Research in the Quarterly Journal of Economics uses a large disenrollment from Tennessee's low-income health care coverage program to study the effects of basically free public health insurance on job seeking and employment. Losing access to free coverage results in people looking for and finding more jobs, largely those with health care coverage. Getting free coverage means fewer people will work, a consequence the CBO projects in regard to the reform law. While some idiots decry the terrible problem of people having to work at jobs they don't like to keep health care coverage, we prefer to be concerned about the poor working saps who have to pay exorbitant tax rates to pay for slackers' health care, while their own health care costs skyrocket.
The use of administrative data, as opposed to chart review, to gather information on hospital readmissions, results in incorrect reasons for the readmission in about a third of cases, according to research in JAMA Surgery, which could seriously affect penalties levied on hospitals under the CMS program to reduce readmissions.
If you think that supposedly neutral information sites are in fact neutral, just look at this headline from the respectable Kaiser news site, which tries to put a positive spin on premium increase proposals for 2015 exchange rates, by saying they are less than 10% in California and only 8.25%, less than the rate of increase before reform, in Washington state. Simply absurd to try to minimize the effects of these increases which are three times the rate of inflation or GDP growth and remember that the Administration promised us reform would lower premiums.
Medtronic, one of the world's largest medical device makers, will get even bigger by buying Covidien for $42 billion. Medtronic will also technically move its headquarters to Ireland, getting a large tax benefit.
Intermedix, a vendor of revenue cycle management and administrative services, has acquired the billing division of T-Systems, which provides billing services for ERs.
Putting a Patient Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment form in the patient's medical record seems to ensure that the patient's preferences about end-of-life care are respected.
An Aon Hewitt survey of employers finds that around 70% intend to adopt reference pricing and that a large number plan to use "gating" strategies in the future to give employees richer benefit designs, but only if they take certain actions to ensure cost-effective care and healthy behaviors. Per person pricing, reduced dependent subsidies and more use of health cost transparency tools are also growing strategies.
Doctors would seldom chose aggressive end-of-life care for themselves, although they often order it for patients, according to research in PLoS One. Almost all doctors have or would have advance directives declining resuscitation or other heroic measures.
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.
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.