The high cost of excessive drinking can be tallied in billions of dollars for health costs, lost productivity, criminal justice expenses and property damage, a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found.
Nationwide the cost of binge drinking was $223.5 billion in 2006, according to the study, with a median cost of $2.9 billion to each state and the District of Columbia.
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As healthcare reform expands coverage, nonphysician providers are seeking to expand their portfolio of licensed services and are facing intense opposition from doctors to their efforts.
In California, three bills before the Legislature propose to expand the scope of practice for nurse practitioners, optometrists and pharmacists, with one bill advancing and two bills being stalled.
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It's more those smoking breaks than healthcare costs that make smokers more expensive employees.
A new analysis by researchers at Ohio State University found that employees who smoke cost private employers $5,816 more a year than nonsmoking employees. Much of the cost, about $3,077, came in lost time from smoking breaks.
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Fledgling accountable care organizations have faced plenty of challenges. Now a group of economists and lawyers are calling for a close look at issues involving insurance, antitrust and other regulation to avoid “unintended consequences.”
Health policy experts Gary Bacher, Michael Chernew, Daniel Kessler and Stephen Weiner write in the latest issue of the policy journal Health Affairs that ACOs could stifle competition among insurers and providers and potentially drive up prices.
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A patient engagement and reporting program linked to financial incentives yielded multiple improvements in health measures for employees of UnitedHealth Group, according to a study published in the August issue of Health Affairs.
UnitedHealth employees enrolled in the health insurance company's Rewards for Health program were able to earn points good for premium reductions as high as $1,200 for family coverage. The rewards program used health screenings targeting diabetes, cancer and other diseases as well as more general weight control based on the worker's body mass index.
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Joint replacement prices at the most costly California hospitals plunged by one-third after the state required its workers and retirees to pay out of pocket all costs above a “reference price” of $30,000 for orthopedic surgery, a new study said.
The average cost of joint replacement among high-priced hospitals dropped to $28,465 after the California Public Employees' Retirement System made the change in 2011, wrote University of California researchers James Robinson and Timothy Brown in the journal Health Affairs. That's down from $43,308 the prior year.
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Most Massachusetts residents are satisfied with their healthcare under the state's Obamacare-like system, and despite occasional long waits to see a physician, cost appears to be their main concern, according to a survey conducted by the Massachusetts Medical Society.
Seven years into the Massachusetts's so-called Romneycare reform model—the inspiration for the federal healthcare law—Massachusetts is often seen as a harbinger of things to come for the national reform experience.
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The for-profit assisted-living industry came under the harsh spotlight of PBS' “Frontline” investigators Tuesday night as the news program took Seattle-based Emeritus Corp. to task for a number of deaths and injuries involving residents with dementia at Emeritus facilities across the country.
Emeritus, which was founded in 1983 and has 483 facilities around the country, is the one of the country's biggest assisted-living operators.
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The Obama administration's recent decision to delay the 2010 healthcare reform law's employer mandate by a year is estimated to increase the law's net cost to the federal government by $12 billion over 10 years, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation announced Tuesday. A relatively modest cost increase was predicted when the mandate delay was announced.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) had requested that the CBO and JCT assess the effects of the July decision to postpone for one year the law's provision that employers provide insurance to their workers or else pay a penalty. In a six-page report, the CBO noted that its May 2013 baseline projections had estimated the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's insurance provisions would cost the federal government about $1.36 billion between 2014 and 2023. After the Treasury department's recent announcement, the CBO recalculated those projections and now estimates the insurance coverage measures in the law will cost the federal government about $1.375 billion over that same 10-year period.
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It's hard to get doctors to follow practice guidelines.
Despite the publication of numerous guidelines on the management of routine back pain, physicians surprisingly are not following the advice, and “guideline-discordant care” is on the rise, according to a study posted on the JAMA Internal Medicine website.
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It's hard to get doctors to follow practice guidelines.
Despite the publication of numerous guidelines on the management of routine back pain, physicians surprisingly are not following the advice, and “guideline-discordant care” is on the rise, according to a study posted on the JAMA Internal Medicine website.
Read more »
