Zeke Emanuel would like to set the record straight. He’s not against new medical technology. Indeed, the UPenn med school and Wharton professor calls the profusion of industry-generated new technologies “a great thing”. But his support is necessarily tempered — a wariness born from his days as a health policy advisor in the Clinton and Obama administrations. Emanuel’s willingness to critique newer, costlier innovations that deliver results no better than older, cheaper technologies has made … Continue reading
The Healthcare Round-Up: May 27 – June 1
Pick up your jumbo pack of toilet paper –and health insurance too. What started as a quiet partnership between club warehouse wholesaler Costco and insurance giant Aetna has now expanded to include relationships in nine states with two more pending approval. Two years ago, the two joined forces to provide Costco Personal Health Insurance, a health insurance program that offers consumers five options in terms of medical and dental coverage. Costco sees the tie-up as … Continue reading
The Healthcare Round-Up: 2/21- 2/28
Weight-loss drug gets advisory committee nod: Can the benefits of weight-loss outweigh the potential costs of severe medical side-effects? An FDA Advisory Committee thinks so. On Wednesday February 22, the Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee voted 20 to 2 to approve Vivus’s Qnexa, a weight-loss pill that combines two previously approved—and now generic—drugs, phentermine and topiramate. It’s been a long and torturous road for Vivus; the company’s backers believe the strong advisory committee meeting … Continue reading
The Healthcare Round-up: 2/14 -2/21
Payers, technology providers, and policy experts are convening in Las Vegas for the annual HIMSS fest to discuss how IT will enable new delivery models and payment reforms that are supposed to improve quality of care and lower costs. The experts are just hoping that what happens in Vegas –from the secure transfer of patient data via iPads and smart phones to the latest technology enabling health information exchanges—won’t stay in Vegas. Meantime, here’s a … Continue reading
ICD-10: A Gift for Product Makers
There’s been a lot of talk about the migration from ICD-9 to ICD-10 and what’s going to happen in October 2013 when we jump from a medical coding system with around 18,000 codes to one with around 8 times that number. In theory, the more precise mechanism to account for diagnoses and procedures provided by the federally mandated 10th revision of the International Classification of Diseases should improve cost management, budgeting, and outcomes research while … Continue reading