Outstanding journalist Megan McArdle gives a great explanation of why our current system of health care quality measurement and improvement is pretty much worthless.
Contrary to what would be expected a new piece of research finds that having more insurers compete one of the reform exchanges results in higher, not lower, premiums, but the likely explanation is that there are more insurers offering plans in urban areas which also have higher medical costs.
http://f1000research.com/articles/4-25/v1
Jan282015
Health insurance exchanges that basically allow any insurer meeting certain standards to sell end up with lower prices than those that try to actively negotiate with plans, according to research in Health Affairs, proving once again the ineptitude of bureaucrats who think they know best.
A study in Health Affairs finds that mandating dependent coverage for children up to age 26 increased the insured status of younger trauma patients but did not lessen their mortality rate.
Huron Consulting, the very large operational consulting firm, is expanding its health care line of business by acquiring the Studer Group, which does management consulting for health systems, for a whopping $325 million.
Humana reports that providers who are at risk in its MA program have better quality and cost outcomes that those that have more traditional reimbursement.
MedPAC has expressed again its serious concern about the CMS approach to quality reporting, which it views as having an excessive number of measures which are burdensome to report on and often have to little to do with actual meaningful outcomes.
Human API, which gathers and shares health data among providers and patients, has raised $6.6 million in fresh capital.
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/humanapi
About this Blog
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.