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New report addresses difficult issues for design of health insurance exchanges

A new report from The Commonwealth Fund provides recommendations for state and federal policymakers as they design and implement the new health insurance exchanges which are a key element of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA).

30 Sep 2010

Research Roundup: Assessing physician quality; Community health centers' future; Why doctors take gifts; Access to HIV treatment

Archives of Internal Medicine: Associations Between Physician Characteristics And Quality Of Care - Since "most patients do not have access to physician quality measures," they are often encouraged to use public information such as malpractice claims and board certification status to chose a doctor, according to this report that used 2004-2005 insurance claims from about 10,000 Massachusetts physicians for more than 1.13 million adults.

18 Sep 2010

Harvard neurologist starts new program for doctor education; Study finds journal authors often do not disclose ties to medical device companies

The Boston Globe reports on Dr. Martin Samuels, a Harvard Medical School neurologist, who started "a new company that he says will provide continuing medical education to doctors across the country — without funding from the pharmaceutical industry.

15 Sep 2010

Public reporting of individual physician quality data may help seekers of high-quality health care

Publicly available information about board certification, education and malpractice claims appear to provide consumers with little information about the quality of care individual physicians provide, according to a report in the September 13 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

14 Sep 2010

Research Roundup: Shifting ER visits to urgent care centers; Evaluating doctors; Medicare Advantage quality ratings

Health Affairs: Many Emergency Department Visits Could Be Managed At Urgent Care Centers And Retail Clinics - Researchers analyzed samples of patient records and found "13.7 percent of all emergency department visits could take place at a retail clinic" - 7.9 percent when hours are restricted - and "an additional 13.4 percent of emergency department visits could take place at a urgent care center—8.9 percent when hours are restricted.

10 Sep 2010

Overhaul's effect on health spending minimal, government study says

The health overhaul and other recent legislative and regulatory changes will only modestly increase the nation's health tab through 2019, according to a government study published today, Kaiser Health News reports.

10 Sep 2010

Small businesses continue to gauge health law implications

Some small business owners remain wary of a health law they do not yet clearly understand, The Kansas City Star reports. "Employers with 50 or more employees know this: The new law has employee coverage mandates looming for them in 2014. Employers with fewer than 50 employees will escape the coverage mandate. But they're not resting easy." Business expect costs to increase by between 6 and 40 percent in 2011, and many wonder whether they will be able to continue to afford subsidizing their employees' insurance coverage (Stafford, 9/6).

8 Sep 2010

Research Roundup: Heart disease and disability; Medicaid and health reform, mental illness

Urban Institute/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: The Health Status Of New Medicaid Enrollees Under Health Reform - Using the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, authors of this paper found "strong evidence that those who will enroll [in Medicaid after 2014] are likely to be healthier than nondisabled adults currently enrolled in Medicaid ... There is, however, a high likelihood of adverse selection - the least healthy and older among the new eligibles will be more likely to enroll.

3 Sep 2010

Study: Health law's tax credit for small business could affect millions

A new Commonwealth Fund report estimates that "about 16.6 million workers are employed by small businesses that are eligible for health insurance tax credits" under the new health law but only 3.4 million of them are at companies that will take advantage of the credits, The Washington Post reports, adding that those businesses already offer their employees health insurance.

3 Sep 2010

Research Roundups: Underinsured children; Hospital progress on electronic records; Federal officlals' work on comparative effectiveness

Underinsurance Among Children In The United States - This study examines the scope of underinsurance, or health insurance that fails to sufficiently meet the needs, of children living in the U.S. Based on information obtained from the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health, the authors of the study report, "19.3% — or 14.1 million — of all U.S. children (and 22.7% of children with continuous insurance coverage) were underinsured in 2007, exceeding the number of children without any insurance at all during the year (3.4 million) and the number who had insurance during only part of the year (7.6 million)."

27 Aug 2010

Research Roundup: Lowering malpractice costs; Advance care planning limitations; Consumers review their own health care

Annals of Internal Medicine: Liability Claims And Costs Before And After Implementation Of A Medical Error Disclosure Program - This study focused on a "disclosure-with-offer program" launched by the University of Michigan Health System (UMHS) in 2001. "After full implementation of a disclosure-with-offer program, the average monthly rate of new claims decreased from 7.03 to 4.52 per 100,000 patient encounters.

