Posted by Matthew Reimann | Posted on 26-06-2011
Two of my favorite health care bloggers Joe Paduda and Maggie Mahar each had excellent articles in this weeks Health Wonk Review, both discussing the recent Medicare Trustees annual report. Both take the position that the doom and gloom media sentiments about the report are overblown, and that the report doesnt really justify sweeping changes to the Medicare system.
Maggies article reminds readers that media articles have been predicting the financial insolvency of Medicare for decades, with bankruptcy predicted to occur as early as 1976 (obviously none of the predictions have come true so far). She also notes that much of the dire warnings come from twisted semantics: Theres a difference between using up surplus funds and running out of money. T
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Posted by Brianna Clark | Posted on 25-06-2011
When the US health care reform legislation comes into full force in 2014, about one third of employers will definitely or probably stop offering health insurance coverage to their workers, consulting company McKinsey wrote in a study involving over 1,300 companies from various industries and sizes.
The report authors believe that move the away from employer-provided health insurance will be considerably greater than politicians had envisaged. Read more…
Posted by Brianna Clark | Posted on 25-06-2011
Isotechnika Pharma Inc. today announced that its partner, Lux Biosciences, Inc. will appeal the European Medicines Agency’s decision not to approve Luveniq™ as a treatment for noninfectious uveitis involving the intermediate or posterior segments of the eye. The members of the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use , adopted a negative opinion recommending that marketing authorization should not be granted for Luveniq™.
Lux remains fully committed to the potential of Luveniq™ in the treatment of noninfectious uveitis. Lux believes that it has sufficient data to request a re-assessment of the application, and has 15 days in which to file the appeal.
In the U.S. Lux c
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Posted by Brianna Clark | Posted on 23-06-2011
Medical researchers have a critical role to play in gaining optimal health insurance reimbursement for MR-guided focused ultrasound. As Susan Klees, Director of Patient Access for the Focused Ultrasound Surgery Foundation, reports, “Scientific evidence is the key driver for reimbursement, and it all begins with the way studies are designed. Today, research priorities must be grounded in sound science as well as the realities of the marketplace.”
An interview with Klees appeared in the June 2011 of the Foundation’s online newsletter, which featured several stories related to health insurance reimbursement.
According to Klees, designing studies that address marketplace realities requires an understanding of what is valued by different groups. Read more…
Posted by Matthew Reimann | Posted on 23-06-2011
Last weeks Cavalcade of Risk (the fifth anniversary edition!) included a very interesting article by one of my favorite health care bloggers, Jaan Sidorov. Jaan wrote about a recent Dartmouth study published in the JAMA that analyzed health care costs, death rates, and preventable hospitalizations for Medicare beneficiaries in 2007, and also took into account how many doctors were providing primary care (including self-identified PCPs and full time equivalents, or FTEs) in each patients zip code.
For people who believe that increasing the number of PCPs would be a panacea for our healthcare system, the results of the Dartmouth study are likely to be surprising.
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Posted by Marcus Octoman | Posted on 23-06-2011
If you have ever shopped around around for a quality health insurance policy you know how confusing the details can be. It’s hard to know what’s important and what benefits apply directly to you. There are many options out there and it can easily become overwhelming. It’s important to take your time during this process.
According to the news release on Marketwire.com from GoHealthInsurance, there are five key factors every consumer should look for when comparing health insurance plans.
- Notice the deductible. Determi
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Posted by Matthew Reimann | Posted on 22-06-2011
This weeks Hot Grand Rounds included a post from InsureBlog about how GA has been generating revenue for its Medicaid program via a hospital revenue tax. The burden of that tax along with many other factors, including the economy over the past few years has led one hospital to cut roughly 5% of its workforce in an effort to cut costs.
The hospital tax discussed in the article very much reminded me of the one implemented here in Colorado by the 2009 Health Care Affordability Act. The concept sounds much the same: to even things up a bit among hospitals that treat few uninsured patients and those that bear the burden of treating lots of uninsured patients. A
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Posted by Brianna Clark | Posted on 22-06-2011
Allergan, Inc. today announced a new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases that found the cost of a gastric banding weight-loss surgery procedure, such as Allergan’s LAP-BAND® Adjustable Gastric Banding System, was offset by reductions in obesity-related medical costs within 2.25 years for surgery eligible patients with diabetes, and within four years of the procedure for all surgery eligible patients.
The study evaluated healthcare claims data from 7,310 patients who had undergone gastric banding compared to claims from a matched control group of 7,306 surgery eligible obese individuals who did not have weight-loss surgery, for the purpose of quantifying the potential savings of gastric banding.
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