The week's Potpourri continues the tradition of presenting excellent nuggets of health information, including EHR use in the VA system, the effect of making surrogate care decisions, screening for ovarian…
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CMS issued a proposed notice regarding its regular review of relative value units for physician reimbursement under Medicare. The notice gives you a sense of the impossibility of understanding what…
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Two articles report on research into aspects of health information exchange, a cornerstone reason for expanding provider use of information technology, particularly electronic medical records. Infrastructure for HIE is severely…
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A working paper at the National Bureau of Economics reports on an analysis of the effects of England's attempt to increase competition between hospitals on quality, finding that hospitals in…
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A new report from McKinsey finds that the federal reform law will have more of an effect on the market for employer-based health insurance than other studies suggested would occur.…
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Another scintillating menu of health care tidbits, including provider reaction to the proposed Accountable Care Organization rule; end-of-life care in the US and Canada; hospital volume and outcomes for difficult…
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CMS has proposed a rule to implement a PPACA provision allowing access to extracts of provider-level Medicare data to evaluate performance, primarily on quality measures. This is a good first…
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A new report on prices paid by commercial insurers in Massachusetts shows great variation, which appears unrelated to providers' costs or to the quality of care delivered. While the specific…
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An Institute of Medicine report finds Medicare's geographic reimbursement adjustment formulas to be seriously flawed and suggests general principles to guide a reworking. The conclusions and follow-up reports are sure…
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Responding to a challenge for each medical specialty to find methods for reducing inappropriate care and spending in that specialty, two oncologists identify a number of steps that could easily…
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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.