Tag: Medicare

To several U.S. senators, it looked wasteful, even outrageous. Every year, taxpayers pay for at least $750 million worth of expensive pharmaceuticals that are simply thrown away. Companies ship many of the drugs in “Costco”-size vials, one lawmaker said, that once opened usually cannot be resealed or saved for other patients. Yet pharma gets paid

The Senate’s release of its bipartisan infrastructure plan signals that lawmakers are poised to throw former President Donald Trump’s belated bid to lower Medicare drug prices under the bus — not to mention trains, bridges, tunnels and broadband connections. That’s because the massive spending bill is the first of two likely to at least delay

Medicare has made two changes that are expected to improve access to continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices for beneficiaries with diabetes. Beginning July 18, 2021, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will no longer require that beneficiaries test their blood sugar four times a day in order to qualify for CGM. In addition, the

Prices paid to hospitals nationally during 2018 by privately insured patients averaged 247% of what Medicare would have paid, with wide variation in prices among states, according to a new RAND Corporation study. Some states (Arkansas, Michigan and Rhode Island) had relative prices under 200% of Medicare, while other states (Florida, Tennessee, Alaska, West Virginia

The Trump administration on Wednesday proposed overhauling decades-old Medicare rules originally meant to deter fraud and abuse but now seen as a roadblock to coordinating better care for patients. The rules under revision were intended to counter self-dealing and financial kickbacks among service providers such as hospitals, clinics and doctors. Those regulations are now seen

As the Medicare system seeks to improve the care of older adults while also keeping costs from growing too fast, a new University of Michigan study suggests that one major effort may not be having as much of an impact as hoped. A new analysis of data from the Medicare Shared Savings Program finds that

(HealthDay)—From 2006 to 2015, there was a significant decrease in intensive care unit (ICU) admissions among Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries, according to a research letter published online Oct. 15 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Gary E. Weissman, M.D., from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and colleagues used data from the Medicare Provider Analysis and

(HealthDay)—Patients with prostate cancer receiving care in a Medicare-only setting are more likely to receive guideline-discordant imaging, according to a study published online Aug. 17 in JAMA Network Open. Danil V. Makarov, M.D., from New York University School of Medicine in New York City, and colleagues examined the correlation between prostate cancer imaging rates and

(HealthDay)—Among Medicare beneficiaries on hemodialysis, few patients are enrolled in hospice at the end of life, regardless of the spending trajectory during the last year of life, according to a study published in the June issue of Health Affairs. Ann M. O’Hare, M.D., from the University of Washington in Seattle, and colleagues examined hospice use

Nurse practitioners (NPs) are providing an increasing proportion of primary care, which is in short supply in many areas of the country. NPs deliver quality care in retail clinics, community health centers, rural clinics, and in primary care and specialty medical practices. In an article published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, University

Hoping To See Your Doctor Via Telemedicine? Here’s A Quick Guide. Tucked into the federal budget law Congress passed in February was a provision that significantly expands the use of telemedicine — long a hyped health care reform, and now poised to go mainstream within five to 10 years. “There’s much broader recognition of the