which is identical to the number it currently estimates for 2012 and close to the 2011 and 2010 actuals.
A new Agency for HealthCare Research and Quality Statistical Brief decomposes the sources of inpatient hospital cost increases from 1997 to 2008, which is important to understand given that hospital spending is the single largest contributor to overall per capital health spending growth.
The Express Scripts 2011 Drug Trend Report shows very low overall growth in drug spending, but continued sharp increases in the specialty sub-category. The firm presents interesting information and evidence on approaches to increasing medication adherence.
A Medscape survey of physicians gives statistics on compensation and compensation trend and reveals doctors’ attitudes regarding their pay. While “healthy”, physician compensation is not generally lavish and growth in physician spending is not nearly the problem that growth in hospital costs are.
Summer is heating up and our Potpourri is smoking too, with nuggets on a silly provision in the final MLR rule; research on causes of readmissions, some within hospital control, some not; why are some hospitals more costly in treating heart failure than others and an unintended consequence of a change in dialysis drug reimbursement.
Research reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine finds that a comprehensive care management program for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease had excess mortality, to the point that the trial was stopped early. It seems unlikely that this was actually due to the trial.
Hospital unit prices appear to be the single largest cause of increased health spending, according to several lines of research. In a new report, the National Institute for Health Care Reform examines whether state rate regulation could help address the problem.
We are on the road, but our Potpourri remains, in this issue covering malpractice claims against doctors, wellness program outcomes, the effect of drinking coffee, do EHRs help improve care and a wellness survey of employers.
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.
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
Overcast
PocketCasts
Radio Public
Stitcher
Anchor
RSS - Posts