A study in Health Affairs suggests that giving emergency medical services more flexibility in transporting to places other than ERs could save Medicare several hundred million dollars a year.
Centene Corp. is paying about $200 million to gain a 68% interest in U.S. Medical Management, which provides management services for complex patients, typically in post-acute settings.
According to the Medical Group Management Association practices costs to support a physician continue to rise significantly, led by IT costs which increased by by 28% per physician from 2008 to 2012.
http://www.mgma.com/press/default.aspx?id=1375452
Dec122013
A Booz & Co. report postulates the possibility of creating health plans with radically lower administrative costs.
LabCorp issued guidance suggesting that 2014 revenue and net income will be below prior expectations, blaming uncertainty caused by the reform law implementation in part.
A Kaiser Family Foundation article suggests that even if there is substantial under-enrollment of the young, healthy people needed to subsidize health care costs for older enrollees, insurers should not have to raise premiums dramatically, but the authors own analysis likely understates the cost of the sicker enrollees and shows that second-year premium increases of over 20% would likely be necessary to avoid continuing losses.
CIC Partners, a private equity firm, has sold portfolio company Omnisys, which provides claims and compliance services to retail and mail order pharmacies, to Moelis Capital Partners.
HealthPort, which helps companies manage and secure private health information, has merged with CM Information Specialists, a company which provides similar services.
According to CMS, avoidable Medicare hospital readmissions were around 18% for the first eight months of 2013, down from 19% in prior years, reflecting the possible effect of the readmissions penalty program.
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the current cost over the next ten years of repealing the SGR physician payment formula and using a zero update during that time is $116 billion and replacing it with a .5% annual update is $136 billion. This cost is down substantially from the $271 billion repeal cost estimated a couple of years ago.
An AHRQ Statistical Brief shows that for the Medicare population in 2010 the top 5 classes of drug use were metabolic, cardiovascular, CNS, respiratory and gastrointestinal, accounting for $63 billion and 68% of all Medicare drug spending.
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.