Oregon soon may join the ranks of states with electronic marketplaces, known as "exchanges," that will make it easier for individuals and small businesses to shop for health insurance coverage and compare benefits. Senate Bill 99 was cleared last week by the Senate Health Care Committee for a vote of the full Senate. It would set up a public corporation with a seven-member board appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate to decide standards for commercial plans. Also on the board will be the directors or designees of the Oregon Health Authority and the Department of Consumer and Business Services, which regulates insurance in Oregon. Then about 150,000 individuals and 65,000 small businesses—for an overall total of 350,000 Oregonians—can choose to enroll and find out if they qualify for federal tax credits made available under the healthcare overhaul passed by Congress last year.
Concierge medicine is expanding as more doctors—and patients— tire of assembly-line primary care, opting for something more personal, and pricey. The numbers are still very small —a survey commissioned by a congressional agency last year identified 756 concierge medical doctors in the United States, up from 146 in 2005. And Florida-based MDVIP, a company that helps physicians set up these practices, said it will add six new MDVIP doctors in the Boston area this year, increasing its physicians statewide to 16. But even a tiny number of doctors leaving traditional offices for boutique practices—out of thousands of primary care physicians—is enough to make some health care industry leaders nervous. They worry that more doctors will follow as insurers and government payers cut fees and hem in providers with regulations. And when even one doctor makes the switch, there are substantial side effects, leaving hundreds of patients to scramble for a new physician.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is making the final preparations to stand up its attestation system today so healthcare providers can verify that they are meaningful users of certified electronic health records. The launch of the online attestation system marks the beginning of the activities that will result in payment under the CMS Medicare EHR Incentive Program for physicians and hospitals that qualify. To receive a Medicare incentive, providers must confirm that they have fulfilled the certified technology and quality objectives for meaningful use. CMS will begin in May to issue payments.
One of the most controversial ideas in Washington right now is to turn Medicaid into a block grant program. Republicans say the idea is crucial to lowering the federal budget deficit and would give states needed flexibility over how to run their Medicaid programs. Democrats say it would end up gutting an essential piece of the social safety net. How would block grants change a program that currently serves more than 50 million people? Here's a primer on how Medicaid works, what's being proposed and what the impacts might be.
The pain and disability caused by osteoporotic vertebral fractures have long motivated the search for effective therapy. Two procedures designed to restore vertebral body height and function have been widely adopted: percutaneous vertebroplasty, in which cement is injected into the vertebral body to support the fractured bone; and kyphoplasty, a variant of vertebroplasty in which a balloon is inserted and inflated in a collapsed vertebral body, restoring the bone's height before the cement injection. Initial studies suggested that these procedures were superior to conventional symptomatic treatment. But when later studies cast doubt on those favorable findings, health care funding agencies sought to curb their use. The story of these procedures offers a glimpse of the ways in which comparative-effectiveness research may influence medical practice and healthcare expenditures.
Vanguard Health Systems, two-thirds owned by the Blackstone Group, filed to sell $600 million worth of shares in an initial public offering. No underwriters were listed in the IPO filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company said in the filing that it will trade under the symbol VHS on the New York Stock Exchange. Vanguard, based in Nashville, Tennessee, owns 26 hospitals in five states, as well as health insurance plans. It had $3.38 billion in revenue during the year ending June 30, 2010, according to the filing. The IPO would be the 10th in the healthcare industry in the past three months, according to Bloomberg data.