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Healthy Skeptic

Health care news and research

 

ACA Impact on Business

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A new report from the Urban Institute examines the controversial issue of the impact of the Patient Protection Act on businesses of various sizes, showing that for small businesses it may reduce cost, it likely increases the cost for mid-sized ones and is neutral to large companies.

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Public Reporting of Outcomes Also Has Problems

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More research, this time from the Journal of the American Medical Association, to suggest that another quality improvement technique, this time public reporting of outcomes, does not achieve the intended goals. In regard to heart attack patients receiving PCI, public reporting seems to lead to lower rates of the procedure and no change in mortality outcomes.

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Pay for Performance Has Problems

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Research reported in the New England Journal of Medicine reveals that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services program of not paying for certain hospital acquired infections is not working, to put it mildly. The program seems to have had absolutely no impact on the targeted infection rates.

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2012 Potpourri XXXI

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It is cooling down across most of the country, but our Potpourri remains red-hot, with nuggets on the moderation in health spending over the last few years, how to change automatic health behaviors, EHRs and diabetes care, a medical home pilot in Colorado and an ACO demonstration in Maine.

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2012 Potpourri XXX

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Another luminescent Potpourri, focusing on the ACA’s high-risk pool plan; controlling health spending in Massachusetts; what components of EHRs and HIEs may control costs; another survey of employers and dealing with hospital pricing power.

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