Laura is the vice president of content for The American Journal of Managed Care® (AJMC®) and all its brands, including The American Journal of Accountable Care®, Evidence-Based Oncology™, and The Center for Biosimilars®. She has been working on AJMC® since 2014 and has been with AJMC®’s parent company, MJH Life Sciences®, since 2011.
She has an MA in business and economic reporting from New York University. You can connect with Laura on LinkedIn or Twitter.
Providers Falling Behind on ICD-10 Readiness
April 6th 2015The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange sent a letter to HHS Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell on March 31 explaining that the 1-year delay for implementation of the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision may have done more harm than good.
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Aligning Drug Copayment With Value Not Cost
April 5th 2015Implementing a value-based drug formulary that uses cost-effectiveness analyses after safety and efficacy decreased pharmacy costs by 3% in the first year, according to a study published in the Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy.
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The Increasing Economic Burden of Major Depressive Disorder
April 3rd 2015The prevalence of major depressive disorder (MDD) grew from a rate of 6.4% in 2005 to 6.8% in 2010 with the cost of MDD to employers increasing 21.5% over the same time period, according to a new study in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.
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Medicaid Patients Have Harder Time Finding a New Physician
April 1st 2015Physicians were accepting nearly equal amounts of new Medicare and privately insured patients in 2013, but much fewer were accepting new Medicaid patients, according to a new report from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.
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CER Currently Has Little Impact on Decision Making, but Remains Important
March 31st 2015Although healthcare stakeholders view comparative effectiveness research (CER) as important to healthcare, respondents to a survey from the National Pharmaceutical Council admitted that they haven't yet seen the impact of CER.
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No Change in New Patient Visit Volume During Year 1 of the ACA
March 29th 2015Increased insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act not only did not cause a sharp increase in new patients, but there has not been any change in how sick patients were who sought care, according to a report from athenahealth and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
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Voters Prefer Federal Exchange to State-Run Ones
March 27th 2015Although the Supreme Court's decision on King v. Burwell could remove subsidies from the federal marketplace, Americans prefer HealthCare.gov over the state-run exchanges, according to poll results from right-wing advocacy group Foundation for Government Accountability.
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Aledade Puts Tools for Success in the Hands of Physician-Led ACOs
March 27th 2015When Aledade launched in 2014, founder Farzad Mostashari, MD, former national coordinator for health information technology (IT), was spending about half the time talking to doctors not about his new company, but about value-based payments and what accountable care organizations were.
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Medical Loss Ratio Provision Pays Consumers $5 Billion From 2011-2013
March 26th 2015The adoption of the Affordable Care Act's medical loss ratio provision, which requires insurers spend 80%-85% of premiums on medical care and quality improvement, has yielded large benefits for consumers from 2011 to 2013.
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HHS Launches Public-Private Effort to Accelerate Healthcare Transformation
March 25th 2015The Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network kicked off with its inaugural meeting bringing together public and private sector actors to discuss efforts to move healthcare toward a system that pays based on quality rather than quantity.
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Health Plan Cancellations Remain Uncommon Despite Concerns
March 25th 2015With the Affordable Care Act's requirement that most nongroup health insurance plans offer minimum coverage standards, concerns arose about plan cancellations affecting those who already had insurance coverage. However, recent data found cancellations were uncommon.
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Uncompensated Care Costs Down $7.4 Billion Due to the ACA
March 24th 2015On the fifth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, HHS' Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation announced that healthcare reform was responsible for a $7.4 billion reduction in uncompensated care costs in 2014.
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Stage 3 Meaningful Use Rules Include More Flexibility, Drive Interoperability
March 20th 2015CMS released its proposed rules for Stage 3 meaningful use for the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Records Incentive Programs. The proposed rules will include greater flexibility and drive interoperability, according to HHS.
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Enrollees on the Exchanges Fill More and Costlier Prescriptions
March 19th 2015Patients enrolled in plans on the public health insurance exchange filled more prescriptions than commercial members during the first year of enrollment under Affordable Care Act, according to a report from Prime Therapeutics.
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Physicians Look for Support to Implement New Payment Models
March 19th 2015Physician practices looking to engage in new healthcare payment models reported they need help and guidance to further advance delivery reforms, according to a joint study from the RAND Corporation and the American Medical Association.
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SGR Fix Could Add $140 Billion to Federal Deficit
March 18th 2015For the last 17 years Congress has passed temporary 1-year fixes to prevent the Sustainable Growth Rate from enacting steep cuts to Medicare payments. This year, Congress is again flirting with the possibility of creating a permanent fix.
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