Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
It’s that time of year. The time of year where Medicare threatens to cut physician salaries by double digits (in this case 24.4%). This is no idle threat. Under current law, CMS is mandated to cut physician salaries under the sustainable growth rate formula. Its the time of year that physician lobbyists (rightly) complain that…
Ontario implemented a physician pay-for-performance (P4P) scheme in 2002. This P4P framework was a jointly agreed upon by the Ontario government and the Ontario Medical Association. The Ontario P4P program is described in Hurley, DeCicca and Buckley (2013) in more detail below: [Ontario’s P4P program] targets performance bonuses on effective preventive services whose rates of provision were…
A paper by Li and Laxminarayan (Health Econ forthcoming) examines an interesting question: Are physicians sensitive to drug prices faced by their patients? In an ideal world, physicians act as perfect agents for their patients, taking into consideration their medical needs and financial constraints. In reality, the choice of drug and whether a generic or brand-name…
Only about 50% to 60% of individuals eligible for Medicaid actually take-up the coverage. Why is this case? Many people claim that individuals only take up Medicaid insurance when they get sick. Others claim that state outreach efforts have been subpar. Youjin Hahn, however, offers another explanation rates: Medicaid insurance is just not that valuable. The…
On The Health Care Blog (THCB), Dr. Vineet Arora argues that being a doctor is not as attractive as it once was. She writes: After all, why go into this much debt and spend so much time in training if your prospects are not much better? More recently, the New York Times article points out…
In April 2006, Ontario instituted the Diabetes Management Incentive (DMI) that increased payments to physicians that provided high-quality diabetes care. Did the incentive improve payments quality? According to a paper by Kantarevic and Kralj (2012), it turns out that the answer is yes, but the magnitude of the change depends on the type of physician.…
President Barack Obama has signed the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which continues current Medicare payment rates for the nation’s physicians through Dec. 31, 2013. This bill nullifies the Sustainable Growth Rate which, if implemented, would have reduced Medicare payments to physicians by 26.5 percent. The doc fix will cost $10.6 billion in fiscal…
One of my favorite health economists and bloggers is Austin Frakt of the Incidental Economist. In a recent paper, he examines whether new Health Reform provisions have learned from the mistakes in the 1990s from shifting provider reimbursement to a capitation based-system. To find the answer, you’ll need to read his commentary (with Rick Mayes)…
Geisinger Health System is a physician-led, not-for-profit, integrated delivery system serving an area with approximately 2.6 million people in northeastern and central Pennsylvania with innovative products and services designed to drive higher performance. Geisinger is known for providing high quality care at low cost. How do they do it? Is it how they incentivize physicians?…
Some background: Created in March 2007, the PQRI established a financial incentive for eligible healthcare professionals to participate in a voluntary quality reporting program. By reporting on a minimum of 3 measures on a specified group of patients, a physician can earn a bonus payment of 0.5% on all of their Medicare billing for 2012.…