Posts Tagged “Medicare”
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by Kevin Roche on Thursday, March 4, 2010
A new research article examines the link between Medicare fee changes and the volume of utilization, confirming standard economic theory that the volume, or supply, of physician services does appear to be subject to normal supply and demand curves.
Tags: Medicare, Physicians
by Kevin Roche on Friday, February 26, 2010
Research indicates that commercial health insurance, while it has geographic variation in spending, does not vary in the same way as Medicare. A primary factor explaining private health plan geographic spending variation appears to be the state of competition for hospital services in different locales.
Tags: Health Care Costs, Health Insurance, Hospital, Medicare
by Kevin Roche on Wednesday, February 24, 2010
A Health Affairs article examines changes in the composition of Medicare spending over the last two decades, finding that chronic disease is now the primary driver of that spending and that the nature of service demand has shifted from inpatient to outpatient and prescription drugs.
Tags: Health Care Costs, Medicare
by Kevin Roche on Wednesday, February 17, 2010
As part of health care reform, various reimbursement changes have proposed, such as episode bundling or time-based global payments. An article in Cancer points out that such revisions to payments don’t always have the intended effect.
Tags: Medicare, Physicians
by Kevin Roche on Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Many states have created workers’ compensation fee schedules based on Medicare reimbursement for physicians. Doing so can create traps if the frequent changes in the Medicare payment mechanisms are not carefully followed. A new NCCI report examines these issues.
Tags: Medicare, Workers Compensation
by Kevin Roche on Monday, January 18, 2010
End-of-life care achieved some notoriety in the health reform debate, but it deserves thoughtful attention since it accounts for a great deal of cost and research indicates that patients’ wishes for less intensive care are often not honored. A new study looks at how physicians approach the issue.
Tags: Care Management, Medicare, Physicians
by Kevin Roche on Saturday, January 9, 2010
The tort lawyer lobby errand boys in Congress just don’t know when to stop. Even after Senator Rockefeller got his hand slapped for questioning CBOs analysis of potential savings from tort reform, Congressman Bruce Baley decided to go back for more. And sure enough, CBO gave him an even more detailed justification of the savings [...]
Tags: Health Care Costs, Health Insurance, Malpractice, Medicare, Personalized Medicine, Telemedicine
by Kevin Roche on Tuesday, December 8, 2009
A study suggests that insuring currently uninsured adults could save Medicare money. Overall health spending, however, would clearly go up substantially and even the amounts Medicare might save are in doubt.
Tags: Health Insurance, Medicare
by Kevin Roche on Saturday, November 14, 2009
Another dose of weekend tidbits, covering PAP screenings, health insurer consolidation, Part D plan satisfaction, Rand’s look at the best methods to reduce health care costs, geographic variations in health spending and coughing into cell phones–yes you heard me right.
Tags: Drugs, Guidelines, Health Insurance, Medical Care, Medicare, Pay For Performance
by Kevin Roche on Tuesday, November 3, 2009
CMS released its rule changes for physician payments in Medicare. Significant cuts are set forth in the rule’s 1669 pages, sure to spark a strong response from the physician community and Congress.
Tags: Medicare, Physicians
by Kevin Roche on Friday, October 2, 2009
Another study demonstrates quality performance and better cost benefits from Medicare Advantage plans.
Tags: Care Management, Government, Health Insurance, Medicare
by Vita Advisors on Friday, August 7, 2009
Healthways’ Center for Health Research put our a report estimating that Medicare could save over $100 billion a year if beneficiaries entered the program in better health and maintained good health status.
Tags: Government, Medical Care, Medicare, Wellness and Prevention
by Kevin Roche on Tuesday, June 30, 2009
A study reported in the current issue of NEJM indicates that enrollment in Part D significantly increased drug spending for those persons who previously had no or a low level of drug coverage, but also led to a lower level of medical spending.
Tags: Health Care Costs, Health Insurance, Medicare, Pharmaceutical
by Kevin Roche on Wednesday, June 3, 2009
The work of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission is always worth reading carefully. (Medpac website) It is one of the government groups that seems to do its job with a high degree of professionalism. MEDPAC’s reports contain useful data and it often provide unvarnished analysis and insight into America’s health care cost issues.
Tags: CMS, Medical Care, Medicare
by Kevin Roche on Wednesday, May 27, 2009
A study reported in Health Affairs, vol. 28, page 897 (May/June 2009), provides a further input to the question of the relationship, if any, between costs and quality in health care.
Tags: Health Care Costs, Health Care Quality, Hospital, Medical Care, Medicare
Four years ago, Medicare Part D was born – today, the program is working better than many expected
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