Where does all that health spending go and what areas are incurring some of the largest increases? An AHRQ statistical brief looks at hospital costs from 2001 and 2007 and identifies the ten fastest growing diagnoses by cost in that period.
A common perception is that there are too many hospital readmissions which could be prevented with better discharge planning. A new study indicates that scheduling follow-up visits may not help prevent readmissions, most of which are unrelated to the original admisssion in any event.
Home infusion of therapeutic agents is increasing, especially as more biologics, which tend to need infusion, are approved for use. GAO looked at how Medicare FFS handles home infusion versus how private plans do.
Once more into the breach with the Saturday health care roundup, including medication adherence, monitoring patients’ health status in their homes, Massachusetts’ reform update and insurance costs, hospitals’ economic contribution, hospital cost shifting and consumers’ views on use of health IT.
An FDA lawyer posts an excellent summary of potential issues in regard to FDA’s regulation of mobile health devices and services. He suggests that industry adopt a proactive approach of proposing sensible regulations and guidance to FDA.
The American Medical Association does an annual survey of claims processing and payment practices by large health plans. The AMA’s interpretation of the results needs to be taken with a grain of salt, given the definitions they use for appropriate payment.
The Council for American Medical Innovation has released a report about the value of medical innovation to the United States’ economy. Concern is expressed about maintaining a vigorous medical product industry in the face of funding, reimbursement and regulatory challenges.
PriceWaterhouseCooper has a Health Research Institute which periodically looks at medical cost trends. Consistent with other recent publications, PWC believes that costs are continuing to increase at a rate well above that of inflation or GDP growth.
Medicare’s Part D benefit covers most prescription drugs and has added significantly to the program’s cost, although not as much as originally projected. Now that the program has been in existence for a few years, researchers looked at whether the same geographic variation in spending exists for drugs as does for other Medicare services.
Another weekend bonanza of health care items, including health insurance premium increases, genetic testing, remote patient monitoring, eye drug coverage by Medicare, emergency room use under the reform law and paying people to take their medicine.
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].
© 2023 Healthy Skeptic.
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