“Diagnostic discordance” has become an epidemic. That’s what happens when a patient is transferred from one hospital and arrives at the other with a different diagnosis list. Researchers writing in the
Journal of General Internal Medicine
found such discrepancies in 85 percent of transfers—often due to miscommunication between hospitals. Patients who are the victims of diagnostic discordance are more likely to die in the hospital. One in 20 hospital patients now gets transferred.
(
Star Tribune
;
Journal of General Internal Medicine
)
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Want to cut employee drug costs? Start with the pharmacy benefits manager, John Sbrocco, health care consultant at Questige, said in a recent webinar. If you’re working with CVS Caremark, Optum or Express Scripts, “leave them immediately. You won’t beat them at their own game.” Through spread pricing, hidden rebates, kickbacks, etc., everything is aligned with the PBM, not the employer. “Employers let the legal drug cartels manage employee prescription dispensing and the cost of prescriptions,” he tells employers.
(
Employee Benefit News
)
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Innovation & Transformation
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Telemedicine visits cost, on average, $38; in contrast, an in-person visit costs $114, according to a yearlong study from Humana. Doctors who saw patients remotely prescribed antibiotics at a lower rate (36 percent) than doctors in-office (40 percent). The findings were presented at a recent meeting of America's Health Insurance Plans
. Humana says it plans to publish the results in a peer-reviewed journal.
(
Healthcare Dive
)
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In a recent speech to the Commonwealth Club, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma outlined the framework and rationale for changes she hopes to make during her tenure. “We will transform the individual patient into a consumer of health care—one that is empowered to shop for the provider that delivers the best care at the lowest price,” she said. “But in order for patients to become consumers of health care they must have transparency in pricing and in outcomes, so that they can shop for quality and value.”
(
video
;
transcript
)
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The design, development and implementation of EHR systems need to be improved to make them easier to use by clinicians, thereby avoiding errors and increasing safety, according to a new study. The research, published in the
Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association
, identified wide variability in the usability and safety of EHRs. “Our results suggest that basic performance standards for all implemented EHRs should be considered in order to ensure usable and safe systems. Both EHR vendors and providers should work together to ensure that usable and safe products are implemented and used,” researchers conclude.
(
FierceHealthcare
;
JAMIA
;
announcement
)
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The United States has become the most dangerous place in the developed world to give birth, according to an in-depth investigation by
USA Today
. Each year, more than 50,000 women in America are severely injured giving birth, and about 700 die. Roughly half of those deaths were preventable with better care. “Mothers tell harrowing tales of survival, but they often have no idea whether their doctors and nurses did something wrong,” according to the paper. Someone
is
doing something wrong: Internal documents and interviews “reveal a stunning lack of attention to safety recommendations and widespread failure to protect new mothers.”
(
USA Today
)
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N.J. backs down:
New Jersey plans to loosen restrictions on payments from drug makers to physicians and other prescribers. In January, New Jersey became the first state to take a comprehensive approach to limiting industry influence over clinicians.
(
STAT News
)
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Still looking for value
:
Most health plan executives believe physicians do not have the tools they need to succeed in value-based health care, according to a recent study by Quest Diagnostics. The survey also found that only 39 percent of physician respondents said EHRs provide all the data they need for their patients; 72 percent of all respondents agreed that doctors didn’t have all the information they needed about their patients.
(
FierceHealthcare
)
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First Stark, then HIPAA
?
HHS Secretary Alex Azar last week reiterated his promise to overhaul the Medicare billing structures to drive down government costs. He also promised to issue new guidance on anti-kickback laws and HIPAA. CMS has already put out a new request for information on the Stark law, suggesting an overhaul is in the works.
(
Modern Healthcare
)
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The Medical Board of California announced the launch of the first license alert app. Users can follow up to 16 providers. The app will send notifications about any changes to the licenses of those providers. A short video shows how it works.
(
Sacramento Bee
)
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MarketVoices...quotes worth reading
“Our medicine is run by cowboys today, where everyone is riding the range doing whatever they’re wanting to do.”—Dr. Steven Clark, a childbirth safety expert and a professor at Baylor College of Medicine, in
USA Today
.
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Editor
Sandy Mau
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