Articles
Fake News from MedPac on Medicare Advantage Needs to Be Corrected, Part 2
By GEORGE HALVORSON Special Needs Plans Change Lives for The Lowest Income and Highest Need Patients The people who benefit the most from Medicare Advantage are clearly the very low-income and high health-need people who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid as programs and who enroll as members in the Medicare Advantage Special Needs…
Value Assessment Approaches for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Therapies
Check out my new paper titled “Healthcare Stakeholder Perspectives on a Value Assessment Approach for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Therapies“. The abstract is below. Purpose: Traditional value assessment frameworks are challenged in comprehensively assessing the societal value new therapies bring to individuals with rare, progressive, genetic, fatal, neuromuscular diseases such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). The…
Can appointment-based models (ABM) reduce total cost of care?
Managing multiple medications is a challenge for many individuals, particularly the elderly. One study by Almodóvar et al. (2019) found that among Medicare beneficiaries eligible for medication therapy management (MTM), 51% had used 11 or more medications. One approach to improving medication management is to use an appointment-based model (ABM) and other forms of medication…
Biology to the Rescue?
By KIM BELLARD I feel much about synthetic biology as I do AI: I don’t really understand it from a technical point of view, but I sure am excited about its potential. Sometimes they even overlap, as I’ll discuss later. But I’ll start with some recent developments with bioplastics, a topic I have somehow never…
Trabajadores dicen que cuidan a vacas enfermas en medio de la gripe aviar usando solo guantes
GREELEY, Colorado — A principios de agosto, trabajadores agrícolas se reunieron en un parque de Greeley para celebrar con un picnic el Día de Apreciación del Trabajador Agrícola. Un signo de que este año fue diferente de los anteriores fue el menú: fajitas de res, tortillas, pico de gallo, chips, frijoles… pero sin pollo. Las…
Listen to the Latest ‘KFF Health News Minute’
Aug. 22 This week on the KFF Health News Minute: New treatments and vaccines are available for respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, and fentanyl-laced stimulants are driving a new wave of opioid overdose deaths. Aug. 15 This week on the KFF Health News Minute: Fears about social media may cause policymakers to miss the mental…
An Arm and a Leg: Don’t Get ‘Bullied’ Into Paying What You Don’t Owe
Caitlyn Mai thought she did everything right. She called ahead to make sure her insurer would cover her cochlear implant surgery. She thought everything went according to plan but she still got a bill for the full cost of the surgery: more than $139,000. What Caitlyn did next is a reminder of why a beloved…
With Only Gloves To Protect Them, Farmworkers Say They Tend Sick Cows Amid Bird Flu
GREELEY, Colo. — In early August, farmworkers gathered under a pavilion at a park here for a picnic to celebrate Farmworker Appreciation Day. One sign that this year was different from the others was the menu: Beef fajitas, tortillas, pico de gallo, chips, beans — but no chicken. Farms in Colorado had culled millions of…
Public Voices Often Ignored in States’ Opioid Settlement Money Decisions
The conversation wasn’t sounding good for Kensington residents on June 20. The Philadelphia neighborhood is a critical center of the nation’s opioid crisis, and the city had decided to spend $7.5 million in opioid settlement money to improve the quality of life there. But on that day, a Pennsylvania oversight board was about to vote…