We enter the year’s home stretch with a great Potpourri, focusing on comparison friction in Part D plan shopping, a Harris poll on health-related internet use, the effect of aging populations on health costs, creation of a data repository by major insurers, Mercer’s survey of employers on 2012 expected health benefit costs and AHRQ’s site on unintended EHR consequences.
Another wonderful collection of health care research summaries, including a GAO report on likely effects of the MLR rule, physician work intensity, reducing hospital-acquired infections, discharge followup and hospital readmissions, the effect of pay-for-performance on cardiac care and use of EHRs and health history recording.
New research provides stronger evidence that using electronic health records may improve quality of care according to some measures more than continuing to use paper medical records, at least for diabetes patients.
Summer begins to wane but our Potpourri remains hot, with items on large employers benefit intentions for 2012, Australia’s project to create a unified patient medical record, hospital collections at the point-of-service, physician compensation, trends in per capita medical costs and how to avoid issues in accountable care organizations.
This week’s Potpourri features dropped malpractice claims, the quality benefits of EHRs, improper Medicare payments, health insurer customer satisfaction, the utilization and cost effects of using hospitalists, and determining if a patient has decision-making capacity.
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, state Medicaid EHR incentive programs, patient understanding of trial data, and use of FQHC’s by Medicaid enrollees.
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 [email protected].
© 2024 Healthy Skeptic.
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