According to an iVantage Health Analytics report, rural hospitals are far less expensive than urban ones for the same diagnoses and deliver just as good a quality and patient satisfaction.
Cigna has released the 8th annual report on high deductible plans, finding that costs were 12% lower for members in those plans and they were much more likely to engage in activities like completing an HRA.
Hearst Health continued its health care acquisition spree, acquiring CareInSync, a maker of software that aids collaboration across care teams in different settings.
Altarum's report on health spending as of February 2014 shows 6.7% year-over-year growth, with the highest rate of growth in drug spending, followed by hospital inpatient and home health. The overall growth rate is accelerating and is significantly higher than GDP growth.
Megas, which makes health information software, and Unicor, which sells coding books and software, are merging to form Alpha II.
http://www.alphaii.com/AlphaII-PressRelease.aspx
Apr232014
A monster.com survey finds that 42% of employees say they have left a job because of work-related stress and a large number say that work stress has led to absenteeism and health problems.
The HHS Office of Inspector General has issued a report recommending that Congress or CMS reduce payments for hospital outpatient surgeries to the same rates as those for freestanding surgery centers, which could save billions a yearn for CMS and beneficiaries.
Catamaran, a large PBM, has issued its version of drug trend reporting, showing a per member per month trend of 2.4% in 2013 versus 2.6% in 2012. Upward pressure is almost all from brand drug unit price increases and greater use and cost of specialty drugs, offset by continued generic expansion. Catamaran is anticipating that trend could be as high as 5% in 2014, 6% in 2015 and 7.7% in 2016, driven by rising specialty use.
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.