Health Affairs

In a recent Health Affairs paper, we documented that the United States has a significant survival advantage over much of Europe when it comes to cancer: 1.8 years for those diagnosed during our study window.  Furthermore, we showed over a 17-year period that this gap had widened, not narrowed, and that this widening was more... Read the rest of this entry »

Our recent Health Affairs article linking increased test ordering to electronic access to results has elicited heated responses, including a blog post by Farzad Mostashari, National Coordinator for Health IT.  Some of the assertions in his blog post are mistaken.  Some take us to task for claims we never made, or for studying only some... Read the rest of this entry »

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) will hold a National Patient and Stakeholder Dialogue on its first draft National Priorities for Research and Research Agenda on Monday, February 27, 2012, from 9:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m. EST, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The event’s agenda will feature panel discussions moderated by Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief... Read the rest of this entry »

On November 8, 2011, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) solicited the public for feedback on Medicare’s controversial coverage with evidence development (CED) policy. Although CMS did not finalize the CED policy until 2006, the agency first applied the CED concept in 1995 through a national coverage determination (NCD) on lung volume reduction... Read the rest of this entry »

The most-read Health Affairs Blog post in 2011 was Tim Jost’s analysis of the arguments before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals over the Affordable Care Act’s constitutionality.  Posts on accountable care organizations, the relative efficiency of Medicare and private insurance, and other topics also appear on HA Blog’s 2011 most-read list. Another post by... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note. In addition to Norman Kahn and John Rother (photos and bios above), this post is coauthored by Timothy Lynch, JD, Director of Foundation Programs for the ABIM Foundation; David Hoyt, MD, Executive Director of the American College of Surgeons; and Steven Weinberger, MD, Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of the American... Read the rest of this entry »

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) is preparing to review its first round of pilot grant proposals and to release its research priorities in 2012. In an interview published in the December 2011 issue of Health Affairs, the institute’s executive director, Joe Selby, tells the journal’s editor-in-chief, Susan Dentzer, about the organization’s near-term work plan—and... Read the rest of this entry »

The much anticipated Institute of Medicine Report on essential health benefits (EHB) was released last week with a series of recommendations that answered some questions and raised many more. The report offers a very important opportunity for researchers, policymakers, providers and patients to fill in some of the white space between the recommendations. Background on EHB... Read the rest of this entry »

Don Berwick, the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, will keynote Health Affairs’ September 8 briefing on controlling health care costs. At the briefing, Health Affairs will release its September 2011 issue, “The New Urgency To Lower Costs.” Topics to be discussed include chronic disease costs and opportunities for savings through prevention; who bears... Read the rest of this entry »

Thomas Saving’s and John Goodman’s post on the implications of the Affordable Care Act for Medicare leads the list of most-read Health Affairs Blog posts for May. On the list as well are posts on the hazards of ignoring the lessons of the Clinton years; the opportunities offered by clinical registries; and the implications of... Read the rest of this entry »

In the early 1970s, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation began tracking the health of patients with cystic fibrosis.  What began as a modest data collection effort is today a comprehensive clinical registry of 26,000 patients.  Caregivers and researchers use the registry to identify new trends in outcomes; recognize the most effective treatments; and design clinical trials... Read the rest of this entry »

Comparative effectiveness research has been the target of recurrent criticism in some political circles, with opponents claiming it’s the “gateway to rationing” or it encourages “cookbook medicine.” But the conversation on Capitol Hill needs to evolve beyond the rhetoric so it can address the reality of medical care today: doctors and patients lack access to... Read the rest of this entry »

On April 28th, the New England Journal of Medicine published the results of a study that compared two drugs head-to-head for the treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of legal blindness in the United States.  The two drugs, Ranibizumab (Lucentis) and Bevacizumab (Avastin), are very similar molecules and are both meant to... Read the rest of this entry »

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA)  is designed to increase the number of U. S. citizens with access to health insurance.  Along with augmented access to health insurance and hopefully health care for millions of the currently uninsured, as well as some degree of overall health care cost containment,  the ultimate success of... Read the rest of this entry »

The challenge of reining in the rising costs of the Medicare Program is particularly thorny because it confronts a recalcitrant societal tension between the necessity for cost control and the value of open-ended technology use for life extension in the later years. That tension is becoming more deeply entrenched because a growing number of older... Read the rest of this entry »

Shared decision making is hot right now. Research.  Surveys.  Tools.  Training.  Conferences.  Policies. The current model of shared decision making consists of providing patients with evidence that allows them to compare the risks and side effects of different treatments or preventive services when more than one option is available. After studying the evidence, the theory... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: In the October issue of Health Affairs, Steven Pearson and Peter Bach proposed a new Medicare payment model incorporating comparative effectiveness research. Under the model, services offering greater health benefits than an existing alternative would receive cost-based reimbursement, but services offering benefits only comparable to an existing alternative would receive a “reference price” equal to... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: In the October issue of Health Affairs, Steven Pearson and Peter Bach proposed a new Medicare payment model incorporating comparative effectiveness research. Under the model, services offering greater health benefits than an existing alternative would receive cost-based reimbursement, but services offering benefits only comparable to an existing alternative would receive a “reference price” equal to... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: In the October issue of Health Affairs, Steven Pearson and Peter Bach proposed a new Medicare payment model incorporating comparative effectiveness research. Under the model, services offering greater health benefits than an existing alternative would receive cost-based reimbursement, but services offering benefits only comparable to an existing alternative would receive a “reference price” equal to the reimbursement... Read the rest of this entry »

If you don’t keep up with the latest twists and turns in healthy policy, you probably don’t know what value-based health insurance benefits are. A Health Affairs article takes a focused look at it. Here is my layman’s summary: If you are like most people, you are not a very good consumer of health care.... Read the rest of this entry »