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.
Symphony Technology Group, a health care focused private equity firm, is acquiring MDdatacor, a vendor of data collection and analytics products, and intends to combine it with other assets to form the Symphony Health Solutions business.
A study conducted in Canada and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine finds that as many as 31% of all written prescriptions are never filled, with cost, type of drug, age of the patient and regularity of visits to the same physician appearing to be associated with the rate of abandonment.
A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine finds that meeting meaningful use requirements in regard to seven performance measures for chronic disease care is only slightly associated with improvement on two performance measures, with worse performance on two and no difference in performance on three.
Truven Health Analytics has acquired Simpler Consulting to bolster its capability to help health care organizations reshape themselves and use the data that Truven provides.
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.