The Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees has announced that Medicare’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will run out of money in 2026. 2017 projections showed this insolvency was expected to occur in 2029 – so it’s getting worse. In 2026, Medicare will only be able to cover 89% of Part A costs, dropping to 77%… [Read More]
Does “EHR” Mean Electronic Health Records or Errors Happen Regularly?
Earlier this year, I wrote about healthcare transformation, heralding upcoming improvements due to rapid adoption of Electronic Health Record (EHR) protocols, but pointed out that progress was impeded by system interoperability limitations, strict privacy rules and omission of outcome data. Kaiser Health News (KHN) published an article expounding on these issues. The exposé highlights what is… [Read More]
My Thoughts Following a National BlueCross Forum
This week I attended the annual National BlueCross Consortium Health Care Broker and Consultant Forum. This is an opportunity to get the views of healthcare from, as a group, the largest healthcare network in the United States. The meeting opened with CEO Jim McNary stating that our nation’s healthcare system has reached, and even passed,… [Read More]
Major Changes Are About to Hit Pharmacy Costs
As a follow up to Adam Okun’s blog earlier this week, I wanted to provide more details. With employers and consumers facing rapidly increasing drug costs, the pharmaceutical industry has been the target of significant criticism for its lack of transparency and conflicting incentives. A major point of contention is drug rebates. The problem with… [Read More]
The End of the Rebate Game?
In a move the entire healthcare industry has been anticipating for many years, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) finally proposed eliminating prescription drug rebates for federal health programs last week. As we’ve repeatedly written (here, here, here and here); over the past two decades rebates went from being a marginal component of prescription… [Read More]
Healthcare Transformation
In 2009 the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was signed into law. This law committed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to facilitate and accelerate the transformation of health information technology (health IT). And now 96% of non-federal acute care hospitals and 78% of office-based physicians utilize certified health IT… [Read More]
New Report by Azar, Mnuchin and Acosta on Healthcare Reform
Earlier this month, the President’s secretaries of Health and Human Services (HHS), Treasury and Labor issued a joint report which identifies their perspective on how to improve U.S. healthcare – focusing on four key areas: Healthcare Workforce – Increase the supply of providers by easing rules on the scope of services they can provide, increasing… [Read More]
Reining in the Pharmacy Industry
Ahead of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) action earlier this week, drug manufacturers had proposed they would voluntarily modify their advertising to include a disclosure with a web address that consumers could visit for pricing information. But that wasn’t enough for Alex Azar, Secretary of HHS and former pharmaceutical executive. HHS proposed on… [Read More]
Update on U.S. Government’s Drug Pricing War
In May, I blogged about the Trump Administration’s plan to combat rising drug prices and last week, the administration and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released their 100-day progress report. While this document is largely self-serving, it does reveal significant progress in trying to attack some of the more egregious drug… [Read More]
Politics and Healthcare – Nothing Is Easy
I had the pleasure of spending the day on Tuesday in Washington to discuss my favorite legislative topic – healthcare. First stop, the White House, where I met with the Special Assistant to the President for Health Policy. This was a lively discussion which covered rising drug prices, the opioid crisis, mental health parity and… [Read More]
