Posts Tagged “Medicare”
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Reimbursement Changes and Physician Behavior
by Kevin Roche on Thursday, August 26, 2010
It is well-established that physicians respond to various economic incentives by changing their treatment behavior. A recent study explores this phenomenon in the context of Medicare’s cancer chemotherapy drug reimbursement policies.
Tags: Drugs, Medicare, Physicians
2010 Potpourri XXIX
by Kevin Roche on Saturday, August 14, 2010
Another Saturday, another Potpourri, featuring the acquisition of a hospital medical necessity company, Americans’ online health usage, analysis of prescriptions, California workers’ compensation, home monitoring of elderly parents, remote psychiatric evaluations and telemedicine to treat depression.
Tags: Care Management, Drugs, Elder Care, HIT, HomeCare, Medicare, Monitoring, Telemedicine, Workers Compensation
Medicare’s Solvency Extended–Or Is It?
by Kevin Roche on Friday, August 13, 2010
In a sign that the media is less willing to accept some of the Administration’s misleading pronunciations about health care, when HHS claimed that the Medicare Trustee’s report showed the new health law extended Medicare solvency by several years, most sources noted that the CMS Actuary disagreed.
Tags: Government, Health Care Costs, Medicare
Medicare Proposed Home Health Payment Changes
by Kevin Roche on Thursday, August 5, 2010
Every year Medicare puts out very lengthy and detailed proposed, and ultimately final, rules updating the reimbursement for all of the classes of providers–physicians, hospitals, etc. While reading these is a tough slog, it gives a good sense of issues which affect all payers, and of Medicare’s mindset.
Tags: Government, HomeCare, Medicare
More Geographic Variation Research
by Kevin Roche on Monday, August 2, 2010
A study of diagnostic practices for Medicare beneficiaries reveals geographic variations. These variations not only may suggest either under or overuse of diagnostic tests but they can bias other research results and payment methods. A second study suggests that caution should be applied in analyzing regional variation to ensure that all possible sources of the differences are taken into account.
Tags: Health Care Costs, Medical Care, Medicare, Physicians
Medicare’s Physician Reimbursement Problem
by Kevin Roche on Friday, July 30, 2010
There has been no more gnarly health care problem for Congress than how to deal with physician reimbursement. At some point, as a Health Affairs article points out, it will have to come up with a better solution than the temporary fixes it has used for years.
Tags: Government, Health Care Costs, Medicare, Physicians
MedPAC’s Annual Report II
by Kevin Roche on Friday, July 23, 2010
More commentary on MedPAC’s Annual Report, focusing on the care of dual-eligible beneficiaries and the use of shared decision-making in the Medicare population.
Tags: Government, Medicare
MedPAC’s Annual Report I
by Kevin Roche on Thursday, July 22, 2010
MedPAC’s annual report always contains many useful analyses of health care issues, complete with research citations. This year’s report covers several topics of general interest, including effective benefit designs and improving quality efforts.
Tags: Government, Medicare
Hospital Pay-for-Performance Programs
by Kevin Roche on Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Medicare has an impending value-based purchasing program for hospitals. Payments would be based on performance against quality standards. Some hospitals ability to improve performance may be limited by the economic and workforce characteristics of their location, according to new research.
Tags: Hospital, Medicare, Pay For Performance
Medicare and Home Infusion
by Kevin Roche on Monday, June 28, 2010
Home infusion of therapeutic agents is increasing, especially as more biologics, which tend to need infusion, are approved for use. GAO looked at how Medicare FFS handles home infusion versus how private plans do.
Tags: Drugs, Medical Care, Medicare
Geographic Variation in Drug Expenses
by Kevin Roche on Monday, June 21, 2010
Medicare’s Part D benefit covers most prescription drugs and has added significantly to the program’s cost, although not as much as originally projected. Now that the program has been in existence for a few years, researchers looked at whether the same geographic variation in spending exists for drugs as does for other Medicare services.
Tags: Drugs, Health Care Costs, Medicare
2010 Potpourri XVI
by Kevin Roche on Saturday, May 8, 2010
No mother’s day would be complete without some health care news to ruminate on. This week’s include psychiatric drugs, the cost of the SGR fix, home health care costs, telemedicine and using computers to aid in diagnosis.
Tags: Drugs, Health Care Costs, Health Care Reform, HIT, Medicare, Telemedicine
Medicare Fee Change Effect on Utilization
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
Competition Leads to Lower Hospital Costs
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
Sources of Medicare Spending Growth
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
Consequences of Reimbursement Changes
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
Workers’ Compensation and Medicare
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
Managing End-of-Life Care
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
2010 Potpourri I
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
Does Insuring People Before Age 65 Save Money
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
Weekend Potpourri IV
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
CMS Physician Payment Changes
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
More News on Medicare Advantage’s Advantages
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
Prevention and Wellness Savings for 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
Study Looks At Part D Impact on Drug and Medical Spending
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
MEDPAC – Medicare Payment Advisory Commission
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
Cost/Quality Relationship Unclear
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
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Four years ago, Medicare Part D was born – today, the program is working better than many expected