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.
At least $75 billion in uncompensated care was rendered by providers in 2013, most by hospitals, and about 65% of that was offset by government payments, according to research in Health Affairs.
The Long Term Care Group, which was owned by UnitedHealth Group at one point, has been acquired by Stone Point Capital. LTCG administers long-term care insurance policies.
A TowersWatson survey finds that 59% of workers are satisfied with their health benefits, a drop of 10% since 2007, with older workers and those in poorer health reporting the lowest levels of satisfaction. Cost is the greatest source of discontent with health benefits.
Research in Health Affairs finds that ambulatory surgery centers take significantly less time per procedure than do hospital outpatient surgery centers, with lower costs and equal or better outcomes, suggesting that their use should be encouraged.
A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine finds that medical home-qualified physician groups produced improvement on only four of ten quality improvement measures, compared to non-medical home practices using EHRs or practices using paper records, and the improvements were quite modest.
http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1877017
Jun062014
The Congressional Budget Office has updated its estimates of how many people will pay the penalty for failing to have health insurance, finding that of the 30 million uninsured in 2016 only about 7 million will have to pay a penalty and two-thirds of those are lower income individuals. The amounts collected are also projected to be lower than previously estimated.
The Office of Inspector General of HHS has issued a report saying that CMS likely overpaid for office visits in Medicare by $6.7 billion and recommended that CMS take efforts to recover this money and to track abusive physicians better. CMS basically blew OIG off, I mean after all, what's a few billion more of wasted taxpayer funds.
The Center for Public Integrity has launched a series of articles on how Medicare Advantage plans use diagnostic coding to secure higher reimbursements, like adding to pressure to reform payments and the practice of home visits to secure diagnostic codes.
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.