Laura Joszt, MA

Individuals who enrolled in health insurance on the Affordable Care Act's marketplaces had lower average drug spending and were less likely to use most medication classes than patients with employer-sponsored coverage, according to a study published in Health Affairs.

A review of the benefit design choices made by states that expanded Medicaid (as of the end of 2014), revealed that states are offering more generous coverage that what is required under federal law, according to researchers with The Commonwealth Fund.

Innovative care delivery programs intended to improve quality and reduce costs need sustainable business models in order to last beyond the end of grants or other methods of time-limited funding. RAND researchers take a look at methods Massachusetts health plans and accountable care organizations are using.

Taking the time to educate patients before their medical device implantation has positive implications for patients, healthcare providers, and medical device manufacturers, according to a new poll.

As more patients become insured under the Affordable Care Act, driving demand for primary care and urgent care services, there is an increased need for alternative service sites, according to an analysis from Alvarez & Marsal.

German health authorities are debating whether the price of Europe's first approved gene therapy is worth the $1 million price tag.

Consumers with chronic diseases face challenging trade-offs when choosing health coverage, especially when it comes to out-of-pocket drug costs.

The implementation of the Affordable Care Act and its resulting market turbulence has not created the operation challenges for payers that was expected, according to a report from athenahealth, Inc.

Although millions of Americans have gained health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, the Commonwealth Fund recently found that 31 million individuals were underinsured in 2014.

A bipartisan effort reintroduced legislation that would establish a demonstration in Medicare Advantage to evaluate the use of value-based insurance design's ability to reduce copayments and coinsurance for some Medicare Advantage beneficiaries, reported the University of Michigan Center for Value-Based Insurance Design.

Although the new and more effective hepatitis C drugs are expensive, they could save the United States and 5 European countries more than $3.2 billion annually, according to estimates reported at Digestive Disease Week 2015.

Another 1.1 million individuals could potentially be affected by another cyberattack. CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield announced that it had been the target of a sophisticated cyberattack. The hackers gained access to a single database in June 2014, according to the company.

With studies showing that patients overestimate the benefits of cancer screening and are misinformed about the potential harms, the American College of Physicians has issues advice for screening adults with average risk and no symptoms for 5 common cancers: breast, colorectal, ovarian, prostate, and cervical.

Although the uninsured rate among Americans between the ages of 50 and 64 years was already lower than the national average, the rate fell by nearly a third from December 2013 to December 2014, according to a study published by the AARP Public Policy Institute.

Although the vision of the learning health system is simple in theory, it is highly complicated, said Penny Mohr, senior program officer for improving healthcare systems at the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, during the first plenary session at the ISPOR 20th Annual Meeting, held May 18-20 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Health insurance companies will be looking for consumers to pay more in 2016, according to Kim Holland, director for state affairs for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, who called demands for lower premiums or monthly fees "unrealistic."

Although there has been improvement in the use of health information technology for care coordination, fewer than half of patient-centered medical homes routinely use computerized systems to identify patients seen in emergency departments or hospitals or to send care summary to other providers.

There is an association between the implementation of chronic care model elements and improvements with healthcare practice or health outcomes for people with chronic disease, according to a literature review of papers.

While offering incentives for participation in workplace wellness programs do increase participating, RAND researchers found that offering a comprehensive plan, as opposed to a limited one, is almost as effective at increasing employee uptake.

The use of an electronic personal health record-based self-management system can improve patient engagement and reduce costly falls among older adults, according to the results of a new study in eGEMs.

A very small segment of the Medicaid-only population-those who are not also eligible for Medicare-accounted for almost half of expenditures for all Medicaid-only enrollees from 2009 to 2011, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

Insurers are expecting broad adoption of wearables by their industry within the next 2 years, according to a report from Accenture.

Overall, regular breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening was below target in 2013, according to a new report from the CDC. In fact, researchers found overall screening in these 3 areas showed no improvements from 2010 to 2013.

Healthcare billing and payment models must change to reflect the mobile, one-click reality of patients' lives, according to PwC's Health Research Institute. However, healthcare has been slow to evolve.

Although 30-day morbidity and mortality all declined incrementally for terminally ill cancer patients undergoing surgical intervention from 2006-2010, the number of surgeries remains high, according to a study from University of California, Davis Health System.

Earlier diagnosis, longer treatment duration, and increased effectiveness of cancer therapies all contributed to the constantly rising spending levels for these medicines.

The Pioneer ACO Model successfully reported smaller increases in total Medicare expenditures and reductions in health service utilization, for savings of approximately $385 million during the first 2 years compared with general Medicare fee-for-service.

The increased availability of urgent care centers, retail clinics, and telephone triage lines has not affected emergency department (ED) visits. In fact, three-fourths of emergency physicians report ED visits are going up.

Patients at hospitals with high rates of skilled nursing facility discharge usually have poorer outcomes and higher downstream spending, according to researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Vanderbilt University.

Accessing patient information in a health information exchange system during the 30 days after hospital discharge reduced the odds of readmission, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.