One of the surprises of the expansion of health coverage in Massachusetts is that it seems to have increased emergency room use. A new study shows that this phenomenon might occur in all insurance changes and if the reform law is fully implemented, ERs may be overwhelmed.
In general, lower drug costs have helped decrease health spending growth, but specialty drug prices and use, often for cancer, have increased rapidly. New reports show these cost increases are exacerbated by a sift in treatment from physician offices to hospital settings.
An early spring for much of the country and our latest Potpourri is in full bloom, with nuggets on health information exchanges, genetic testing guidelines, an employer survey on reform, EMRs and lab test ordering and the relationship between clinical quality and patient satisfaction.
Physicians are as aware as anyone of the need to control health spending. Several physician specialty associations have released lists of procedures or treatments that consumers and doctors should question before using. This hopefully reflects a trend of physicians being more engaged in delivering only needed care.
A new study from the National Bureau of Economics finds that greater levels of education are associated with better health behaviors, without regard to specific knowledge of health risks or to a person’s native level of intelligence. Better educational attainment may in turn reflect family circumstances.
One of the theories behind geographic variation in health spending analysis is that there are areas where high rates of inappropriate care delivery exist, leading to higher spending. A new systematic review of research on the topic of inappropriate use in the journal Medical Care finds little evidence to support this theory.
Makes sense that paying for better delivery of quality care would improve outcomes, but the research so far doesn’t support that notion. The latest evidence is a study in the New England Journal of Medicine on the patient outcomes effects of the Medicare Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration.
Welcome to another Potpourri of health information, focusing on workers’ comp medical prices, cost-sharing on asthma meds, the Medicare Advantage program, doctors’ experience of quality improvement programs, a review of the last 60 years in health economics and the value of teledermatology.
Every year the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission puts out a report on its views on the current state of Medicare, its major issues and recommendations to Congress and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services about how to improve the program. The 2012 report is out with a plethora of useful information.
End-of-life care accounts for a large fraction of health spending. Often decisions regarding such care are made by surrogates and new research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine suggest that analytical biases lead these surrogates to misinterpret information provided by physicians.
As ObamaCare meets judgment at the Supreme Court, evidence about the effect of its predecessor in Massachusetts continues to be amassed. A new paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research examines the effect of near universal coverage on various markers of health in the state.
A new report from the Commonwealth Fund tracks performance of local health care systems across the United States, finding as much as a two to three times variation across the 306 regions, as measured on several dimensions of access and quality.
Spring is in the air but take a few minutes to refresh with our latest Potpourri, which includes the Congressional Budget Office’s latest health reform projections, ER use by those with Medicaid or private insurance coverage, the effect of selective outcomes reporting in research, an AonHewitt survey of employers on exchange use, another CBO report on employer incentives for use of TriCare and physician costs to comply with quality mandates.
A review article in the American Journal of Managed Care summarizes the evidence to date on medical homes. The results look modestly promising, with evidence of improving quality of care, some signs of cost control, but other evidence that suggests net cost increases.
A crucial question in the next few years is what will happen with employer-sponsored health care coverage in the wake of the reform law’s full implementation. A new survey from Willis reports on some current attitudes and actions among companies in regard to health plan options.
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