Managed Care Minute: March 14, 2015

CMS continued its move to value-based payment with the announcement of a new ACO model that takes on greater performance risk with potentially greater reward.

Prescription drug spending was up 13.1% in 2014 with hepatitis C and compounded medication driving more than half of the increase, reported Express Scripts. Specialty drugs also accounted for half of drug spending.

Emergency department use among young adults has gone down, which is attributed to letting people stay on their parents’ health insurance until age 26.

Finally, Jeffrey McCullough, PhD, will be the guest editor-in-chief for The American Journal of Managed Care’s 5th Annual Special Issue on Health Information Technology. View the call for papers.