Category Archives: Uncategorized
Epic Systems Tops Cerner as Top-Used Physician EHR Vendor
Epic Systems is used by 28 percent of physicians, taking the cake as the most popular physician EHR vendor, according to the Medscape EHR Report 2016.
Emocha Mobile Health lands new contracts for its medication monitoring app
A Baltimore startup with a mobile application to keep tuberculosis patients on track with their medication regimen is expanding with new contracts in California and big ideas for how the technology can improve oversight of medications for other illnesses.
Emocha Mobile Health, founded in 2013 on technology licensed from the Johns Hopkins University, has recently landed contracts with Fresno, Merced and Contra Costa counties in California. Those communities have some of the country’s highest concentrations of latent tuberculosis, a form of the lung bacteria that does not have symptoms and puts patients with weakened immune systems at greater risk for developing the potentially deadly disease.
The new contracts represent a vote of confidence for emocha’s mobile app as a tool to both improve medication adherence among patients and efficiency within the public health departments responsible for overseeing their care. The app is already in use in Baltimore and several other counties in Maryland, as well as in Texas and Australia.
“Maryland, Texas and California have strong advocates who are customers, and they’re the type of customers who are going to improve the product,” said Sebastian Seiguer, emocha’s co-founder and CEO.
Doctors allegedly sold prescriptions to gang members profiting for cash from burglaries
Two doctors have been charged with selling prescriptions for powerful drugs to gang members who allegedly bought them with profits from thousands of residential burglaries committed in the South Bay and across Southern California, prosecutors said Monday.
Drs. Sonny Oparah, 75, of Long Beach and Edward Ridgill, 64, of Ventura surrendered Friday to federal authorities hours after Torrance police led some 400 police officers on raids in South Los Angeles that resulted in the arrests of 13 gang members allegedly involved in the burglary scheme.
The physicians face charges that could send them to prison for the rest of their lives.
“Operation Money Bags” resulted from nearly four years of investigation to not just arrest and prosecute suspected burglars, but tie their crimes to their gangs, using gang-related sentencing laws that could add years to their prison terms for the break-ins.
But it turned into much more.
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Will Medicare Premium Increases Be an Issue in November?
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/06/22/will-medicare-premium-increases-be-an-issue-in-november/
Buried in the Medicare trustees report released Wednesday are a few lines that could cause political controversy. “In 2017 there may be a substantial increase in the Part B premium rate for some beneficiaries,” the actuaries write—which means seniors will find out about increases shortly before Election Day.
Higher-than-expected Medicare spending in 2014 and 2015 set the stage for a large premium adjustment in 2016. But, notably, the absence of inflation thanks to the drop in energy prices last year meant that seniors receiving Social Security benefits did not receive an annual cost-of-living adjustment.
The Medicare statute has a “hold harmless” provision that prevents Part B premiums from rising by more than the amount of a Social Security cost-of-living adjustment. For most beneficiaries, the provision meant that in 2016, they received no such adjustment—but also did not pay a higher Part B premium. However, nearly one-third of beneficiaries—new Medicare enrollees, “dual eligibles” enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid (in places where state Medicaid programs pay the Medicare Part B premium), and wealthy seniors subject to Medicare means-testing—do not qualify for the provision.
The New York Times noted last fall that the hold-harmless provision, by protecting most beneficiaries, exposed some to higher increases: “If premiums are frozen for 70 percent of beneficiaries, premiums for the other 30 percent must be raised more to cover the expected increase in overall Medicare costs. In other words … the higher Medicare costs must be spread across a smaller group of people.”
The Next Big Debate in Health Care
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/06/30/the-next-big-debate-in-health-care/
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of Truven Health Analytics Market Scan Commercial Claims and Encounters Database, 2004-2014; Bureau of Labor Statistics, Seasonally Adjusted Data from the Current Employment Statistics Survey, 2004-2014 (April to April).
With 91% of the population now covered by some form of health insurance, and the coverage rate higher in some states, the next big debate in health policy could be about the adequacy of coverage. That particularly means rising payments for deductibles and their impact on family budgets and access to care. This is about not just Obamacare but also the many more people who get insurance through an employer.
As the chart above shows, payments toward deductibles by consumers who have insurance through large employers rose 256% from 2004 to 2014; over the same period, wages increased 32%. The chart shows what people actually paid toward their deductibles and other forms of cost-sharing, not just their exposure as deductibles climbed (which is more typically what studies and data report). Deductibles accounted for 47% of cost-sharing payments in 2014, up from 24% in 2004. During the same period some other forms of cost-sharing fell. Payments for co-pays declined by 26%. It’s no wonder that consumers say in polls that deductibles are their top health-cost concern.
Rising payments for deductibles cause people to use less health care and have played a role in the moderation we have seen in recent years in the growth of health spending. That rate of growth has begun to tick up but remains moderate by historical standards. Ever larger deductibles may dampen growth in spending but can also be a significant burden for many family budgets and a barrier to care for the chronically ill.
Will House Republican Health Proposal and Trustees’ Report Make Medicare a Factor in Election?
So far Medicare has not been one of the major health-care issues in the presidential campaign. Neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump has talked about it much. The former secretary of state has discussed the idea of a Medicare buy-in for the near-elderly, but that’s been mentioned more as a way of strengthening the Affordable Care Act, not reforming Medicare. Meanwhile, Medicare faces serious long-term challenges, including how to finance care for an aging population, ensure its solvency in the future, fill gaps in coverage, and address cost-sharing burdens that can be onerous for its mostly lower- and moderate-income beneficiaries.
