Because the most glaring geographic variations in health care use have been observed in specialty and end-of-life care, policymakers have had trouble coming to terms with the work of John Wennberg and his Dartmouth colleagues. The questions the Dartmouth researchers raise about spending and quality are too disruptive, too threatening. Specialty and end-of-life care are […]

Editor’s Note: This is the last in a series of posts in response to Jon Gabel’s article “Where Do I Send Thee? Does Physician-Ownership Affect Referral Patterns To Ambulatory Surgical Centers?,” published March 18 on the Health Affairs Web site. Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) began the series, which also featured Jerry Cromwell.
The tension between commerce and professionalism is not new. Maimonides warned against allowing […]

A lot of pipe dreams have been stoked by the seductive notion of “aligning incentives” — a catchphrase of the managed care era that promised better quality and lower costs in one magical bubble. But the divergent interests of patients, payers, and providers are in reality more likely to collide than align, a circumstance that […]

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of posts in response to Jon Gabel’s article “Where Do I Send Thee? Does Physician-Ownership Affect Referral Patterns To Ambulatory Surgical Centers?,” published March 18 on the Health Affairs Web site. Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) began the series, which will also feature Chris Cassel.
Policymakers are increasingly concerned over incentives facing physicians to refer more lucrative, well-insured […]

Editor’s Note: Today, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) kicks off a series of posts on Jon Gabel’s article “Where Do I Send Thee? Does Physician-Ownership Affect Referral Patterns To Ambulatory Surgical Centers?,” published March 18 on the Health Affairs Web site. The series will also feature posts from Jerry Cromwell and Chris Cassel.
To paraphrase the […]

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of posts on health and health care disparities that Health Affairs Blog is publishing in conjunction with the new March/April issue of Health Affairs on Disparities: Expanding The Focus, published with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Brian Smedley contributed the first post in the series, which […]

Comparing health systems, the growth of U.S. health spending, and proposals to fix Medicare physician payment topped the January-February 2008 most-read list for the Health Affairs Blog. Sign up for email or RSS feed alerts to stay on top of new postings. Additional commenting always welcome.

U.S. Worst At Beating Death From Treatable Illness
by Jane Hiebert-White
HEALTH […]

Editor’s Note: This is the seventh and last post in a Health Affairs Blog series on Medicare physician compensation and the Sustainable Growth Rate mechanism. Paul Ginsburg, Robert Berenson, Mina Matin, Jay Crosson, Frank Opelka, and Eugene Rich have contributed earlier posts.
One of the advantages of coming last in a series of blog postings is that I can comment […]

Editor’s Note: This is the sixth post in a Health Affairs Blog series on Medicare physician compensation and the Sustainable Growth Rate mechanism. Paul Ginsburg, Robert Berenson, Mina Matin, Jay Crosson, and Frank Opelka have contributed earlier posts. The series will also feature a post by Gail Wilensky.
In January 2007 the 110th Congress convened with the Democrats newly in the majority. Among the […]

Editor’s Note: This is the fifth post in a Health Affairs Blog series on Medicare physician compensation and the Sustainable Growth Rate mechanism. Paul Ginsburg, Robert Berenson, Mina Matin, and Jay Crosson have contributed earlier posts, and in the coming days the series will feature posts by Eugene Rich and Gail Wilensky. 
There will be little relief in Medicare expenditures in the coming years as the number […]

Editor’s Note: This is the fourth post in a Health Affairs Blog series on Medicare physician compensation and the Sustainable Growth Rate mechanism. Paul Ginsburg, Robert Berenson, and Mina Matin have contributed earlier posts, and in the coming days the series will feature posts by Frank Opelka, Eugene Rich, and Gail Wilensky.
Medicare expenditures for physician services continue to be impacted by the annual growth in volume […]

Editor’s Note: This is the third post in a Health Affairs Blog series on Medicare physician compensation and the Sustainable Growth Rate mechanism. Paul Ginsburg and Robert Berenson have contributed earlier posts, and in the coming days the series will feature posts by Jay Crosson, Frank Opelka, Eugene Rich, and Gail Wilensky.
Mina Matin is the lead author of this post; she is a third-year resident in family […]

Editor’s Note: This is the second post in a Health Affairs Blog series on Medicare physician compensation and the Sustainable Growth Rate mechanism. The first post by Paul Ginsburg appeared yesterday. In the coming days, the series will feature posts by Jay Crosson, Mina Matin, Frank Opelka, Eugene Rich, and Gail Wilensky. 
To paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield, the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) gets no respect. In this […]

Editor’s Note: In the post below, Paul Ginsburg, the president of the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC), begins a Health Affairs Blog series on Medicare physician compensation and the Sustainable Growth Rate mechanism. In the coming days, the series will feature posts by Robert Berenson, Jay Crosson, Mina Matin, Frank Opelka, Eugene Rich, and Gail Wilensky.
The Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) system is intended to keep spending […]

A report highlighting the failure of many regional health information exchanges was Health Affairs’ most-read article in December. Then in January, the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) published another discouraging assessment on the progress of these collaboratives and of the national infrastructure envisaged in the 2004 presidential order that called for wiring the health system in […]

As patient volumes in hospital emergency departments (EDs) are going up, waiting times to see an ED physician are getting longer, particularly for heart attack patients and those in need of the most immediate attention, according to a study by Harvard Medical School researchers at the Cambridge Health Alliance published today as a Health Affairs […]

House Democratic leaders last week quietly compromised away the Medicare provisions in their State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) reauthorization bill as they hunkered down for a veto fight. Prudently set aside for the moment is the Dems’ aggressive attack on Medicare Advantage (MA) insurance subsidies. Gone also is an intriguing and widely overlooked package […]

I’ve worked in my small-town general practice in Scotland for ten years, combining clinical work there with a university post. In many ways my practice is pretty average. We have 5,700 patients, of all ages and from a mix of socioeconomic backgrounds. As in virtually all other British general practices, patient care is shared across […]

Editor’s Note: As Health Affairs celebrates its 25th anniversary, we look back at some health policy highlights of the past quarter century—many of which are still highly relevant to today’s debates. Watch this space for regular postings on the “classics.”
On June 12, 1986, the Wall Street Journal stated: “If you read nothing else this year […]

Editor’s Note: Why have so few provider groups undertaken the self-analysis that the Virginia Mason Medical Center (VMMC) entered into through its use of the famed Toyota Production System, even before Aetna and large employers began to push VMMC to cut costs? This is just one question posed by James C. Robinson, Berkeley economist and […]