Weekend Links
Spouse vs. patient preferences for nursing homes. Food swamps. Medicaid and moral hazard. Medicare access to anti-opioid medications. The price ain’t right. Brexit and access to pharmaceuticals. Cure for cancer?
Author: Jason Shafrin
IVI-NSCLC Value Tool
Please see below some exciting news from the Innovation and Value Initiative (IVI) on the release of the IVI-NSCLC Value Tool. The press release is below. IVI is excited to publish our Open-Source Value Platform (OSVP) model focusing on epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) positive, non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and we invite public…
Is there a physician available?
According to research by Leech et al. (2018), the answer may depend on whether or not you are black or white. Compared to the control group, “Black” auditors were less likely to be told an office was accepting new patients and were more likely to experience both withholding behaviors and misattributions about public insurance. The…
Uninsurance on the rise
The repeal of the individual mandate may have begun to appear in the uninsurance statistics. According to figures from Gallup, insurance rates rose to 13.7%, up from a recent low of 10.9% in Q3 2016.
Measuring caregiver quality of life
Poor health does not just affect the patient, but also the caregiver who provide physicial, emotional and financial support for these patients. To measure the impact of a disease on patient quality of life, there are a number of metrics one can choose from such as EQ-5D-5L, EQ-5D-VAS, SF-36 among others. Some of these surveys…
Trends in Obamacare plans: 2019 edition
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation conducted case study interviews of health insurance exchange marketplace (i.e., Obamacare marketplaces) in 10 states (i.e., California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Ohio, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia) to determine trends in the available plans. One general trend was that large commercial insurers were leaving the marketplace. Marketplace participation is…
Friday Links
Government shutdown slows drug approvals. Does emailing your doctor save or cost money? Digital health and direct-to-consumer marketing. A smart watch for epilepsy. Genetic instrumental variables (GIV). The groin crusher.
Adverse selection and single payer systems
In single payer systems, the problem of adverse selection in health insurance is solved because the single payer must cover all people. Because the single payer cannot avoid covering any individual, there is no strategic gaming on coverage decisions. There may, however, be strategic decisions made on the treatment of patients. Consider the case of…
Progress in the war on cancer
Siegel et al. (2019) present a review of cancer incidence and mortality statistics in American over recent decades. Their key findings were: Over the past decade of data, the cancer incidence rate (2006‐2015) was stable in women and declined by approximately 2% per year in men, whereas the cancer death rate (2007‐2016) declined annually by…
What is a “digital practitioner”?
The FDA estimates that 50% of all 3.4 billion worldwide smartphone users have downloaded a health app. Do these apps work? Even if they work for the average patient, will they work for you? And with whom could you discuss your app-based treatment options? To answer these questions, in the future you may need a…