The segment of the population which is elderly and poor, thus often eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid coverage, is often not in good health and has very high expenses.…
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All the focus on quality and the effect of spending on quality of care has led to some creative research approaches to understanding what that relationship may be. A new…
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A Medicare Payment Advisory Commission report summarizes the federal incentive program for adoption and meaningful use of electronic health records and reports on progress, which appears to be very slow.
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Our latest Potpourri features the comparative cost of cancer care in the US and elsewhere, the effect of genomics on spending, international practice guidelines, state Medicaid waivers, unintended consequences from…
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The IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics has released a wonderful report on use of prescription drugs in the United States in 2011. A great deal of detailed information on therapeutic…
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In an era of multiple programs measuring outcomes and costs by provider and by disease or condition, the importance of consistent coding in the data used to do the measurement…
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One of the surprises of the expansion of health coverage in Massachusetts is that it seems to have increased emergency room use. A new study shows that this phenomenon might…
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In general, lower drug costs have helped decrease health spending growth, but specialty drug prices and use, often for cancer, have increased rapidly. New reports show these cost increases are…
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An early spring for much of the country and our latest Potpourri is in full bloom, with nuggets on health information exchanges, genetic testing guidelines, an employer survey on reform,…
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Physicians are as aware as anyone of the need to control health spending. Several physician specialty associations have released lists of procedures or treatments that consumers and doctors should question…
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