Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Ultimately, individuals and households pay for health care. Whether payments are made directly to providers, via taxes or through commercial insurance, households are the sole source of health care financing. Further, all treatments are ultimately provided on behalf of individuals and households. A key question, however, is which types of individuals pay more for health…
Academic health centers often have a glowing reputation among clinicians and the general public of being the best of the best. In many cases, simple analysis of the numbers does not seem to back this assertion up. Part of the reason is selection bias. Academic and community health centers do not treat the same types…
This is the title of my article at pharmaphorum. The precis of the article is below. The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) measures the value of new drugs and health technologies, but faces a number of key challenges such as keeping their assessments up to date with new evidence, allowing for different perspectives…
Top 10 HEOR trends in 2020. Marketing works: Informational outreach and the insurance mandate. Delivery system performance as financial risk varies Another failed intervention targeting superutilizers. Cancer and coronavirus.
Nurse practitioner employment has nearly doubled between 2010 and 2017 according to Auerbach et al. (2020). If nurse practitioners can provide similar quality for some services at lower cost, nurse practitioners could save money. If nurse practitioners can help better leverage physician time for more complex services, and increase access to care, they may be…
On March 9, I wrote a post titled “COVID-19 in context” which showed that COVID-19 (annualized) death rate would make it the the 27th leading cause of death worldwide. By March 21st, it was the 17th leading cause of death. Now, on March 31st, COVID-19 is the 13th leading cause of death (worldwide), if we…
I have written about the 340b program a number of times on this blog in the past (e.g., “The 340B Program: An Overview“, “340B Facts and Figures“). A new commentary by Thomas and Schulman (2020) in Health Services Research provides some additional information. For instance, why was 340B originally enacted? Blame the Medicaid Drug Rebate…
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act has been passed by the Senate and signed by the President. There are mixed opinions about this specific bill, but certainly a bailout/relief package of some size was needed. What is in the package? The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) has a nice visualization.
COVID-19 Links What’s coming with COVID-19? The cost of sending everyone checks. Hotel industry cuts 40% of workers due to COVID-19. Inter Miami promotes social distancing. NBA player’s mom in coma due to COVID-19 Other links: What’s in the bailout bill. Decreasing marginal returns to drunk driving stringency? Did Medicaid expansion increase access to opioid…
As for other “moneyed interests,” no fewer than 30 Big Pharma and small biotech firms are racing for treatments and vaccines. Moderna turned around a vaccine batch in just 42 days. Gilead Sciences is already in Phase 3 trials for its remdesivir treatment for Covid-19. Straight off President Trump’s announcement of FDA approval for antimalarial…