Weekly Roundup: Health care news and notes
November 14, 2014 · NCQA
Every Friday NCQA gives a rundown of some of the health care news stories from the past week. Here are some of our picks for this week:
- Structuring payments to PCMH do not sufficiently change fee for service incentives. [JAMA]
- Affordability is uninsured’s top concern. 78 percent like their coverage, 59 percent say premiums are affordable. [Robert Wood Johnson Foundation]
- GOP Doctors Caucus wants action now on Medicare doc fix, HR 4015, that supports PCMH and PCSP. [Congressional Quarterly]
- Providers and insurers turning to ACOs to improve health care while keeping costs in control. [Seattle Times]
- Health care prices are up, and patients are buying less. [Modern Health Care]
- 5 things preventing technology adoption in health care. [Forbes]
- What congress and physicians have in common, and it’s not good. [Brookings Institute]
- CMS indefinitely delayed HIPAA’s unique health plan ID requirement that was to take effect 11/5/14. [CMS]
- The ACA is covering 10.3M previously uninsured adults and cut the uninsured rate from 20.3 to 15.1 percent. [ASPE]
- The rate of uninsured children is down to just 7.1 percent, but progress is slowing with 5.2M still not covered. [Georgetown University]
- The Administration clarified that large employers’ plans without inpatient coverage don’t meet ACA minimum coverage requirements, as HHS’ minimum value calculator had suggested. [IRS]
- Medical costs are 11 percent less when pharmacy benefits are integrated and not carved out of health plans. [AISHealth]
- SCAN and Avalere’s Patient-Centered Care Roadmap on achieving both short and long-term savings. [SCAN Foundation]
- Medicaid directors urge Congress to intervene on specialty drug costs. [Kaiser Health News]
- Converting to for-profit status improves hospital finances without harming quality, mortality rates. [JAMA]
- Lots of drug testing in Medicare, but not much addiction treatment afterwards. [Wall Street Journal]
- Performance measures should include patient actions. [MedicalXpress]
- Diabetes: Treat it early for lifelong health. [Seattle Times]
- States with high HPV-Vaccine rates have less cancer [New York Times]
