With the advent of the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services hospital readmission penalty program, hospitals are scrambling to try to identify potential readmissions and manage them. A new Agency…
Read More
Specialty drug costs are growing very rapidly and in a few years may constitute half of all pharmaceutical spending. A new report from the Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute highlights trends…
Read More
Another outstanding collection of summaries from the health research literature, including this week, physicians' difficulty in understanding the benefits of screening tests, physicians' feelings about health information technology, AARP's latest…
Read More
One of the causes of rapid health spending growth is the aging of our population. A new report from the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality reviews the literature on…
Read More
A report from the International Federation of Health Plans compares prices for some common services and drugs across several developed countries. In all categories, physician services, hospital care and drugs,…
Read More
Wellness programs are popular among employers and payers because of a perception that they can reduce health care spending, at least in the long run. A new study published in…
Read More
A small percent of the population accounts for a large percent of overall health spending. These people have often had difficulty getting health insurance and the reform law fixes that,…
Read More
Its March and spring nears; our Potpourri blooms with nuggets of health care information, including comparative regulation of medical devices in the US and Europe, do physicians always truthful with…
Read More
The CMS program to reduce, or at least penalize hospitals for, unnecessary readmissions is in full swing this year. A new study looks at how Medicare Advantage plans do in…
Read More
According to a new report from Thomson Reuters, $36 billion a year could be saved in health care spending if provider prices were more transparent to consumers. There is a…
Read More
Yet another missive for the debate on the sources of variation in health spending, this time from the Center for Studying Health System Change, which looked at autoworker claims across…
Read More
One of the hot new concepts is use of "medical home" physician practices to improve quality and lower costs. A study from Health Affairs suggests that practices having medical home…
Read More
Our latest Potpourri, a week late and we apologize, covers virtual coaching, the integration of drug and medical benefit management, how doctors chose to handle their own end-of-life care, Medicaid…
Read More
End-of-life care discussions got some unwarranted and unwanted attention during the reform law debates, being characterized as "death panels". The discussions are important, however, to ensure consistency with patient preferences…
Read More
One of the concerns around the continued wrangling over the long-term setting of physician compensation for services to Medicare beneficiaries is whether payment, and other aspects of the program, have…
Read More
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.
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
Overcast
PocketCasts
Radio Public
Stitcher
Anchor
RSS - Posts