Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
I’m not talking about civil unions (that topic is for another blog)…but instead actual trade unions. Compared to Democrats, Republicans have been relatively pro-business and anti-union for many years. However, The Atlantic has an article making the case that Republicans should become more pro union. Perhaps not pro-union in the traditional US union setting but…
Yuval Levin has an interesting article in The Nation on Obamacare and the Senate’s most recently proposed bill, the Better Care Reconciliation Ace. There has been a lot of arguments on both sides of the aisle about Better Care especially in terms of the provisions to decrease Medicaid funding and devolve more power to the States.…
Below is the abstract for my most recent publication titled “Access to credible information on schizophrenia patients’ medication adherence by prescribers can change their treatment strategies: evidence from an online survey of providers“. It is work with Suepattra G May, Anshu Shrestha, Charles Ruetsch, Nicole Gerlanc, Felicia Forma, Ainslie Hatch, Darius N Lakdawalla, and Jean-Pierre Lindenmayer.…
Scientists often use randomized controlled trials (RCT) to examine whether certain treatments have a causal effect on patient outcomes. For social scientists, however, conducting an RCT is more difficult. Nevertheless, there have been a number of health policy trials. In a recent NEJM paper, Newhouse and Normand (2017) review some of these trials. A summary…
Value-based payment is the latest hot topic. One question remains, however, does it work? Does paying for quality improve quality. A study by Zuckerman et al. (2016) finds that the hospital readmissions reduction program (HRRP) did appear to reduce re-hospitalization rates among the targeted conditions. What about the hospital value-based purchasing program (HVBP). Beginning in…
The Senate’s new health care bill, the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017, proposes a number of changes to the Affordable Care Act. The Kaiser Family Foundation has a detailed breakdown of the bill and compares it with the Affordable Care Act that President Obama passed and the American Health Care Act that was proposed…
Joe Paduda has posted this week’s version of the Health Wonk Review (HWR) – The double edition at Managed Care Matters. Check it out. I also found this very honest discussions of effects of concussions in the NFL from former player and Hall of Famer Warren Sapp. The video is below and the article here.
U.S. ranks poorly in differences in self-reported health by income. FDA pulls opioid off the market. Medicaid reform. Follow the money. Value frameworks and IVI Insurers now joining Obamacare?
Value-based payment for providers is often predicated on being able to measure physician quality with a single composite measures. For instance, Medicare’ s Value-Based Payment Modifier (Value Modifier) combines a variety of individual quality metrics across domains to create a single quality score. Payment to physicians is adjusted based on a combination of physician quality…
Value frameworks are all the rage of late. But are payers really using them? According to my colleague Jeremy Schafer, the answer is yes. From an article in Drug Topics: “Value assessment may become more important as the health-care market shifts to outcomes and value-based reimbursement models,” said Jeremy Schafer, PharmD, MBA, Senior Vice President…