Will MACRA kill small physician practices?

Depending on the source, 34% to 59% percent of physicians are employed in practices of less than 10 physicians.  On the other hand, 39% of physicians are employed by hospitals.  How will these proportions change over time? An interesting paper by Casalino (2017) examines the impact of the  Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) on…

Interpreting evidence on value

Value is the latest jargon to hit the health care sector.  One potential way value could manifest itself is through value-based insurance design (VBID).  Under VBID, patients would pay lower copayments for treatments that are highly effective and/or low cost would pay higher payments for treatments that have low effectiveness or high cost to the…

Effect of Medicare Part D on Mortality

Huh and Reif (2017) have an interesting study of the effect of Medicare Part D on mortality.  The abstract is below. We investigate the implementation of Medicare Part D and estimate that this prescription drug benefit program reduced elderly mortality by 2.2% annually. This was driven primarily by a reduction in cardiovascular mortality, the leading cause of…

Trump’s First 100 Days: A Healthcare Review

The Order to begin the ACA Repeal. Appointing Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Appointing Tom Price to run HHS. Proposing the American Health Care Act (AHCA) to replace Obamacare. Confirming Seema Verma to run CMS. Delayed implementation of bundeled payments. Trump decides to continue Obamacare insurance subsidies. All this and more happened in Donald…