So who is happy with the reform law? Not physicians, who are waking up to a reality of lower reimbursement and narrow provider networks for plans insurers are selling on the exchanges. Payers say the changes are necessary to create competitive plans.
The excellent Altarum Institute index on health inflation showed only a 1% year-over-year increase in September, with even hospital prices rising only at 1.5%. Utilization increased 2.7% on a per capita basis. The bad news is that overall health spending in real terms continues to outpace economic growth.
Towers Watson has purchased private health insurance exchange vendor Liazon to add to its capabilities and to its earlier purchase of Extend Health. All of the large benefits consultants are aggressively engaged in providing this capability to clients.
Displaying the cost of lab tests in an EHR led to a reduction in orders for the tests by primary care physicians, according to research in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
iVantage Health Analytics, which serves primarily hospitals, has acquired Xylem Consulting to boost its capabilities in helping health systems with payer contract negotiation and analysis.
The number of issues relating to the reform law is embarrassing and we don't want to appear to be piling on by mentioning them all, but the Administration has had to delay by a year the program to allow small business to purchase health insurance on the health exchange.
CVS Caremark is buying the home infusion of Apria Healthcare, Coram, for about $2.1 billion. This will make CVS the largest provider of home infusion and a bigger player in specialty drugs.
More trouble for the formulation of CMS' quality measures, as a University of Michigan study finds that that the data used by Medicare to compare hospitals on how well they do at preventing bedsores is seriously flawed and inaccurate, since in some cases it is based on claims data and in some cases on actual nurse bedside exams.
A study at Duke finds that an intervention to improve medication adherence by patients after a hospital stay did a good job at that but did not significantly affect readmissions.
The HHS Office of Inspector General releases its annual strategic plan, which is must reading for anyone involved with Medicare, Medicaid or other government programs. EHRs will be a focus of investigations.
According to a statement by the publicity department at CMS, Medicare beneficiaries saved about $3 billion in drug costs this year due to the reform law's gradual closing of the "donut" hole.
According to a Mercer survey of large employers, health care insurance costs per employee have risen 4.5% this year and the employers expect a larger increase next year.
A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine surveys research on the effect of patient portals and finds little evidence that this form of communication between patients and doctors either improves quality or lowers costs, although patients do like using them.
http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1770672
About this Blog
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.