A recent report from the NIHCM details national spending, showing that a few patients account for a lot of costs and that hospitals are the largest source of spending growth.…
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AHRQ releases a Statistical Brief on Hospital-Acquired Conditions, which are a focus of quality improvement, including unreimbursed never events. The Brief details types of conditions across several payers, including Medicare.
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A mid-summer's evening (or weekend) Potpourri, but no heated discussion here, just soothing nuggets of knowledge, including use and misuse of PCI, how to measure blood pressure, CMS and telemedicine,…
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Our final drug report post discusses releases from Express Scripts, the Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute and ESI's PMSI division, which focuses on workers' compensation pharmacy. Express Scripts emphasizes behavioral aspects…
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Today's drug trend reports come from Medco and CVS Caremark, two of the largest pharmacy benefit managers. Both experienced relatively low overall trends and both anticipate specialty drug management being…
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Our next set of drug reports deals with specialty drugs, the most expensive and fastest growing category, and one which has bedeviled payers but many of the drugs are covered…
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The first analysis of a weeklong series on recent reports related to aspects of the pharmaceutical industry covers IMS' report giving projections on aspects of global drug use and spending…
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Our current Potpourri features Google's dropping of its PHR, the AMA's report on insurer claims paying, the role of health advocacy groups, employer's intentions in regard to offering health coverage,…
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A Rand report examines how self-insured employers might be affected by the PPACA, finding it unlikely that small employers will significantly shift to self-funding. The report also finds little reason…
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A study finds that using home health care after a hospital admission for Medicare beneficiaries with certain chronic illnesses reduces Medicare Part A spending and readmissions compared to a beneficiary…
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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.