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Private-Payer ACOs Good for Medicare, Study Says
Medicare may enjoy the fruits of the growing and varied work among private payers and providers to boost value in healthcare, though the benefits will come sooner to costs than quality, a study suggests.
Medicare may enjoy the fruits of the growing and varied work among private payers and providers to boost value in healthcare, though the benefits will come sooner to costs than quality, a study suggests.
Harvard University researchers analyzed spending and quality measures for Medicare patients at 11 Massachusetts health systems with Blue and Cross Blue Shield contracts to manage costs and healthcare quality for commercially insured patients. Under these “alternative quality contracts,” which began in 2009 or 2010, spending fell by 1.9% during the first year and 3.3% during the second year for the commercially insured patients and quality improved.
Read the full story here: http://bit.ly/1538iqO
Source: Modern Healthcare
The research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, examined the extent to which strategies that lower spending and improve quality for one group of patients would spill over and indirectly benefit other patients. The results show that spending dropped among patients who were not targeted by cost-control strategies, but few quality gains.
Prices for care at hospital trauma centers vary across hospitals; drug shortages reached a record high during the first quarter of 2024; although 3 of the biggest makers of asthma inhalers pledged to cap out-of-pocket costs for some US patients at $35, these do not apply to daily inhalers used by the youngest kids with asthma.
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Navigating Health Policy in an Election Year: Insights From Dr Dennis Scanlon
April 2nd 2024On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we're talking with Dennis Scanlon, PhD, the editor in chief of The American Journal of Accountable Care®, about prior authorization, price transparency, the impact of health policy on the upcoming election, and more.
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The Biden administration recently launched the Global Health Security Strategy, a new effort to combat the spread of infectious diseases; lawmakers zeroed in on the risks of massive consolidation in health care during the first congressional hearing on the Change Healthcare hack; the FDA recently announced the recall of a pair of heart devices linked to numerous deaths and injuries.
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Exploring Medicare Advantage Prior Authorization Variations
March 26th 2024On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we're talking with the authors of a study published in the March 2024 issue of The American Journal of Managed Care® about their findings on variations in prior authorization use across Medicare Advantage plans.
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