Research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that the onset of Part D prescription drug coverage helped reduce relative non-drug spending for those beneficiaries who previously…
Read More
The Government Accounting Office examined various interventions designed to improve the quality of health care and/or lower costs and analyzed the strength of the evidence supporting the effect of the…
Read More
Projections of national health expenditures through 2010 show a continued relentless upward trend, at a rate faster than GDP growth; with spending reaching 20% of GDP by the end of…
Read More
A recent report from the Commonwealth Fund describes the status of plans to have accountable care organizations and other provider systems take on financial risk for their patients, finding that…
Read More
Our current Potpourri contains nuggets on use of robotic surgery for prostate cancer, the effect of mandated rebates in Medicare Part D on patient costs, FDA guidance on device modifications,…
Read More
Each year CMS issues proposed, and ultimately final, rules relating to reimbursement for various categories of providers in the next year. The 2012 rules have a wealth of background and…
Read More
A lot of the work on geographic variation in spending has been done on the Medicare population. New research published in Health Affairs examines variation in Medicaid spending for the…
Read More
Research published in the New England Journal of Medicine examines early results from the Massachusetts Blue Cross plan's global budgeting program, finding very modest health spending reductions and small changes…
Read More
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.