Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
The answer–according to a recent study by Thornton Snider et al. (2019)–is not that easy. Using case studies of ICER report’s predictions of unmanaged uptake of new medications before 2016, the paper estimates how well these reports predict price, uptake, and overall spending. The authors find: ICER’s uptake estimates exceeded real-world estimates by factors ranging…
A common refrain is that drug prices are too high. The question is, which price? List prices–i.e., the sticker price–almost no one pays. Patient copayments are set by health plan generosity and often are loosely correlated with the price a health plan pays. Any what does the health plan pay? To simplify, health plans pay…
That is the conclusion from a Health Affairs article by Sisko et al. (2019). National health expenditures are projected to grow at an average annual rate of 5.5 percent for 2018–27 and represent 19.4 percent of gross domestic product in 2027. Following a ten-year period largely influenced by the Great Recession and major health reform, national health spending growth…
Earlier this year, I reviewed one definition of causality: the Bradford Hill criteria. Now I move from a medical definition causality to one developed by an economist (in fact, an economist from my alma matter). Granger causality basically identifies a variable as causal if: (i) it occurs the outcome of interest and (ii) including past…
Here’s a brief summary of some leading thinkers thoughts about what to expect in 2019 in health. Have a health and happy New Year! Cleveland Clinic top 10 innovations of 2019. BBC gives 6 things to look out for in health in the UK in 2019 HealthExec‘s top 10 challenges for 2019. Forbes Top 8…
Oftentimes, cost effectiveness analyses of new treatments measure health benefits less medical costs. However, getting treatment often involves a significant amount of time cost. Some cost-effectiveness analyses take into account take into account lost productivity amount individuals who work. However, these analyses rarely take into account lost time that could be used for unpaid work…
An interesting descriptive analysis by Meddings et al. (2018) finds that CMS is delivering somewhat different messages on quality based on whether the message is conveyed to patients (via Hospital Compare) or to hospitals directly (via the hospital readmissions reduction program [HRRP]). They find the following: Of the 2956 hospitals that had publicly reported HF…
Peggy Salvatore has posted Have a Holly, Jolly Health Wonk Holiday from Health Wonk Review at Health System Ed Blog. Check it out!
What costs the U.S. $197.3 billion? Slow death of rebates? How robust is propensity score matching? Trump and fetal tissue research. N.Y. Times: “Balancing prices and access to drugs for the patients of today with the innovation that will benefit those of tomorrow will take ingenuity, as well as a lot of political will.”
Would you trust the judgment of a machine or a physician? That is a pretty simple question. A seminal paper by Dawes, Faust and Meehl (1989) claim that you should trust the machine. The compare statistical or actuarial methods that are not based on human judgement against physician’s own decisions. In reviewing the literature, they…