Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
One reason is that physicians may value their own experiences (i.e., learning by doing) over the accumulated experience across many providers. A paper by Berndt et al. (2015) look at physician prescribing patterns of antipsychotic. They note that some physicians concentrate in prescribing specific antipsychotics and others concentrate on prescribing other ones. The authors claim the…
There have been a number of efforts emphasize the importance of mental health and put mental health treatments at the same level of respect as physical health. For instance, there was the Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 and also The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (MHPAEA) , which: …requires group…
In his State of the Union, the President said that he was looking for additional funds for precision medicine. What would these funds be used for and how much money are we talking about? The details were revealed last week. The Presdient describes precision medicine as “delivering the right treatments, at the right time, every…
Specialty drugs have greatly improved quality and duration of life for many patients. Specialty drugs have been developed for a variety of illnesses, such as cancer, hepatitis C, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis. However, these drugs are typically very expensive. Are they worth the cost? A paper by Chambers et al. (2014) find the following: …specialty drugs offered…
Does increasing use of prescription drugs decrease cost? There is evidence on both sides of the aisle. However, a recnet paper by Deb, Trevedi and Zimmer (2014) does find evidence of cost offsets using a sophisticated copula-based bivariated dynamic hurdle model. This model, models drug and non-drugs spending and for each dimensions models the probability…
Developing drugs is expensive. Some estimates have estimated that the cost of bringing a drug to market is $1 billion. In addition, payers are now reimbursing based on the perceived value of a treatment. That is, treatments that provide more health benefits receive higher reimbursements. In this world of value-based pricing (VBP), pharmaceutical companies have…
As China is now the second largest economy in the world, spending on medical services and medications is also growing. Pharmafile reports: China is positioned to become the second-largest pharmaceutical market, after the US, by next year, according to healthcare analysts IMS Health; meanwhile, by growing an estimated 15% to 18% annually, the organisation says…
How important is a name? In the case of biologics and biosimilars, billions of dollars depends on whether biosimilars can share the same name as branded biologics. WonkBlog explains the biologic vs. biosimilar debate: Biologics, which treat serious diseases like cancer and multiple sclerosis, are usually more expensive than conventional drugs, and they’re also harder to…
A working paper by Jacobson et al. (2014) not only provides the answer, but describes how reimbursement policy change over the past decade. Although Medicare did not offer a drug benefit for oral drugs (pills) until 2006, Medicare Part B, which covers physician services, has from inception covered physician-administered drugs such as IV chemotherapy, anti-nausea,…
To reduce utilization of pharmaceutical products, many countries have opted to use reference pricing. Reference pricing is a system where patient coinsurance payments depend not only on the price of the drug but also the price of alternatives therapies. As the name indicates, reference pricing sets patient coinsurance rates as the difference between the drug’s…