healthcare costs

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Perhaps the most important single takeaway from this newly released data isn’t even the data itself but where it came from. It couldn’t come from an industry that’s kept pricing deeply cloaked behind legally binding contracts between providers and payers for decades. It came without much fanfare directly from our Federal Government.[read more]

I can accept the proposition that data will be valued differently by different parties. However, I want to throw something else into the mix: We are collectively trying to move away from fee-for-service medicine. As the saying goes: the future is already here; it just isn't evenly distributed. Some are further down the path than others. I think that our time and effort is better spent on ensuring that value-based purchasing systems are up and running, rather than on improving the pricing transparency of FFS medicine.[read more]

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The Department of Health and Human Services released new data showing significant variation in what hospitals charge for inpatient services. But simply providing data won’t help patients navigate and better understand the complex system used to price and pay for health care services.[read more]

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Most international health system cost comparisons use purchasing power parity. But the baskets of goods and services that they are based on vary. The Manhattan Institute has a chart from Chris Conover that compares the results for U.S. health care spending with the rest of the OECD using the GDP purchasing power parity used by the OECD with a different basket of goods that he terms health purchasing power parity.[read more]

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The pressure on physicians to provide better care at lower costs is coming from all directions – top down from policymakers who want more accountability in how healthcare resources are being used and bottom up from patients who want more transparency in how their money is being spent.[read more]

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The recent news that thousands of seniors with cancer are being denied treatment with expensive chemotherapy drugs as a result of sequestration-mandated budget cuts raises the question of whether other patients are being equally harmed, but less visibly.[read more]

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t’s hard for policy wonks, politicians or health plans to be viewed credibly when promoting health care cost containment. Discussion quickly turns to “rationing,” and “death panels,” which no one wants to be associated with, and as a result the federal government has done almost everything possible to make sure cost effectiveness and overall costs are ignored in policy making.[read more]

Pharmaceutical Benefits Manager (PBM) Express Scripts released a report claiming that more than $400B in annual pharmacy expenditures are wasted and that the greatest waste occurs in the poorest states, i.e., the South. The map is pretty striking with the North the best, middle next, and South the worst.[read more]

Gary Rost

Today, Gary Rost is here with me to talk about the Savannah Business Group and value-based purchasing. SBG is a business coalition that group purchases healthcare services for self-funded employers. They negotiate rates, services, and access with medical service providers on behalf of the members ot the coalition.[read more]

When markets work, they lavish rewards for excellence and are unforgiving of mediocrity. Look at Toyota and Chevrolet, Google and Hewlett Packard, Costco and JC Penney. Health care has largely evaded the disciplines of the marketplace for decades, at immense cost to American patients and purchasers.[read more]

While much of the country braces for full implementation of the Affordable Care Act next year — wondering whether premiums will jump dramatically, providers will be overwhelmed, and insurance exchanges will be ready and working– Massachusetts is well beyond that, moving now into the realm of cost containment and quality improvement.[read more]

At a time when one in three Americans report difficulty paying medical bills, up to $750 billion is being spent on care that does not help patients become healthier. Although physicians are routinely required to manage expensive resources, traditional medical training offers few opportunities to learn how to deliver the highest quality care at the lowest possible cost. While the gap is glaring the problem is not new.[read more]