A Health Affairs article reports a survey on the time and expense involved in physician interaction with health plans.
Experts are recommending greater use of telemedicine in stroke assessment and treatment. There are significant barriers, however, many imposed by government.
A recent JAMA commentary gives a concise summary of the cost control problems.
Republican Senators have now introduced a bill to essentially gut federal funding or use of comparative effectiveness research, continuing an attack on the proposed expansion of such research for the purpose of controlling costs
The Wall Street Journal article summarized some research results regarding the potential cost savings of prevention and wellness efforts, particularly for persons with chronic diseases. The overall conclusion is that not much money is likely to be saved by such methods, primarily because the cost of these programs when applied to a large population tends to outweigh the health care cost savings which eventually accrue.
A pair of recent announcements by the American Medical Association pique one’s curiousity.
Illumina has announced that for $48,000 a consumer can have their entire DNA sequenced
Several prominent health industry segments have issued a follow-up statement identifying more specifically where they believe health care cost savings can be achieved.
The work of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission is always worth reading carefully. (Medpac website) It is one of the government groups that seems to do its job with a high degree of professionalism. MEDPAC’s reports contain useful data and it often provide unvarnished analysis and insight into America’s health care cost issues.
The American Hospital Association and the American Medical Association, in conjunction with a number of physician specialty organizations, have each released statements regarding proposals to help control health care costs by changing, even reducing payments to providers.
An interesting news report on Kaiser Health News gives an indication of why health reform that affects costs will be very difficult. The story details the fight in one New Jersey town over building a new hospital.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (“AHRQ”) Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project released a report in April 2009 outlining hospitalizations that might have been preventable had the patients been receiving appropriate ambulatory care.
A study reported in Health Affairs, vol. 28, page 897 (May/June 2009), provides a further input to the question of the relationship, if any, between costs and quality in health care.
The American Academy of Family Physicians has been at the forefront of efforts to re-emphasize the role of primary care physicians in the health system; and has participated in development of the patient-centered medical home as a method for revitalizing primary care.
A recent article in The American Journal of Managed Care (volume 15, page 295, May 2009), described findings from a comparison within the Kaiser Permanente system of patients with diabetes who were subject to a care management program and those who were not.