The world is getting safer
…well, at least fewer people are dying from natural disasters. This is from a recent New York Times article.
Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
…well, at least fewer people are dying from natural disasters. This is from a recent New York Times article.
Reforming the WHOs Essential Medicines List. Should countries ban dual practice by physicians? Evidence on alcohol use. College vaccine mandates and COVID deaths. Using natural experiments for analysis of population health. 4 in 5 pregnancy-related deaths are preventable.
That is the title of a article yesterday in Kaiser Health News. What is your initial reaction to this title? That pharmaceutical firms are making unfair profits here? Likely so. However, if you keep reading, you will see the following: In the United Kingdom, where health care is generally free and Takeda sells the drug…
The Yost Index is a measure of socioeconomic status (SES) across geographic areas. The index was developed by Kathleen Yost and coauthors in their 2001 paper titled “Socioeconomic status and breast cancer incidence in California for different race/ethnic groups.” There are seven key inputs to creating the Yost index were calculated at the Census block…
Prior authorization policies may save money for payers, but they impose significant costs on patients and providers. A JAMA Viewpoint by Anderson, Darden and Jain (2022) examines various approaches for improving prior authorization in Medicare Advantage. In a recent survey of 1004 physicians, 88% reported that the burden associated with prior authorization requirements was high…
That is the connection made between Medicare Advantage (MA) Star Ratings under the Quality Bonus Program (QBP) and Garrison Keillor well-known segment on the Prairie Home Companion in a recent paper by Teno and Ankuda (2022). To better understand this linkage, first recall the famous quote from Mr. Keillor: That’s the news from Lake Wobegon,…
In recent years, FDA has approved a number of pieces of software that use artificial intelligence (AI) under its medical device approval system. FDA approved only 5 AI-power medical devices in 2015, but approved 115 of these in 2021 and likely will approve even more in 2022. Which companies are the ones with the most…
One would think that this question would be a relatively easy question to answer empirically: simply compare patients with delays against those without delays and see if there is a difference in health outcomes (e.g., survival). This approach, however, is problematic as due to three key methodological concerns. Measurement issues. Ideally, one would like to…
Hunger in America. Cancer vaccines being developed by Moderna/Merck and BioNTech. Health plan value ≠ star ratings. Impact of daylight savings on health. Reduced copayment for psychologist treatment and suicide attempts. Ode to Giannis.
That is the subtitle from an article in F1000 from Rena Conti (2020). Some individuals claim that because the federal government–often through the National Institutes of Health (NIH)–fund basic research that can inform drug development and then consumers have to pay for those drugs once again after they are approved, this means that Americans are…