1. Health Care

Category Archives: Health Care

Three Years On, States Still Struggle With Health Care Law Messaging

Posted on by

It is hard to imagine that after three years of acrimony and debate we could still be so confused about President Obama's Affordable Care Act.

Is it actually possible Americans know less about Obamacare now than they did three years ago? Apparently that is the case, and the news comes just as the most sweeping effects of the law are about to kick in.

According to a new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 80 percent of people don't know whether their state is going to expand Medicaid under the law, a huge piece of the health care changes coming down the pike.

Half of people don't know whether their states are going to be setting up so-called health exchanges, and half of people think the law gives undocumented immigrants health care subsidies -- it doesn't. The poll also shows that 40 percent of people still think the government is going to set up death panels to decide if someone gets heath care when they're dying -- it won't.

To further illustrate confusion about the law, 70 percent of people said they like the initiatives in the law when they were asked specifically about each one, but only 37 percent of people said they liked the law itself.

Where Are We Now?

NPR's health policy correspondent Julie Rovner says a lot of the confusion regarding the Affordable Care Act comes, in part, from a commanding "misinformation and disinformation" campaign.

"It has worked better than the people who were trying to put the law into effect, who have been working to put the law into effect rather than messaging about it," Rovner tells weekends on All Things Considered guest host Laura Sullivan.

There are essentially three big pieces to the Affordable Care Act: the insurance reforms (also known as the patients' bill of rights), quality and cost measures, and the health care mandate.

The insurance reforms portion has mostly taken effect, Rovner says, and includes things like allowing adult children to stay on their parents' health insurance until they are 26, and not letting health plans cancel coverage after you get sick. These are things she says most polls show Americans back.

Continue reading here:

Three Years On, States Still Struggle With Health Care Law Messaging

Randy Cox, Pricing Healthcare, Discusses Direct Pay Health Care – Video

Posted on by


Randy Cox, Pricing Healthcare, Discusses Direct Pay Health Care
In this segment, the hosts talk with Randy Cox, CEO, Pricing Healthcare, a completely open, national marketplace for direct pay health care. The company, founded in 2012, works with quality...

By: HealthCare Consumerism Radio

Visit link:

Randy Cox, Pricing Healthcare, Discusses Direct Pay Health Care - Video

From Health Care to Health – PVH Emergency Medical Services – Video

Posted on by


From Health Care to Health - PVH Emergency Medical Services
University of Colorado Health #39;s video series, "From Health Care to Health," gives you an inside look at northern Colorado #39;s leading health care facilities, cutting-edge research and technology...

By: UCHealth NoCo

Read the original here:

From Health Care to Health - PVH Emergency Medical Services - Video

Bending the cost curve in health care and education | Aaron Chatterji | TEDxDuke – Video

Posted on by


Bending the cost curve in health care and education | Aaron Chatterji | TEDxDuke
This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. As a business school professor and former White House economist, Aaron explores how the U.S. can use...

By: TEDx Talks

See the original post:

Bending the cost curve in health care and education | Aaron Chatterji | TEDxDuke - Video

Health care a primary battlefield in Congressional District 1

Posted on by

Health-care reform has become a central issue in the Congressional District 1 race, but the discussion rarely dives into details.

Republican Andy Tobin and his conservative backers have been attacking Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick for her support of Obamacare.

Fact: Ann Kirkpatrick voted for Obamacare, even though a majority of our district opposes the law, says a post on Tobins Facebook page.

Policies are being canceled, premiums are going up, patients are losing their doctors. Still, Congresswoman Kirkpatrick supports Obamacare, says an ad paid for by Americans for Prosperity.

But its been a year since the botched rollout, and while Kirkpatrick has been forced to defend her votes, shes also been pointing to positive outcomes of the Affordable Care Act and turning the criticism to Tobin.

He fought Medicaid expansion, and 21,000 people in my district just signed up for Medicaid, Kirkpatrick said on the Buckmaster Show, a Tucson news radio program.

That number comes from a Democratic staff report from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that lists the benefits of the Affordable Care Act.

Using the numbers and saying, You may not like it, but its working, is the best defense Kirkpatrick has, said Democratic strategist Bob Grossfeld, owner of The Media Guys, a Phoenix communications firm.

