Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Approximately one in five prescriptions for drugs in the US are for off label use. In some cases, this may be inapprorpiate as there is typically limited clinical evidence supporting off label use. In other cases, off label use is approrpiate. Clinical trials rarely enroll children or pregnant women and thus medictions are often not…
Progress in the fight against pancreatic cancer? Pouring billions down the drain? Does calorie labeling work? When life gives you MACRA. A one size fits all formulary policy?
According to a recent study by Koulayev, Simeonova, and Skipper (2016) using data from Denmark, the answer is ‘yes’. Non-compliance with medication therapy remains an unsolved and expensive problem for healthcare systems around the world, yet we know little about the factors that affect a patient’s decision to follow treatment recommendations. In particular, there is…
Health plans in the health insurance marketplaces have been competing to keep prices low, while still offering all the services mandated under the Affordable Care Act. One way to do this is to restrict provider networks to lower cost providers. For patients, restricting provider networks may be a good deal if (i) the quality of…
On it’s website, the Instititute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) claims that it is “…a trusted non-profit organization that evaluates evidence on the value of medical tests, treatments and delivery system innovations and moves that evidence into action to improve the health care system. ” A recent article in Huffington Post however, disagrees. They make two key…
Steve Anderson has posted Health Wonk Review, the Yuuuuuuuge Edition at medicareresources.org blog. Check it out!
‘Are you dead yet’? Digitizing you and me. The future of economics? After the election, will you be able to import drugs from Canada? Merger madness on hold?
Patients with serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia often struggle with medication adherence, due to lack of insight into their disease, medication side effects, forgetfulness, and a variety of other factors. One solution to this problem is to use long-acting injectables or LAIs. Whereas most antipsychotics are oral medications, LAIs are typically injectables that you need to…
“We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.” E.O. Wilson
In 2016 we will hit a milestone: national health spending per capita is projected to exceed $10,000 for the first time. This estimate is from an article by Keehan et al. (2016). In this paper, CMS’ Office of the Actuary (OACT) estimates costs not only this year but over the coming 10 years. According to their projects,…