Sunday, October 24, 2021

How to Save a Quarter-Trillion Dollars a Year in Health Care (Hint: It's Not as Easy as It Sounds)

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The consulting firm McKinsey & Co. has a new report ( full , executive summary ) that identifies the sorts of administrative simplificat...
Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Teenaged and pregnant in Texas after SB8

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In yesterday's N.Y. Times,  columnist Michelle Goldberg has a powerful up-ed describing the situation created by SB 8 -- Texas's s...

Unvaccinated patients added $5.7 billion to June-August healthcare expenditures

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It's not surprising, but it is still staggering. As reported by Health Affairs : "A surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations among people...
Tuesday, September 07, 2021

The latest surge: It's real and it was avoidable

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Paul Krugman's N.Y. Times newsletter today ( not posted yet , but it should be soon) has two altogether unsurprising but very revealing...
Sunday, July 25, 2021

DFW's COVID-19 Hospitalizations Have Tripled in the Past Month

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This is today's dispatch from Steve Love, the CEO of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council: We have 1,126 COVID-19 patients in our hosp...
Friday, July 16, 2021

Massive HHS settlements & judgments in 2020 for false and fraudulent claims

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The gory details are contained in a report of the Inspector General released this month. Becker's Hospital CFO Report has a summary (em...
Wednesday, July 14, 2021

Atul Gawande Nominated for Global Health Role at USAID

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Good news for fans of Atul Gawande (books: Amazon author's page ) who will be pleased to know Pres. Biden has nominated the author/surg...
Tuesday, July 13, 2021

The High Costs of Non-Beneficial Treatments in the ICU

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Thad Pope has a useful post on this subject. There are direct medical costs (estimated at $2,700/day (Ottawa study) to $4,000/day (UCLA stu...
Monday, July 05, 2021

Happy Independence Day (almost)

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Today (July 5th) is the day of the federal holiday celebrating the Second Continental Congress 's adoption of the text of the Declarati...
Saturday, July 03, 2021

New Book: A political history of the Affordable Care Act

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There is one scholar whose knowledge and understanding of the PPACA is second to none: Tim Jost. His book review of Jonathan Cohn's  The...
Friday, July 02, 2021

SCOTUS grants review in 4 health law cases

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The 2021 Term will be a lively one for health lawyers in light of yesterday's grant of four petitions for review (two Medicare cases, on...
Thursday, July 01, 2021

CMS Proposes Final Interim Rule to Implement the No Surprises Act

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Surprise medical bills are horrific events for patients and their families, throw insurance underwriting into disarray, and create or reinfo...

Grand Jury Declines to Indict Houston Doctor Accused of Stealing COVID Vaccine

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As reported by The NY Times ,  The Associated Press ,  KHOU-TV , the Houston Chronicle , and Forbes , Dr. Hasan Gokal will not be indicted b...
Tuesday, June 29, 2021

Hospitals Now Employ 50% of all U.S. Physicians

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Once upon a time, it was a virtually universal no-no for a corporation or other lay entity or person to own, or even have an ownership inter...
Thursday, June 17, 2021

SCOTUS Rejects Red States' Challenge to ACA

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In a 7-2 decision (majority opinion by Justice Breyer, dissent by Justice Alito), the Supreme Court today tossed out the suit filed by Texa...
Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Surprise billing: It's still a thing

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From the Kaiser Family Foundation's news service: In Alleged Health Care ‘Money Grab,’ Nation’s Largest Hospital Chain Cashes In on Trau...
Monday, June 14, 2021

Public Health: The Neglected Infrastructure Crisis

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Dr. Anne Schuchat's June 10th NY Times op-ed is a must-read for any and all who want to understand the importance of investment in publ...
Wednesday, May 26, 2021

SCOTUS still has to decide a big ACA case

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On November 10, 2020, the Supreme Court heard oral argument ( recording , transcript ) in the two cases that will again decide the fate of t...
Tuesday, May 25, 2021

COVID-19 at the Intersection of Criminal Justice Reform and Public Health

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Interesting new piece is Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) : "Carceral-community epidemiology, structural racism, ...
Monday, May 24, 2021

Texas Blows it Again on Medicaid Expansion

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Health Affairs  has posted a nice summary of the Biden Administration's attempt to entice the hold-out states to expand Medicaid pursuan...