Latest KFF Health News Stories
HHS Inspector To Step Up Anti-Fraud and Abuse Efforts In 2012
One new item on the to-do list will be to review hospitals deemed to be at high risk of submitting improper bills to Medicare. Also, The Fiscal Times details how lab test costs could be squeezing Medicare and Medicaid.
House Lawmaker Looks Into Drug Shortages, Price Markups
Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., the ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has begun an investigation into ‘gray market’ drug distributors and how they may be driving up costs and adding to the nation’s current shortage of cancer and critical-care products.
MedPAC Plan To Revamp Medicare Physician Pay Draws Intense Opposition
Providers, including doctors and hospitals, say the panel is relying too much on cuts within the industry to pay for this overhaul.
State Roundup: Health Alliances Formed In Calif.
News outlets report on a variety of state health policy issues.
A selection of today’s opinions and editorials from around the nation.
Funding Issues Affect Health Exchanges, Community Health Centers
News outlets examine why some states are not pursuing funding to aid in the creation of health exchanges, and how community health centers – targeted for expansion by the health law in order to build the health system’s capacity – are now facing cuts.
Longer Looks: Bart Stupak’s New Life; Moving Primary Care Out Of The ER
This week’s articles come from The Daily Beast, Mother Jones, Governing and American Medical News.
“Rich countries that provide wasteful, inefficient, and inequitable health services should be more accountable for the money they spend and should adapt cost-effective models of care pioneered in poor countries, delegates agreed at a meeting” on global health held by the Salzburg Global Seminar and the Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science last week in Hanover, New Hampshire, BMJ News reports. Speaking at the conference, Al Mulley, director of the Dartmouth center, said, “Poor countries have had to innovate to provide essential services, and there is plenty of scope for ‘reverse innovation,'” BMJ writes.
Global Efforts Must Be Coordinated Immediately To Prevent, Control NCDs
In this Scientist opinion piece, Edward Partridge, president of the American Cancer Society and director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Elizabeth Mayer-Davis, president of health care and education at the American Diabetes Association, and Ralph Sacco, immediate past president of the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association and professor and chairman of neurology at the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami, write that while last month’s U.N. High-level Meeting to discuss non-communicable diseases (NCDs) helped to raise awareness about the burden of NCDs, several important steps must be taken immediately to prevent and control the diseases.
New Laboratory In Kenya Will Research, Monitor Emerging Infectious Diseases
“A laboratory that will research and monitor emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) such as yellow fever and dengue” was launched in Kenya last month “in an attempt to tackle growing vector-borne health threats in the region,” SciDev.Net reports. “The Martin Luscher Laboratory for Emerging Infectious Diseases was launched with support from the German and Swiss governments at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe) … and is expected to add capacity to respond to disease outbreaks,” the news service writes.
Keeping HIV Patients On ART Will Have Long-Term Economic Benefits, Study Shows
Investments to keep 3.5 million people living with HIV on antiretroviral drugs provided by programs co-financed through the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria through 2020 will cost an estimated $14.2 billion, but “the financial savings would amount to between $12 billion and $34 billion,” according to a study published in the journal PLoS One, Sarah Boseley reports in her “Global Health Blog” in the Guardian (10/5).
CNBC.com Examines Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals In Special Report
In a special report, CNBC.com examines “the world of counterfeit pharmaceuticals, from the dangers they pose and where they’re made, to what is being done to combat them.” The news service notes that “[i]n some countries, counterfeit prescription drugs comprise as much as 70 percent of the drug supply and have been responsible for thousands of deaths in some of the world’s most impoverished nations, according to the World Health Organization (WHO),” and adds that counterfeit drugs also affect people in developed nations (Toscano, 10/4).
PBS NewsHour Reports mHealth Applications Show Promise But Need Further Research
The use of mobile phones for medical purposes, or mHealth, holds “promising implications,” but “there are still some challenges to overcome,” PBS NewsHour reports. Additional research is necessary to determine whether people act on health-related text messages and whether the messages have value for a user, to “questions … around whether applications can be used across all mobile devices, and how to charge cell phones in areas where electricity is spotty or nonexistent,” the news service writes. “Despite all of the challenges, there is progress, especially in the area of collecting health information,” NewsHour notes (Epatko, 10/5).
First Edition: October 6, 2011
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports about the latest from Capitol Hill and the campaign trail, as well as findings from new research related to health care quality issues.
Some Signals Point To New Phase For ‘Super Committee’
Republicans on the panel appear more open to revenue-raising proposals, while Democrats may be more willing to trim health care costs. As discussions continue to surround tax and entitlement questions, the Medicare physician payment fix is one issue on the radar. Doctors groups are also urging the panel to consider limits on medical malpractice suits as a means to achieve health care savings.
Health Law Components, Specifics And Challenges Take Shape
News outlets focus on various elements of the health law’s implementation that are currently in play, including the court challenges to the individual mandate, what the “essential benefits” package might look like, accountable care organization antitrust issues and the future of the CLASS program.
