Health care expenditures are three times greater for patients who have both functional limitations and multiple chronic conditions than for patients without functional limitations. This was the impetus for a recent report, entitled High-Need, High-Cost Patients: Who are They and How Do They Use Health Care?1 The following is...
Health Care Payment Reform: Strengths and Weaknesses of 9 Methods for Provider Reimbursement
Kip Piper -
Health care payment reform efforts focus on substituting cost-effective value for volume and ultimately aligning the financial incentives of provider reimbursement with expectations for patient outcomes, care management, and efficiency. The complex dynamics and trade-offs of different payment reform models are discussed in a helpful new report from the Urban Institute...
MACRA and Accountable Care Organizations: Medicare Physician Payment Reform Issues for ACOs
Kip Piper -
The massive reforms to Medicare physician reimbursement mandated under Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) present many issues and opportunities for accountable care organizations (ACOs) participating in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP). While moving Medicare Part B to a new merit-based system of physician and clinic payment, MACRA also...
The Price of Global Health: Drug Pricing Strategies to Balance Patient Access and the Funding of Innovation (Book Review)
Kip Piper -
Global drug pricing continues to ignite fresh controversies as health policy makers, government health programs, health insurers, and pharmaceutical companies meet in heated debate. Solutions for health around the world rely on stakeholders having a clear understanding of the structure and logic behind drug pricing, but the complexities of the...
How Life Sciences Companies Recruit for Board Directors and Executives: MediStrategy Podcast
Kip Piper -
The life sciences companies are looking for new board members and senior executives - and today's challenging business, payor, and regulatory environment requires new skills. In a new episode of the MediStrategy podcast, learn how pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical diagnostics, and medical device firms find new board directors, chief executive...
Outlook for Drugs and Biologics: Global Implications for Cost, Outcomes, Innovation, and Use
Kip Piper -
The research and development pipeline for drugs and biologics is experiencing a tremendous surge in innovation, which will come to fruition within the next five years. This surge in prescription medicines will parallel a number of technology-enabled transformations in health care delivery that will dramatically increase access to health...
Physician Payment Reform: Effects of New Payment Models on Physician Practices, Experience, and Finances
Kip Piper -
How have alternative health care payment models, aimed at lowering costs while improving patient outcomes, affected physicians and physician practices in the United States? A recent RAND Corporation study, sponsored by the American Medical Association, looks at the effects payment reform models have on physicians' finances, practice management, and...
Big Data and Analytics in Healthcare: Interview with Murray Aitken, IMS Institute for Health Informatics
Kip Piper -
Healthcare is undergoing a revolution in the transformation of data into credible, actionable information for decision making at all levels, including financing, coverage, reimbursement, product development, diagnoses and treatment, clinical care delivery, and consumer choices. In a fascinating new interview, one of the world’s top experts on health informatics discusses...
Mobile Health Technology and the Future of Medicine: Review of New Book by Eric Topol, MD
Kip Piper -
As policymakers in Washington argue over the best way to reform America's health care system, a compelling new book by Eric Topol, MD, suggests that the advance of technology is going to change how health care services are delivered in more profound and unpredictable ways than most people can...
A vast amount of valuable scientific data coming out of clinical trials around the world is being lost. This information is often not published and not made available to other researchers. Sharing this data could significantly advance medical research, quicken the pace of scientific discovery, speed innovation of new...