A lot of great items in this week’s potpourri, covering the acquisition of HealthGrades, what encourages men to get screenings, potential cheating on pay-for-performance schemes, the problems of a multi-payer system, improving heart failure care, Canada’s experience with EHRs and autonomous robot surgery.
There has been no more gnarly health care problem for Congress than how to deal with physician reimbursement. At some point, as a Health Affairs article points out, it will have to come up with a better solution than the temporary fixes it has used for years.
Trashing insurance companies is popular and one of the most frequent complaints is about their premium increases and profits. A NEJM perspective uses misleading information to continue dumping on health plans.
A study in JAMA suggests that process-of-care quality measures, which are frequently used for bonus or penalty reimbursement programs, may have little real relationship to ultimate health outcomes.
Workers’ compensation health cost trends may provide some insight into underlying medical cost issues across the system and vice versa. An NCCI report looks at factors driving trends in medical cost increases for workers’ compensation.
The notion of a health insurance exchange to assist individuals and small groups in finding affordable health insurance is a critical part of the coverage expansion in the recent health law. A Commonwealth Fund report reviews important issues to consider in the establishment and operation of these exchanges.
More midsummer musings, covering possible replacements for AWP, the effect of Part D on heart failure drug use, the VA’s telehealth programs, venture capital activity, self-management of high blood pressure, and of course, more problems with health insurance costs in Massachusetts.
More commentary on MedPAC’s Annual Report, focusing on the care of dual-eligible beneficiaries and the use of shared decision-making in the Medicare population.
MedPAC’s annual report always contains many useful analyses of health care issues, complete with research citations. This year’s report covers several topics of general interest, including effective benefit designs and improving quality efforts.
For several decades drug companies have taken a beating over their pricing and many governments have limited how those companies charge for their products. A new study suggests that such regulation does limit development of new medicines.
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].
© 2022 Healthy Skeptic.
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