Dr.Dreams A Health,Medical & Wellness Blog » health reform

A.M. Vitals: Anticipating the Health Law Ruling

Martin Neumann — Wed, 23 May 2012 12:37:45 +0000

Here’s what’s making health news this morning:

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A.M. Vitals: Anticipating the Health Law Ruling

Vote: Should You Purchase Long-Term Care Insurance?

Dr Dreams — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:46:59 +0000

As more of us live longer, we increasingly face the question of how to pay the rising cost of extended care, whether in a nursing home, an assisted-living center or at home. And the potential amounts are huge: The average cost of private room in a nursing home is $81,030, according to Genworth Financial Inc., an insurer that writes long-term-care policies. Long-term-care-insurance policies pay a cash benefit that helps to pay for those costs, as long as patients can meet certain medical requirements such as needing help with at least two daily activities, like bathing or dressing, or requiring care for dementia. Typically purchased by people in their 50s and 60s, the policies can substantially ease the financial burden of spending time in a nursing home or getting home care. And because Medicaid – the government program that covers long-term care – typically requires patients to exhaust most of their financial assets before coverage kicks in, long-term-care policies can help the elderly protect those assets. Still, the policies are expensive, and costs are rising. And they may not be for everyone. We’re seeking your opinions about long-term care insurance for an upcoming special report. Vote in our poll and comment below for potential inclusion in print.

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Vote: Should You Purchase Long-Term Care Insurance?

ICD-10 Likely to Be Pushed Back a Year

Dr Dreams — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 21:20:42 +0000

It’s official – the Obama administration is proposing to push back by a year the deadline for a new medical-coding standard that was originally set to go into effect on October 1, 2013. Federal regulators had previously signaled that they would postpone implementation of the coding set known as ICD-10. Now the Department of Health and Human Services has come out with the actual date, as part of a broader proposed rule that includes assigning a new identifier to health plans that could be used in billing. The department says the entire proposal could save as much as $4.6 billion over ten years. But the main headline for most hospitals, doctors and health insurers is the ICD-10 delay. In a press release, the department said the breather will give them “more time to prepare and fully test their systems to ensure a smooth and coordinated transition to these new code sets.” The move is “an attempt to give people some ability to reprioritize,” as health-care companies face deadlines tied to the federal health-care overhaul, implementation of electronic medical records, and other shifts, Kaveh Safavi, an Accenture managing director, told the Health Blog. ICD-10 is an update and expansion of diagnosis and procedure codes that are widely used in medical billing, as well as for research and other purposes. Some groups had said the health-care system wasn’t going to be ready for the 2013 date, and American Medical Association has actually urged that the entire thing be scrapped, saying the new set of billing codes will burden the practice of medicine without improving care. The 10th iteration of the disease-classification system will expand the number of codes in use from around 18,000 in the current ICD-9 code set to about 140,000. Image: iStockphoto

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ICD-10 Likely to Be Pushed Back a Year

A.M. Vitals: Justices Question Health Law

Dr Joe — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 12:23:19 +0000

Here’s what’s making health news this morning: Justices Question Health Law (WSJ): The Supreme Court’s conservative justices sharply challenged the Obama administration’s health-care overhaul Tuesday, raising the prospect that the law could be struck down, while the liberal and conservative wings seemed inclined to split evenly over the question of whether the “individual mandate” is constitutional. Health Executives Unfazed by Debate (WSJ): Insurance companies and hospital chains brushed off concerns Tuesday the Supreme Court could strike down a requirement in the health-care law that would create millions of newly insured customers. In Real World, Mandate Stirs Some Dissent (NYT): Massachusetts offers a real-world laboratory of how a health-insurance mandate might work. Data Show Lower Risk for Bypass Than Stent (WSJ): For patients facing a choice between bypass surgery and a popular, less-invasive procedure to treat heart blockages, surgery improves chances of long-term survival, researchers said Tuesday. Va. Man Injured in Gun Accident Gets New Face (USAT): A 37-year-old U.S. man injured in a 1997 gun accident has received what doctors say is the most extensive face transplant ever performed. Cancer Research Targets a Key Cell Protein (LAT): Blocking “don’t destroy me” signals that normally sit on the surface of tumor cells and render them resistant to immune-cell attack slows the growth of a broad range of human cancers when they’re implanted in mice, researchers have found. FDA Approves Drug to Treat Anemia (Dow Jones): The Affymax Inc. drug, which will be sold under the brand name Omontys, would compete with Amgen Inc.’s Epogen, which is approved for use in the same group of patients. Defibrillator Wires Linked to Fatalities (WSJ): Heart-defibrillator wires made by St. Jude Medical Inc. are responsible for at least 20 deaths because of “high-voltage failures,” according to an analysis published online in a cardiac-medicine journal.

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A.M. Vitals: Justices Question Health Law

Live Chat: Kids and Allergies

Sean Duffy — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 22:03:46 +0000

The incidence of life-threatening allergies is on the rise, but parents are finding more allies in their efforts to protect their children. WSJ reporter Liz Rappaport is the mother of one such child, and has written about the way laws are changing to support kids with serious multiple food allergies. Liz will take your questions in a live chat on Tuesday, Feb. 28 at 1 p.m. EST, moderated by Personal Journal deputy editor Leslie Yazel. Ask your questions now.

