A study of 30 primary care physician practices, published in JAMIA, finds that implementation of an EHR was associated with lower productivity through seeing less patients, but also with higher revenue, because more services, primarily procedures and tests. This may lead to an increase in ROI for an EHR but also implies they are associated with higher health spending.
The S & P Healthcare Claims Index shows rapid growth in health cost trend for the individual market, both overall and for drugs, with rises well in excess of 10% and far greater than group coverage cost trends.
The current issue of JAMA has several studies on weight loss, finding that bariatric procedures generally are effective, vagal nerve blockade isn't, and any low fat, low carbohydrate diet seems to help.
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/issue.aspx
Sep042014
A new Chillmark report finds that population health management vendors are not yet offering products that providers and plans are happy with.
Activate Health, which says it is developing the next generation of work-site clinics, has received a multimillion dollar investment from Spring Mountain Capital.
A study done by NBC News finds that surgery prices have been rising fairly rapidly. About a 100 million procedures are performed a year in the US, at a per capita rate 50% above that in Europe and with a cost of $500 billion. There is enormous variation in prices in the same region and costs for many common surgeries are up over 500% since 2009.
Will the disappointments never end!!!! A study suggests that gamifying health apps doesn't necessarily lead to better or longer-lasting patient engagement.
Vendor Credentialing Services has merged with Medkinetics and Payer Enrollment Services, to create a company that provides a wider range of credentialing and compliance services, largely for providers.
A study in Medical Care finds that for small community medical practices, providing incentives for improvement on certain quality measures, coupled with technical assistance, did lead to significant increases in performance on those measures, but also led to lower performance on other, unincented, quality measures. This demonstrates the oft-feared unintended consequence of pay-for-performance, it diverts attention from overall care quality.
Here is an example of a stupid regulation solely designed to protect the interests of existing providers. Georgia's proposed telemedicine rule requires a face-to-face consultation before use of telemedicine and you have to have a Georgia license. Telemedicine could significantly reduce spending by decreasing unit costs, but not if it has to cope with this kind of lunacy.
Medtronic is not only seeking to lower its taxes by acquisition activity, but is also continuing to move into services, most recently by acquiring NGC Medical, which operates cath labs in Italy and hopes to expand to other European countries. The purchase price was $350 million.
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.
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.
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