Striking a blow for, for, for...er, we aren't sure what, other than protectionism, the Texas Board of Medicine has limited the ability of patients to access care through telemedicine.
A research paper from UHC, the consortium of academic medical centers, finds that physician preference items, such as cardiac or orthopedic devices, are often used without regard to their actual quality or cost outcomes. Customizing devices, waste and devices mismatched to patient characteristics were significant contributors to the problem.
A new study in JAMA Internal Medicine finds that functional impairment is linked to risk of more hospital readmissions among Medicare beneficiaries, but the current penalty program fails to take these very common circumstances into account.
A private equity firm is acquiring Informatica for $5.3 billion. Informatica has a health division which helps companies manage large amounts of data and build analytic tools.
An analysis conducted for AHIP by The Menges Group finds that states that keep their Medicaid medical and drug benefits in the same plan as opposed to separating them have lower total drug spending. The savings were about 14.6% per prescription or over $2 billion.
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.