December 27th, 2011 by GruntDoc in Health Policy, Opinion
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This article and its graph (from the NEJM), and its interesting, informative but probably useless graph, was referenced today on twitter, via the Washington Post’s Wonkblog,
Recently, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services announced a scheduled cut in Medicare physician fees of 27.4% for 2012. This cut stems from the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula used by the physician-payment system. …
To illustrate the level of inequity in this system, we broke down the national spending for Medicare physician services by state and by specialty and determined which states and specialties have contributed most to the SGR deficit between 2002, when the program was last balanced, and 2009. Although SGR spending targets are set on a national level, we computed state targets by applying the SGR’s national target growth rate to each state’s per capita expenditure, using 2002 as the base year. Our analysis is an approximation, because, unlike the SGR, we do not adjust for differential fee changes. …
We compared the state targets for the years 2003 to 2009 to actual state expenditures and added the annual difference between these figures to get a cumulative difference between the state’s spending and the SGR target. This cumulative difference was Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
June 16th, 2010 by Davis Liu, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Health Tips, News, Opinion, Research
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The Associated Press has been running a fantastic series of must reads with the latest article highlighting the consequence of too many imaging studies, like X-rays and CT scans, which are the biggest contributor to an individual’s total radiation exposure in a lifetime. Americans get more imaging radiation exposure and testing than people from other industrialized countries.
Reasons for doing too many tests include malpractice fear, patient demands for imaging, the difficulty in obtaining imaging results from other doctors or hospitals, as well as advanced technologies, like coronary angioplasty, which have increased radiation but avoid a far more invasive surgery like heart bypass. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Saving Money and Surviving the Healthcare Crisis*
April 26th, 2010 by Shadowfax in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
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In the annals of “Things You Probably Wish You Hadn’t Said,” Sue Lowden, the Republican candidate to replace Nevada Senator Harry Reid, suggested last week that bartering for medical care was a workable substitute for the Affordable Care Act, which she is campaigning to repeal.
Surprisingly, after being called out and roundly mocked for the suggestion, she doubled down on the idea:
“You know, before we all started having healthcare, in the olden days, our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor. They would say, ‘I’ll paint your house.'” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*
