JMCP Award for Excellence

This week at the 2017 Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) conference, the Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy (JMCP) announced its annual Award for Excellence. The award was established in 2002 “…to recognize an article that represents the best scholarly work in managed care pharmacy.” This year, the 2016 Award for Excellence went to…

Is more income equality a good thing?

This is a normative question.  Some people would prefer a society with more income re-distribution.  More income re-distribution is “fairer” in the sense that fewer people would suffer from a low standard of living.  Most societies (and individual humans) place at least a some value in insuring that the worst off amongst us have some resources at their…

Supply side health reform

Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution notes that designing a health care system that focuses on benefits to consumers and is important, but one should not ignore how any health care system design affects the supply of health care, in particular incentives to create innovative goods and services. By greater spending on medical research, I mean not…

Drug approval and reimbursement when clinical trials use surrogate endpoints

An interesting paper from some of my colleagues at Precision Health Economics: Approval of new drugs is increasingly reliant on “surrogate endpoints,” which correlate with but imperfectly predict clinical benefits. Proponents argue surrogate endpoints allow for faster approval, but critics charge they provide inadequate evidence. We develop an economic framework that addresses the value of…

An AHCA Edition of the HWR is up

Louise Norris has posted The AHCA: The Aye or Nay? Edition of the Health Wonk Review at Colorado Health Insurance Insider and it couldn’t be timelier. It’s not only the AHCA’s moment to shine (or stink depending on your perspective), but it is also the 7th anniversary of the enactment of the ACA, as Louise notes in…

How the AHCA will affect the Federal Budget

On the positive side, the American Health Care Act (AHCA) will decrease the federal budget deficit due largely to reductions in Medicaid spending and subsidies for the Health Insurance Exchanges enacted by the Affordable Care Act (ACA).  On the other hand, the AHCA will greatly increase the number of people without health insurance. Federal Spending…

Innovative Cancer Care models

What does CMS consider to be innovative oncology care?  The following three programs won a CMS Health Care Innovation Award for their initiative. Community Oncology Medical Home (COME HOME).  This model relied on three key principles: (i) triage pathways to help first responders and nurses identify and manage patient symptoms; (ii) enhanced access to care through…