Patient-Centered Care Starts With Patient-Provider Communication
Improving communication between patients and their providers is crucial to reforming the health care system to better meet patients’ needs and improve patient outcomes. Strategies such as shared decision making and patient-centered medical homes, which encourage patients to play an active role in their health care and rely on strong patient-provider relationships, are founded on trust and communication. Yet recent data from the Health Reform Monitoring Survey (HRMS) suggest that providers could be having more conversations with their patients about issues surrounding their health care. Patients who have low incomes and h...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 22, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Sharon Long, Lea Bart and Katherine Hempstead Tags: Health Professionals Organization and Delivery Quality Health Reform Monitoring Survey patient-centered care patient-provider communication Source Type: blogs
Addressing The Gap In Noncommunicable Disease Data With Technology And Innovation
High-quality health data is the backbone of strong public health policies. When government officials and public health professionals understand the factors that influence health, they can make informed decisions about how and where to target public health interventions and resources. In low- and middle-income countries, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) account for 67 percent of deaths but only 1 percent of global health funding (see page 5). As the NCD epidemic reaches all countries—regardless of income level, high-quality, quickly accessible data that provide information about NCD risk factors are the lever for action....
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 21, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Kelly Henning Tags: Featured GrantWatch Public Health Bloomberg Philanthropies CDC Foundation Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Chronic Care Global Health Health Data Health Philanthropy Health Promotion and Disease PreventionGW Johns Hopkins U Source Type: blogs
The Future Of CHIP: The KIDS Act Of 2017
As this particular moment, when the future of Medicaid—the nation’s largest public insurer of low-income children—is once again under threat, it might strike some as paradoxical to be reviewing a bill whose title is “Keep Kids’ Insurance Dependable and Secure Act of 2017.” Introduced on September 18 by Senators Orrin Hatch and Ron Wyden, the Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, respectively, the KIDS Act (S. 1827) would extend funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program through Fiscal Year 2022. Exactly when, and in what fashion, a CHIP funding extension might advance is u...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 21, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Sara Rosenbaum Tags: Insurance and Coverage Medicaid and CHIP Source Type: blogs
Pharmacy Benefit Management Of Opioid Prescribing: The Role Of Employers And Insurers
In the last two decades, prescribing rates for opioids have increased nearly three-fold, from 76 million prescriptions in 1991 to approximately 207 million prescriptions in 2013. This remarkable volume of opioid prescribing is unique to the United States, where 2015 prescribing amounts were nearly four times those in Europe. Sadly, this much more frequent prescribing of addictive medications is connected to an epidemic of deaths related to abuse of opiates and other drugs of abuse. Drug overdose deaths are now considered a national emergency, topping 59,000 in 2016. The abuse of opioids can be seen as the leading...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 21, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Troyen Brennan, Richard Creager and Jennifer M. Polinski Tags: Costs and Spending Insurance and Coverage Organization and Delivery Payment Policy opiods PBMs Source Type: blogs
ACA Round-Up: Bipartisan Market Stabilization Efforts Stall; Iowa 1332 Waiver Application Advances; And More
On September 19, 2017, Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension (HELP) Committee, announced that after two weeks of bipartisan hearings on individual market stabilization, Republicans and Democrats “have not found the necessary consensus . . . to put a bill in the Senate leaders’ hands that could be enacted.” Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), the ranking member of the HELP committee, released a statement thanking Senator Alexander for undertaking the bipartisan process. She noted that however that:
We identified significant common ground and I made some tough concessions to...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 20, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Medicaid and CHIP 1332 waivers ACA repeal and replace Graham-Cassidy health plan star ratings Iowa market stabilization Source Type: blogs
Non-Emergency Medical Transportation: Will Reshaping Medicaid Sacrifice An Important Benefit?
Medicaid delivers care to 74.5 million individuals for less money than any other large-scale health financing mechanism. A 2016 Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation study noted that “spending per enrollee is lower for Medicaid compared to private insurance after controlling for differences in sociodemographic and health characteristics between the two groups.” One reason might be that Medicaid covers certain inexpensive, non-medical services that, when delivered early in the progression of chronic diseases, can check or slow the diseases, thereby improving beneficiaries’ health and saving money. One non-medical service&...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 20, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Mike Adelberg and Marsha Simon Tags: Medicaid and CHIP Population Health Quality non-emergency medical transportation Section 1115 waiver Source Type: blogs
Making Measurement Count: The Importance of NQF
Physicians today have a love-hate relationship with quality performance measurement. We know we need quality measures, but measurement also can add administrative complexity. We want to make sure that the measures get us to our number one goal of improving patient care.
Together, our organizations represent approximately 500,000 of the nation’s more than 800,000 practicing physicians. While each organization has a different clinical focus: family medicine, pediatrics, osteopathic medicine, internal medicine and psychiatry, we are united in our commitment to provide better, safer care for our patients.
Quality measures ar...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 20, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Douglas Henley, Karen Remley, Darilyn Moyer, Adrienne White-Faines and Saul Levin Tags: Health Professionals Organization and Delivery Quality National Quality Forum quality measures Source Type: blogs
Premiums For Employer-Sponsored Family Health Coverage Rise Slowly For Sixth Straight Year
In 2017, some 151 million Americans rely on employer-sponsored coverage. According to the nineteenth annual Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF)/Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET) 2017 Employer Health Benefits Survey, annual family premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose an average of 3 percent to $18,764 this year, continuing a six-year run of relatively modest increases.