21 Aug 2010

Abortion rights supporters, children's groups, GOP pushing back on various health law provisions

"Elective abortions will be prohibited and people with pre-existing conditions will be able to get comprehensive benefits without paying any more than healthy people, under new federal regulations for high-risk health insurance pools released ... by the Obama administration," according to Kaiser Health News.

31 Jul 2010

Research Roundup:COBRA subsidies; Children's insurance and dental coverage; Adopting health IT; Race and heart treatments

Archives of Internal Medicine: Racial Differences In Admissions To High-Quality Hospitals For Coronary Heart Disease - "Racial disparities in the management of coronary heart disease (CHD) are widely documented, yet the reasons behind persistent gaps in quality of care are not fully understood," write the authors, who examined "Medicare patients with acute myocardial infarction and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) admitted during 2002 through 2005 to hospitals located in markets with top-ranked cardiac hospitals, as ascertained from the US News and World Report 'America's Best Hospitals' annual rankings."

31 Jul 2010

First Edition: July 30, 2010

In today's headlines, a report about the administration's new high-risk pool regulations and how they address abortion coverage, as well as other details related to the new health law and the insurance marketplace.

30 Jul 2010

New health reform law to benefit 30 million women: Commonwealth Fund report

Thirty million women will benefit from the new health reform law over the next decade, either through new or strengthened insurance coverage, according to a new report from The Commonwealth Fund. In the first analysis of its kind, the authors report that the law will stabilize and reverse the growing exposure to health costs that women now experience by subsidizing health insurance for up to 15 million currently uninsured women, and strengthening existing coverage for 14.5 million women who are considered underinsured-those who have health coverage that does not adequately protect them from high medical expenses.

30 Jul 2010

Research roundup: Hospital emergency room HIV screenings; Medical device reviews; Health law impact on docs and hospitals

Physician Satisfaction With Chronic Care Processes: A Cluster-Randomized Trial Of Guided Care - The authors randomly assigned teams of physicians and their chronically ill older patients into groups that either provided Guided Care - an educated registered nurse works with a primary care practice team to enhance quality of care - or usual care. One year later, they measured "physicians' satisfaction with chronic care processes, time spent on chronic care, knowledge of their chronically ill older patients, and care coordination provided by physicians and office staff."

26 Jul 2010

Young women more likely to die in hospitals following heart attacks: Study

A new study by researchers at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School has found that women between the ages of 35 and 54 were more likely to die in hospitals following heart attacks than men of a similar age. This finding from a sample of more than 423,000 patients can be seen as surprising, given that women, on average, develop their first acute myocardial infarction -- or heart attack -- about 10 years later than men, and are overall less likely to develop myocardial infarction than are men.

23 Jul 2010

Research Roundups: Health IT progress; Telecare and cancer pain; State exchanges; Adults with no medical care

eHealth/Commonwealth Fund: National Progress Report On eHealth - This extensive report examines changes in the adoption and use of health information technology (HIT) since 2007, as assessed by a group of more than 100 experts.

17 Jul 2010

Research roundup: Improving hospital processes can improve care; E-mailing the doctor; Medicaid savings with generic drugs

Public Reporting On Hospital Process Improvements Is Linked To Better Patient Outcomes - This study analyzed "data from 3,476 acute care, nonfederal U.S. hospitals that publicly reported quality information on the CMS Hospital Compare Web site from 2004 through 2006" and "evaluated the hospitals' performance every six months during the study period, using the ten original measures from Hospital Compare."

9 Jul 2010

Research Roundup: 'Pay-for-performance' unintended effects; Lessons from Mass.; End of life treatment

Archives of Internal Medicine: The Quality Of Care Provided To Hospitalized Patients At The End of Life - In this study, researchers used a set of quality indicators to assess the end-of-life care and pain management received by 496 patients who died three or more days after admission at the University of California-Los Angeles Medical Center. The authors found "pain assessments (94%) and treatments for pain (95%) and dyspnea [breathing problems] (87%) were performed with fidelity."

3 Jul 2010