Concerned that rising costs could jeopardize Massachusetts' landmark health insurance initiative, a state panel has voted to press insurers to hold premium increases to 5 percent next year for unsubsidized plans. The panel is proposing several ways insurers can hold down prices, including steering patients to doctors and hospitals that provide lower-cost, high-quality care.
A new advertising campaign seeks to promote a heart stent, the Cypher, to doctors and patients. The campaign has stirred criticism among doctors who oppose direct-to-consumer advertising of drugs and devices, and especially among doctors who contend that stents are being implanted too often in patients who might do better with other treatments.
Insurers UnitedHealth and Humana are betting heavily on the federal Medicare program. In the Medicare sign-up period now under way, Humana hopes to add at least 200,000 Medicare Advantage enrollees, while UnitedHealth already has 1.3 million Medicare Advantage customers and is pushing for more.
According to a study, antibiotics and nasal steroids work no better than a placebo in combating sinus infections. An editorial accompanying the article noted that sinus problems account for 25 million doctor's office visits in the United States each year.
Unnecessary expenses, fraud and lack of succession planning were some of the problems found in the survey of more than 100 local physician practices by Keane Insurance Group and AMD, a certified public accounting firm and consulting group.