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Live Chat: Kids and Allergies

What the Finance Committee Bill Means for Doctors

Martin Neumann — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:24:28 +0000

Paying doctors and hospitals for high-quality care, rather than for volume of care , is central to slowing the growth of health costs, lots of health wonks say. But figuring out how to do that is really tough. Latest example: A provision in the health-care bill being endlessly kicked around the Senate Finance Committee would reduce Medicare payments to doctors who order the most tests and treatments for their patients. Not a popular provision among doctors! The provision does adjust for severity — that is, it recognizes that doctors with sicker patients will order more tests and treatments. But docs are skeptical of such adjustments. “Those things are very imperfect, imprecise and they depend on data that often doesn’t really reflect what’s going on,” one doc told the WSJ . There are several other doctor-related measures in the Senate Finance bill, the WSJ notes: The bill would give bonus Medicare payments to primary care doctors, and cut payments to medical specialists. Primary care doctors often have less training than specialists and tend to make far less money. Some experts warn of a shortage of primary care docs as young physicians choose higher-paid specialties. Another provision would make it more difficult for doctors to own a share in hospitals — not surprising given long-running opposition from Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley , the committee’s chairman and ranking Republican. The Finance bill wouldn’t block scheduled cuts to Medicare payments to physicians. The House health-care bill does block those cuts, which was key to winning support from the AMA and other doctors’ groups. The AMA hasn’t taken a position on the Senate Finance bill.

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What the Finance Committee Bill Means for Doctors

Report Paints Dark Picture of Health-Care Costs in 2019

Martin Neumann — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:37:32 +0000

If you think U.S. health-care spending is out of control today, just wait a decade. A

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Report Paints Dark Picture of Health-Care Costs in 2019

Race for Multiple Sclerosis Pill Continues With Novartis Results

Sean Duffy — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:35:49 +0000

All of the drugs approved to treat multiple sclerosis are given by injection, which is less comfortable and less convenient than taking a pill. Novartis is one of several drug makers working on pills to treat the disease, and the company said today that its experimental medicine, fingolimod, fared well in a late-stage study that included more than 1,000 patients. The company plans to apply for approval for the drug in the U.S. and Europe by the end of the year. Merck KGaA (a German company not connected to the U.S. Merck) has already applied for approval of its own oral M.S. drug in Europe, and said earlier this month that a U.S. application is imminent. That drug is called cladribine. That means that one or both drugs could be on the market some time next year — but given the FDA’s cautious stance on approving new drugs, it’s anybody’s guess when or if the drugs will make it to market. Novartis said today that over the course of two years, patients who took fingolimod were 54% less likely than those who took placebo to have an M.S. flare-up of the disease. In an earlier study, patients who took fingolimod, also known by the catchy name FTY720, were less likely to have flare-ups than patients who took interferon, a drug commonly used to treat multiple sclerosis. It’s worth noting that today’s results come in the form of a press release from Novartis, not in the form of a peer-reviewed publication. It’s common for companies to announce results as soon as they have them, then follow with a full journal article or conference presentation. Biogen Idec also has an M.S. pill, BG-12 , in late-stage trials. Update : EMD Serono, a Merck KGaA subsidiary, said today that it filed for FDA approval of its oral M.S. drug.

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Race for Multiple Sclerosis Pill Continues With Novartis Results

Health Care Bills Subsidize Out-of-Pocket Costs for Some

Dr Joe — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 06:50:02 +0000

There’s been a lot of focus – including in my column today – on the subsidies that the health-overhaul bills would provide to aid lower-income people in paying their health insurance premiums. But there’s another twist that may matter just as much to consumers: how much help those same folks will get with their out-of-pocket costs. This varies between the different bills now working their way through Congress. And as lawmakers try to crunch costs, these subsidies may be easier to trim because they’re less visible than the premium subsidies. The House bill , at least in its current incarnation, would provide credits that would rein in out-of-pocket costs for people between 133% and 350% of the federal poverty level, which is around $38,000 for an individual and about $77,000 for a family of four. They’re on a sliding scale, so people making up to 150% of poverty only have to pay around 3% of the costs of their covered benefits, while those at 350% pay 28%. At 400%, folks pay 30%, but that’s the minimum for plans anyhow in that bill. The Senate Finance bill would help less, fitting with Sen. Baucus’s effort to keep the bill’s price tag down. Those between 100% and 150% of poverty would only have to pay around 10% of the cost of their covered care. From 150% to 200%, it’d be 20%. The credits don’t appear to go to people making more than 200% of the poverty level, which is around $22,000 for an individual and about $44,000 for a family of four.

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Health Care Bills Subsidize Out-of-Pocket Costs for Some

Health-Care Overhaul: Abortion, Public Option & Young Adults

Martin Neumann — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:19:01 +0000

Here are a few of the stories on the health-care overhaul that caught our eye this morning: Abortion continues to play a role in the health care debate, the New York Times reports . The issue is dividing Dems, the article says. Some argue that the current health-care bills already prohibit using federal funds to pay for abortions, while others say more explicit prohibitions are needed for those who would receive government subsidies to purchase health insurance. For more on the subject, see this WSJ story from last month, and this WSJ.com column from Steven Waldman on how to keep the health-care overhaul neutral on abortion. A government-backed insurance plan — aka the public option — is unlikely to be part of whatever health-overhaul bill makes it out of the Senate Finance Committee. But backers are still pushing for several public-option amendments likely to come up for a vote in the committee today, Politico reports . Young adults continue to support the health-care overhaul, the WSJ reports . The 18-34s were the only age group in the most recent WSJ/NBC News poll that favored a public option as part of the overhaul. The story also notes that those in that age group expressed less of a firm grasp on the debate than those 65 and older.

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Health-Care Overhaul: Abortion, Public Option & Young Adults