Health insurance companies are increasingly pressing doctors for more information when they perform unscheduled, minor procedures on patients the same day as visits for other reasons, such as to draw blood, perform a skin biopsy or conduct an electrocardiogram. Insurers are zeroing in on providers evaluation and management claims that include modifier 25. Providers use evaluation and management codes on claims for assessing or […]
It seems like everything just gets more and more expensive. But are prices for medical care declining? Cutler et al. (1998) found in seminal paper “Are medical prices declining? Evidence for heart attack treatments” that while unadjusted prices of medical care were in fact rising, quality-adjusted health care costs actually were falling. In my own research, Lakdawalla et al. (2015), […]
More often than ever, professionals from other sectors are changing course, entering the home care industry and jump starting their careers by becoming franchisees. This new class of home care franchise owners brings with them backgrounds in law, hospitality, public relations and other areas. Since moving into the home care sector, many have been able to use their previous experience […]
SCAN Health Plan, a Medicare Advantage insurer, will begin offering health plans in two Texas counties and grow its services in Nevada in 2023, the company announced last week. With the expansion, pending CMS approval, Long Beach, California-based SCAN will reach nearly 7 million potential customers across four states, including California and Arizona, according to a news release. The counties […]
The U.S. Department of Justice asked a federal judge this week to bar Idaho from enforcing its near-total abortion ban while a lawsuit pitting federal healthcare law against state anti-abortion legislation is underway. Meanwhile, the Republican-led Idaho Legislature is asking for permission to intervene in the federal case, just as it has done in three other abortion-related lawsuits filed in […]
Earlier this year, a temporary option to extend Medicaid postpartum coverage from 60 days to 12 months took effect. This option, included in the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), is part of a broader federal and state effort to address racial disparities and improve maternal and infant health outcomes. Medicaid is a key source of coverage for low-income women in […]
The Biden administration on Tuesday announced a new strategy to stretch the limited available doses of the Jynneos monkeypox vaccine by changing how the vaccine is injected. The new method would split up the doses and use one-fifth as much vaccine per shot. The partial dose of the vaccine would be injected into the upper layer of skin, rather than […]
As the saying goes, “You can’t make a second first impression.” And in no industry does a first impression carry quite as much weight as in healthcare. Healthcare providers are making a big ask of their patients—they’re asking patients to trust them to manage their most precious resource: their health. So the first touch carries ramifications far beyond that interaction—it […]
Health Tech Manav Sevak is the (young and very smart) CEO of Memora Health. I must admit to thinking that their service was just a patient chatbot, but it’s a lot more than that. It’s digitizing care workflows that touch both patients and of course the clinical care teams that support them–especially outside the walls of the hospital. They also […]