But thats not going to stop the attack ads with this lingering Obamacare is evil message designed to equate Kirkpatrick with an unpopular president and to fire up the Republican Partys base voters, he said.

Greg Vigdor, president and chief executive officer of the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association, said he understands what campaigns are trying to convey, but they dont really say what the expansion of the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, the states Medicaid program, was all about. He said it was really about using federal dollars to restore coverage to a population the state covered in the past.

More:

Health care a primary battlefield in Congressional District 1

Health-care spending projected to grow at slowest pace in 17 years

Posted on by

Health-care spending was supposed to be the insatiable monster, gobbling up provincial budgets until there was little money left over for other programs.

But in the last three years, spending on health has actually slowed down. It is still rising, just not at the breakneck pace of the last decade, according to a new report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), the agency that crunches numbers on Canadas health-care system.

This year, Canada is projected to post health-care spending growth of 2.1 per cent, the slowest rate of growth in 17 years. That is a much lower rate than the roughly 7-per-cent annual increases that were the norm from 2000 to 2010, the report says.

Experts say the trend toward less-ravenous health-care budgets is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, largely because cash-strapped provincial governments have little choice but to rein in the systems costs. Austerity measures and budget deficits have forced some provinces to re-examine how they spend scarce health-care dollars.

One of the things that theyve been trying very hard to do is do cost constraint and start getting a little bit more efficient around how they do things, said Raisa Deber, a professor of health policy at the University of Toronto.

But there are potential pitfalls on the road to continued restraint: If the provinces cannot keep a lid on what they pay nurses and doctors, or if a slew of new, expensive prescription drugs floods the market, spending could begin to rise more sharply again.

Health-care spending increases are slowing against the backdrop of a looming change in how Ottawa contributes to health care, the largest line item for provincial budgets.

Last March, the 10-year, $41-billion Canada Health Accord expired and with it the guarantee of a 6-per-cent annual increase in health-transfer payments to the provinces.

The federal government has already promised to maintain the 6-per-cent increases until 2017, but after that, Ottawa will rely on economic growth and inflation figures to determine the increase, a formula that some premiers warn will leave a hole in their health-care budgets. The Conservatives have said, however, that they will not let the increase drop below 3 per cent per year.

[The federal government] has made it clear that this is all really a provincial responsibility and all they are going to do is hand over some dollars from time to time, said Colleen Flood, a University of Ottawa law professor who specializes in health policy. Lots of people have various opinions about that, but in a way I think it has been good from the perspective of making it very clear that the provinces really need to take responsibility and run their respective health-care systems adroitly.

More:

Health-care spending projected to grow at slowest pace in 17 years

Virginia health care safety net breaking, leaders say

Posted on by

RICHMOND Virginia's health care safety net is groaning under increased demand, and a simple cash infusion won't solve the problem for free clinics and community hospitals around the state, industry leaders told legislators Thursday.

More cash certainly wouldn't hurt, though. A relatively small portion of free clinic budgets comes from state coffers now, according to presentations offered up Thursday to a state Senate subcommittee.

Linda Wilkinson, who heads the Virginia Association of Free and Charitable Clinics, put the state's share at about $3.8 million out of the $35 million a year it takes to run 60 clinics around the state. Most of the budget comes from private donations, though the federal government, local governments and patients kick in, too, she said.

There's also a shortage of doctors and dentists in many parts of the state who are willing or able to volunteer their time, Wilkinson and other health care executives said Thursday.

"And forget about finding a dermatologist," Wilkinson said.

Altogether, the free clinics and community health centers that make up the state's safety net treated 235,000 uninsured Virginians in 2013, according to Deborah Oswalt, executive director of the Virginia Health Care Foundation.

"Quite an achievement," she said. "Except when you compare it to the number of people that are actually eligible. It's only about a third."

Oswalt, Wilkinson and Neal Graham, head of the Virginia Community Healthcare Association, laid out some baselines for senators in the health care debate that continues to take up a lot of the bandwidth in Richmond, even with Medicaid expansion a seemingly dead issue. Without the billions in federal funding that would have paid for health insurance for hundreds of thousands of Virginians, providers are looking for a plan B.

Some have pointed to free clinics and other quasi-charitable health care settings as the answer, but these executives assured senators Thursday they're only part of the answer. They showed pictures of long lines of people waiting for care. Even in Arlington, part of well-to-do Northern Virginia, more than a hundred people will stand in line for a lottery to get one of 20 new patient spots in an area free clinic, Oswalt said.

