President Obama will ask for $755 million in mandatory funding to support the administration's new initiative to fight for a cure for cancer, the White House announced on Monday. The requested amount, which will be included in Mr. Obama's final budget blueprint, will bring the total cost to $1 billion. The forthcoming request comes on top of $195 million that has already been authorized for the current fiscal year. That first sliver will be dedicated to new cancer-related research activities at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). And the bulk amount that will be requested will go toward NIH work next year as well as the Food and Drug Administration.
Maybe there wasn't a lot of sizzle in this latest Obamacare "surge." The third season of open enrollment in Obamacare health plans ended quietly Sunday in much of the United States. And in contrast to the first two seasons, federal officials were not crowing Monday about the numbers of people who signed up in the final week. The marked lack of celebration came as an insurance industry analyst said he believes "the big last-minute surge" in Obamacare plans "did not happen" as had been expected. That would be in sharp contrast to the first two years when very large crowds of people rushed to beat the final deadline for obtaining health coverage and avoid owing a fine.
While financial incentives influence physician behavior and moderately improve quality measures, non-incentivized providers targeted with other quality measure efforts have greater performance improvement, according to a recent study published by the JAMA Network. A combination of interventions, IT advancements and close contact support are responsible for greatest improvements in quality measures, said Sean Gleeson, MD, medical director, Partners for Kids at Nationwide Children's Hospital and one of the study's authors. "P4P is good, but it's not enough to make the greatest impact," he adds. "What's important is that all groups saw positive impacts. All physicians are growing in a positive direction."
The biggest obstacle a Richmond, Ind., hospital has had in signing up low-income Hoosiers for Indiana's expanded Medicaid program is convincing them it's real. "These are people who have never had this type of coverage before," said Chris Knight, the chief financial officer and vice president of Reid Health. "We have had very touching stories where people just break down and cry when they're given this coverage." As Indiana enters its second year of expanded Medicaid coverage created by the Affordable Care Act, hospitals around the state report it has helped patients gain needed coverage.
What began with a plan to replace an aging piece of medical equipment has turned into a dispute over the delivery of cancer care along Connecticut's shoreline. And at a time when policymakers have expressed worries about preserving competition in the state's fast-consolidating health care market, one side has suggested the case highlights questions about competition — and the way state regulation can limit it. As officials at Middlesex Hospital tell it, they have a unique opportunity: One of their two linear accelerators, used in radiation treatment for cancer, is at the end of its useful life.
A health care startup made a wild pitch to Cara Waller, CEO of the Newport Orthopedic Institute in Newport Beach. The company said it could get patients more engaged by "automating" physician empathy. It "almost made me nauseous," she said. How can you automate something as deeply personal as empathy? But Waller needed help. Her physicians, who perform as many as 500 surgeries a year, manage large numbers of patients at various stages of treatment and recovery. They needed a better way to communicate with patients and track their progress.