Healthcare is increasingly a data-driven enterprise. The accelerating adoption of evidence-based medicine, the coming revolution in personalized medicine, the advent of the electronic health record and the dedication of stimulus funds and reformers’ political capital to the institutionalization of comparative effectiveness research all speak to the growing centrality of empirical data in medical practice.
Reimbursement
Can Congress keep its hands off healthcare policy?
Can the United States have a just, well-managed and cost-effective healthcare system if Congress insists on micromanaging reimbursement rates? Or loading reform legislation with special provisions that serve narrow local interests? Those are critical questions that no one seems to be asking as debate swirls around the Senate Finance Committee’s draft legislation released last week.
A $4 billion price tag for the device industry?
Labor Day has come and gone and President Barack Obama has engaged in the healthcare reform debate in a meaningful public way for the first time, leaving a glimmer of hope that the silly season of political posturing and partisan gamesmanship is coming to an end.
And as general principles are reduced to clear legislative proposals, we may be able to make some sense of the potential impact of reform on the medical device industry.
For all the noise we had to suffer through during the Congressional recess, there was, it seems, work going on in some offices.
It’s time for an end to the wacko protests over end-of-life care
President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform initiative is predicated on eight basic guiding principles that are, on their face, essentially impossible to argue against.
Healthcare reform and the profit motive
Any list of the most important medical technology advances of the past 25 years, or almost any one of those years, would include, very near the top, the development of advanced diagnostic imaging modalities – CT, MRI, PET. Access to precise and detailed images of internal organs and systems has provided an incredible improvement in diagnostic capability, therapy selection and procedure planning and guidance. Capabilities that were unthinkable only a few decades ago are viewed as routine today.
The CardioNet blues
While Congress focuses on high-stakes health care reform issues that will likely affect every health system stakeholder over the next few years, and may radically change the reimbursement environment and market potential of emerging device and diagnostic technologies, business as usual goes on — for better or for worse — for individual companies.
One of the companies experiencing “for worse” is CardioNet (NASDAQ:BEAT), the once high-flying Pennsylvania-based cardiac monitoring company touted by many as the best pure play in wireless patient monitoring and diagnostics.
Show me the savings! Four steps to real healthcare reform
In my last post, I argued that the policy alternatives under discussion in the Congressional healthcare reform political debate don’t really address the goals of quality improvement and cost control.
So why should we believe reform will actually produce the promised improvements? Why will quality get better? Where will the savings come from?
The devil is in the details
President Barack Obama is on the stump talking up his goals, Congressional drafts of legislation are beginning to see the light of day, the usual suspects are crying foul and the initial wave of euphoria about healthcare reform is beginning to subside.
Despite the professed national unity on the need for significant new policy directions, the terms of a health reform battle are beginning to emerge. We could be seeing a graphic example of Washington policy-making as usual – or we could be looking at real change now. Only time will tell.
Is “industry-style” healthcare reform real?
Early in May, the Obama administration’s health reform initiative received a major boost — or at least a public relations coup — when representatives of six major healthcare system stakeholder organizations convened at the White House and promised to work to deliver $1.7 trillion in healthcare cost reductions over the next 10 years.
CMS administrator – Does anybody want this job?
President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform initiative, after what many had seen as a badly compromised and possibly debilitating start when the nomination of Tom Daschle as Dept. of Health and Human Services secretary crashed and burned in early February, seems to be moving forward smoothly and inexorably toward a Congressional vote before Labor Day. Daschle had seemed to be an essential lynch pin to the reform effort, combining a policy perspective remarkably close to that of the President with an undisputed ability to work closely and constructively with the Congress. But Obama recovered from the initial setback with a canny succession of key policy personnel appointments, and never skipped a beat.
Healthcare players seek a seat at the table
The Obama administration, and advocates of major healthcare system reform, received a major boost today in the form of a joint letter (PDF) to President Barack Obama from the leaders of the American Medical Assn., the American Hospital Assn., America’s Health Insurance Plans, the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed), the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and the Service Employees Industrial Union, promising support