There is a massive call for more dental services, Wilkinson said. Some 90 percent of the calls for help her foundation receives are for dental care, she said. The need is increasing, she said, as local health departments close their dental clinics.

Here is the original post:

Virginia health care safety net breaking, leaders say

Primary Health Care investigated over claims it offered incentives to radiologists that may have led to over-servicing

Posted on by

An investigation has been launched by the Federal Government into whether a leading healthcare company potentially broke laws that ban offering incentives for doctors to over-service.

The ABC has obtained an email that shows Primary Health Care made an offer of company share options to two of its radiologists in 2010, which it indicated ended in April 2015.

A University of Sydney health law expert said the offer was a clear breach of two national health laws because it offered radiologists an incentive to make more money which could lead them to suggest more tests than needed.

The company said the offer was withdrawn the next day, is not in effect, and is not a breach of the law.

Following inquiries from the ABC this week the Department of Human Services said it would investigate.

Radiologists are specialist doctors who read scans and help make diagnoses and can make recommendations to referring doctors for more scans.

It is up to the referring doctor to approve the extra investigations.

In the email sent to two of its radiologists in June 2010, Primary Health Care offered the radiologists share options in the company.

It included a "vesting hurdle" of attaining revenues of $6.5 million in 2012.

This meant if the owners of the radiology clinics billed more than $6.5 million in that year, they could take advantage of the offer.

Read this article:

Primary Health Care investigated over claims it offered incentives to radiologists that may have led to over-servicing

Government health care spending, and how much seniors account for

Posted on by

Why do some provinces spend much more than others on health care?

When it comes to Canadas sparsely populated territories, the explanation is easy: It costs more per person to care for patients in the far-flung rural communities of Yukon ($10,044 per capita), Northwest Territories ($12,160) and Nunavut ($13,160.)

But what explains the difference between the top two provinces in spending per capita Newfoundland and Labrador ($6,953) and Alberta ($6,783) and the lowest spender, Quebec ($5,616)?

Part of the difference is rooted in the ability to pay, said Livio Di Matteo, an economics professor at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay. Some provinces have higher per-capita GDPs and government revenues and therefore can afford more health care. Alberta and Newfoundland, for example, have the highest per-capita spending and they have been enjoying the benefits of a resource boom.

Quebec, on the other hand, not only spends the lowest amount on health care per person, it also spends the least as a percentage of its total budget. Health care accounts for 30 per cent of total spending, compared, for instance, with 41 per cent in neighbouring Ontario.

The reason? Doctors and nurses are paid less in Quebec than in other provinces. One hypothesis is that francophone health-care workers are less likely to emigrate south than their anglophone counterparts in the [rest of Canada] and, as a result, provincial governments in Quebec are competing less with the silly prices insurers are willing to pay in the U.S., said Michel Grignon, director of the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis at McMaster University in Hamilton.

Why do seniors account for so little of the annual spending increase?

So far, the aging of Canadas population has been gradual, allowing the health-care system time to adjust. Its popular in the media to be really worried about the grey tsunami, said Colleen Flood, a University of Ottawa law professor who specializes in health policy, but its not like this massive spike that hits the system at any one time.

The Canadian Institute for Health Information report found that the aging of the population is only a modest cost driver, expected to be responsible for 0.9 per cent of the health-care spending increase this year. The proportion of health-care spending dedicated to seniors actually held nearly steady at around 45 per cent between 2002 and 2012, even as the percentage of seniors in the population grew from 12.5 per cent to 14.9 per cent.

There certainly is an aging effect, said Brent Diverty, the vice-president for programs at the institute. But what we also see is that overall population growth and the effects of inflation, which in 2014 we estimate at about 3 per cent, are having a much stronger impact.

Read this article:

Government health care spending, and how much seniors account for

Barack Obama: Ebola fight must be ‘guided by science not fears’ – Video

Posted on by


Barack Obama: Ebola fight must be #39;guided by science not fears #39;
President Barack Obama says it is important not to discourage US health care workers from travelling to Africa to fight the spread of the Ebola virus President Barack Obama said the US cannot...

By: The Telegraph

View original post here:

Barack Obama: Ebola fight must be 'guided by science not fears' - Video


  1. Health Care