The cost of treating cancer has "skyrocketed" despite a 2003 law that sought to control Medicare drug costs, including the cost of chemotherapy, according to a new study. Research published Monday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that oncologists did not stop prescribing expensive cancer drugs even after Medicare cut the drugs' reimbursements in 2005. In fact, the aggregate cost of cancer care rose by as much as 60 percent between the passage of the law in 2003 and 2013, the study noted.
Consumers searching this fall for the best doctor covered by their new public or private insurance plan won't get very far on a federal database designed to rate physician quality. The Affordable Care Act requires the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to provide physician quality data, but that database offers only the most basic information. It's so limited, health care experts say, as to be useless to many consumers. This comes as people shopping for insurance on the state or federal exchanges will find increasingly narrow networks of doctors and may be forced to find a new one. Many with employer-provided plans will face the same predicament.
When former VP Dick Cheney last year disclosed that doctors had disabled the wireless capabilities in his pacemaker because of hacker concerns, it hammered home the dangers posed by network-connected medical devices. Such concerns have finally prompted the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to convene a collaborative industry-wide effort to bolster medical device cyber security. As a first step, the FDA will host a workshop in Arlington, Va., next month during which it hopes to bring together medical device manufacturers, healthcare providers, biomedical engineers, IT systems administrators, health insurers, and others. The goal of the two-day event is to spur a discussion on the best ways to identify and mitigate cybersecurity vulnerabilities in commonly used medical devices.
Recent articles have suggested capping health-care prices at a percentage above Medicare payment levels as a way to bring down health costs. But evidence suggests that, rather than reducing overall spending levels, Medicare's price caps don't effectively control health costs. The August blogpost proposing the idea, published on the Health Affairs site, suggested that "every patient and every insurance company" should have the option of paying 125% of what Medicare charges for a given service, as a way to rationalize reimbursement systems notorious for their lack of transparency. [Subscription Required]
A final decision on a revised agreement between Attorney General Martha Coakley and Partners HealthCare won't come down until after the election. A Suffolk Superior Court judge on Monday set a hearing date of Nov. 10, in part to allow 21 days of public comment on the amended deal over the company's plans to acquire Hallmark Health Centers. Judge Janet Sanders said she has "very substantial concerns" about the deal. Under the deal, Partners has agreed to cap prices at Hallmark for 6 1/2 years if it acquires the company, which owns Lawrence Memorial Hospital in Medford and Melrose-Wakefield Hospital.
Health care education across Montana got a significant boost on Monday with the announcement that 15 colleges will receive a total of nearly $15 million in federal grants to help train students for health care jobs. "Montana's public and tribal two-year colleges are working together to build new pathways, partnerships and curriculum updates to serve our state's health care needs," said Montana Commissioner of Higher Education Clayton Christian. Announced by the U.S. Department of Labor, the Montana Health Creating Access to Rural Education (CARE) grant will be administered by Missoula College at the University of Montana. Funds will go to 15 two-year, community and tribal colleges, which will partner with 39 health care agencies to improve health care training and education.