- Image by The Library of Congressvia Flickr
Highlights of the important and interesting in the world of health care:
Bundling could save the U.S. a bundle: Charging patients for episodes of care, rather than creating a separate charge for each medical service performed, has the most potential to save money in the U.S. health care system. That process, known as bundling, would reduce national medical costs by 5.4 percent a year, according to the results of a study by the Rand Corp. and published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine.
With the Rise of AI, What IP Disputes in Healthcare Are Likely to Emerge?
Munck Wilson Mandala Partner Greg Howison shared his perspective on some of the legal ramifications around AI, IP, connected devices and the data they generate, in response to emailed questions.
Alas, according to the article in the American Medical Association News, the AMA is against “inappropriate” bundling by insurers. Does that mean the organization is opposed to bundling in general? It’s not clear, but if history is a guide, the AMA will oppose anything that threatens physicians’ income, regardless of whether the measures in question would result in better, cheaper care for the American population.
How to drive down hospital readmission rates: Congress and the Obama administration have an idea on how to cut down hospital readmissions, which clearly are a problem with one-in-five Medicare patients being readmitted within a month of discharge. The only catch is that their idea is wrong, according to this essay by Long Island Cardiologist Sandeep Jauhar.
Rather than penalize hospitals with high readmission rates and pay bonuses to those with low rates, focus the incentives on doctors, who are the ones that hospitalize patients in the first place, Jauhar writes. Due to the perverse incentives in the American health system, doctors are rewarded for keeping patients in the hospital longer because that allows them to bill for visits.
You have to motivate doctors to do the right thing. You can appeal to professionalism or altruism, to doing well for patients or serving a greater social purpose, but nothing influences behavior like money, especially in these times.
A Personalized Approach to Medication Nonadherence
At the Abarca Forward conference earlier this year, George Van Antwerp, managing director at Deloitte, discussed how social determinants of health and a personalized member experience can improve medication adherence and health outcomes.
BPA on the brain: The FDA, despite a promise earlier in the year, didn’t provide any guidance before the end of November about the health effects of Bisphenol A, a plastic additive that appears in many water bottles and even some baby bottles. It’s unclear what effect BPA has on humans. A study showed that some rodents experienced reproductive problems as a result of BPA exposure, while other studies have found no problems, NPR reports.
Nonetheless, Canada and some U.S. states have banned the substance from baby bottles, but Europe hasn’t. Cleveland Clinic wellness guru Dr. Michael Roizen, in a recent appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America, said everyone — especially pregnant women — should avoid drinking from bottles that contain BPA. The FDA hasn’t spoken out so forcefully against the substance, but as NPR observes, its final decision is likely to involve more than science. In American politics, money can easily trump science. So, water bottle manufacturers and distributors, get out your checkbooks and call your local congressman or congresswoman.
Go to the ICU, get an infection: Not that anyone needs a reason to stay away from the intensive care unit, but here’s another one. A study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association revealed that, worldwide, half of ICU patients suffer infections. The highest ICU infection rates were in Central and South America (60 percent) and the lowest in Africa (46 percent), Health Day reports. And if you have to spend time in the ICU, get out as soon as you can.
The longer patients spent in an ICU, the more likely they were to acquire an infection. The infection rate for patients who’d been in an ICU for a day or less was 32 percent, compared with 70 percent for patients in an ICU for more than seven days.
