ISPOR Summit on Value Assessment

On June 10, I will be presenting at ISPOR’s Summit on “Value Assessment: New Insights, Approaches, and Applications,” which will highlight evolving practices, new methods, and practical applications in value assessment. The Summit will provide a multistakeholder perspective, including recent developments in the incorporation of uncertainty and risk aversion into value measures, covering both the…

Impact of COVID-19 on CMS’ value-based programs

Many Medicare payment initiatives aim to link reimbursement to value. Value includes both cost and quality of care. However, measuring quality of care during a pandemic is problematic. Further, most of CMS’ value-based purchasing programs–such as Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Program, the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) and the Hospital-Acquired Condition (HAC) Reduction Program all…

COVID-19’s collateral deaths

People are not just dying from COVID, but the quarantine’s–while necessary–did exacerbate mental health issues for many individuals. This is especially true for individuals who suffer from Alzheimer’s and dementia. This American Life‘s had a recent episode showing how isolation likely accelerated the downward spiral of the narrator’s grandmother, who suffered from dementia. The Alzheimer’s…

Should you adjust for covariates when analyzing data from randomized controlled trials?

FDA draft guidance published this month says you should. In most cases, adjusting for covariates is not necessary. Randomization generally insurers that covariates are balanced across clinical trial arms. Randomization, however, may not always result in perfectly balanced trial arms. In these cases, the FDA notes that covariate adjustment is perfectly acceptable. There are some…

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Affordability vs. Innovation. “standardizing contracts generates larger savings with less variance than savings from single‐payer strategies” The placebo effect examined Income growth in knowledge industries. Alcohol sales restrictions and alcohol poisoning mortality.