Health Affairs is releasing a Web First with selected findings from the report. The Web First is authored by Gary Claxton, a KFF vice president and director of the Health Care Marketplace Project; Matthew Rae, Michelle Long, and Antho...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 19, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Health Affairs Tags: Costs and Spending Elsewhere@ Health Affairs Insurance and Coverage Employer Health Benefits Survey Web First Source Type: blogs
What We Talk About When We Talk About Single Payer
There appears to be growing momentum on the left for a move toward single-payer health care. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) declared that while President Barack Obama took an important first step, “Now it’s time for the next step. And the next step is single payer.” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) recently filed his single-payer legislation in the US Senate, with the support of 15 Democratic co-sponsors. A similar proposal has support from some Democrats in the US House of Representatives. In some cases, more progressive members of the party are targeting Democrats who do not openly support single payer. We are also seeing ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 19, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Signe Peterson Flieger Tags: Costs and Spending Insurance and Coverage Organization and Delivery Payment Policy single-payer health care Source Type: blogs
To Foster Information Exchange, Revise HIPAA and HITECH
We know that when patients are provided with access to their medical records, they feel more in control of their care, understand their health conditions and their care plans better, prepare for their visits, and adhere more to their medications. Despite patient portals’ usability challenges for certain groups of patients and disadvantaged populations, they not only help patients and their care partners but also are a significant means to reducing overhead costs for providers. When physicians are provided with instant electronic access to their patients’ medical data, both quality and efficiency of care radically impro...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 19, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Niam Yaraghi Tags: Health IT Health Policy Lab Organization and Delivery electronic health records HIPAA HITECH medical data blocking rights to access health data sharing health information Source Type: blogs
Caution Warranted As VA Incorporates ICER Value Assessments Into Formulary Management Process
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Pharmacy Benefits Management Services and the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) recently announced a collaboration in which the VA will use the ICER’s drug assessments as part of its formulary development and price negotiations. This type of relationship might be normal outside of the United States (for example, in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Australia), where input from governmental health technology assessment organizations is used in determining health care coverage decisions. However, in the United States—with our multipayer health care system coverin...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 18, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Robert Dubois Tags: Costs and Spending Drugs and Medical Innovation Insurance and Coverage Payment Policy Population Health Department of Veterans Affairs drug pricing Institute for Clinical and Economic Review pharmaceuticals quality of care Veterans' He Source Type: blogs
CBO Sees Slow Growth For Exchanges; Administration Promotes Agents And Brokers In Marketplaces
On September 14, 2017, the Congressional Budget Office issued its annual report on Federal Subsidies for Health Insurance Coverage for People Under Age 65: 2017 to 2027. The CBO and Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that in 2017, the federal subsidies, taxes, and penalties associated with health insurance coverage for people under age 65 will result in a net federal subsidy of $705 billion, about 3.7 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). This amount is projected to rise to $1.2 trillion, or 4.1 percent of GDP by 2027.
About 244 million noninstitutionalized civilians under age 65 have health insur...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 15, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage agents and brokers navigators and assisters Source Type: blogs
Private Employers Should Demand And Share Evidence From Payment Reforms
This article is part of a project funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. The article is an independent work product and the views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the funder. We would also like to thank the Evidence Hub expert working group for its guidance throughout this project as well as Rob Saunders, Matthew Harker, and Mark Japinga from the Duke-Margolis Center for their assistance in drafting. (Source: Health Affairs Blog)
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 15, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Suzanne Delbanco, Andrew Olson and Mark McClellan Tags: Costs and Spending Payment Policy employer-sponsored coverage Employer-Sponsored Insurance Source Type: blogs
Graham-Cassidy: A Closer Look At The Medicaid Provisions
As Tim Jost notes in his post on the proposal, the newest version of Graham-Cassidy aims to create a system—at least in the short term—in which, via a new, temporary block grant, all states would receive some amount of federal resources to provide at least some level of coverage to certain populations who would be ineligible for Medicaid. But this short-term pooling arrangement appears to suffer from a number of significant limitations. These limitations begin with its short-term nature, of course (the pool ends in 2026 and what happens after that is anyone’s guess).
In addition, however, the funding formula...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 14, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Sara Rosenbaum Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage ACA repeal and replace Source Type: blogs
Policy Primers: Prescription Drug Pricing And Consumer Costs
Health Affairs has released the final set in a series of peer-reviewed health policy briefs on key issues currently shaping the prescription drug market. This third set of briefs looks at key factors that explain the many issues determining consumer out-of-pocket spending and contribute to the confusion between list prices and net prices. They are:
The 340B Drug Discount Program
The 340B drug discount program mandates the sale of outpatient prescription drugs to safety-net providers at reduced rates.
Patient Financial Support
Manufacturer-sponsored financial support helps patients afford medicines but may thwart payers’ ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 14, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Health Affairs Tags: Elsewhere@ Health Affairs policy primers Source Type: blogs
