- There’s a new technique for culturing neurons, the functional units of the nervous system; it may shed light on the origins of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease).
The new cells were derived from 3-millimeter patches of skin removed from the arm of an 82-year-old woman and her 89-year-old sister, who share a rare genetic mutation that causes about 2% of ALS cases.
The scientists from Harvard University and Columbia University focused on the rare form of ALS in part to test whether cells from elderly patients could be reprogrammed, said biologist Kevin Eggan of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.
“This opens the door to being able to make patient-specific stem cell lines from diseases which affect people very late in life, like Parkinson’s disease or Alzheimer’s disease,” said Eggan, the study’s senior author.
- The race to the finish line for anti-Alzheimer drug development may prove to be a risky proposition for pharma and its research.
- The House of Representatives moves to give the FDA power to regulate tobacco products. Great news.
- CMS: Medicare payment rates to long term care facilities to increase by over three quarters of a billion dollars next year.
Medicare payment rates to nursing homes will increase by $780 million next year, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced.
The boost in payments is the result of a 3.4 percent increase in the annual market basket calculation of the cost of goods and services included in a skilled nursing facility stay.
- Michigan physicians are upset over EPA’s decision to allow the state to use a certain antibiotic to “treat” diseased apples.
If there were no other reason to support the fact that African-Americans are an underrepresented demographic with respect to the access to healthcare in this country, one would have to look no further than statististics outlined in a recent report [PDF] prepared by the healthcare think tank, Black AIDS Institute. Besides characterizing the inadequate healthcare support for blacks living with HIV in this country as “lethargic and often neglectful”, one of the report’s co-authors calls for what, in essence, would be a global “shout out” to healthcare leaders of the dire circumstances of this disease’s most numerous silent minority. | LINK
Could this really be true?
Access to health care in the United States continues to elude more and more Americans, a new survey shows. […] “Despite the best efforts of millions of talented and dedicated health-care professionals, this latest scorecard demonstrates that we are losing ground,” Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, said during a Wednesday teleconference.
Of course it is. Silly of me to even ask. | LINK | LINK 2
Did you know that more than $200 billion is wasted every single year by health insurance companies in processing claims due to lack of efficiency? Well, you — just like everyone else who hasn’t lived under a rock for the majority of this decade — probably do, even though you may not be aware of the total costs involved.
The AMA, kicking off a PR campaign today, released its first-ever report on the state of healthcare claims processing by Medicare and seven of the nation’s largest private insurers. And the results obtained offer no real surprises, but (in their place) sobering facts.
An analysis of 3 million medical claims over a six-month period beginning in October also found that doctors in the U.S. spend 14% of the fees they receive from insurers and Medicare on the process of collecting those fees, the AMA said in a report issued at its annual meeting in Chicago.
[…]
The report, part of a campaign to reduce inefficiencies in claims payments, was the AMA’s first effort to quantify the red tape and hassle that have sent many physicians into cash-only “concierge” practices or early retirement.
LINK
- The latest benefits of caffeinated coffee, explained.
- Will a drug for baldness prevent prostate cancer?
- Citing issues of ethics, the AMA shuns the use of “secret shoppers” in gathering quality and patient satisfaction data.
“We should use real patients as sources of real information we need about quality of care,” said Dr. George Anstadt, an AMA delegate from Pittsford, N.Y., who is representing the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. “This goes against the grain of the doctor-patient relationship.”
- Actor Paul Newman apparently “fighting for his life” against his diagnosis of lung cancer.
- The emerging discipline of pharmacogenomics/genetics emphasizes compelling findings for the assertion that not all cholesterol medications work the same in all patients.
DTA (direct-to-consumer [drug] advertising) is under the microscope of the Food & Drug Administration. The government agency has already commissioned a two-year study of its effects on everything from physician prescribing patterns to healthcare consumers’ attitudes toward the spots. While good, consumer advocates acknowledge, the pace of the study isn’t fast enough. Many of these groups are urging for swift conclusions with appropriate follow up. The reason? Patients cannot afford to wait. | LINK
A pioneer in psychiatric medicine has died. Dr. Frank Ayd, whose truly groundbreaking work in developing the first effective neuroleptics to treat schizophrenia led to the appellation “the father of psychopharmacology” died from longstanding complications of coronary artery disease. In 1955 his seminal research on the agents chlorpromazine (Thorazine, still used in a major way today) and reserpine (a drug known today more for its beneficial effects on blood pressure control) completely revolutionized the treatment of schizophrenia in this country, virtually eliminating the need for lobotomies — widely the standard in that era.
Developing drugs at a time in which federal regulation was at a minimum, Dr. Ayd had the freedom to steer his academic passion toward the biological approach of mental illness which served as the model for scores of drug classes which followed. This dedication was completely at odds with most of the doctor’s colleagues’ behavioral theories on mental illness treatment standards at the time. Many, if not all, healthcare providers have not known the treatment of schizophrenia, let alone all mental illness, without the proven benefits of pharmacotherapy first mainstreamed by this extremely talented physician-researcher. | LINK
Working the graveyard shift is the stuff of lore, for both employers and their hires. When the environment in which one works the much maligned schedule is the acute hospital, there really should be no excuse for the employer not to provide the type of services consumers of the product (patients and their healthcare) have come to expect at any hour of the workday. These are lives, after all.
If that product happens to be defibrillation during a cardiac arrest, the patient as consumer should desperately hope that is the case. A recent study suggests the best time to have a cardiac arrest is during normal business hours. (As if one could or would plan for these sorts of things.) Of course, you can probably assume what the study had to say about weekends. | LINK | JAMA LINK
It’s no surprise that the cost of medications is a significant healthcare cost driver for all parties involved — physicians, patients, health plans, and of course, Pharma. It’s also no surprise that the cost of medications, be they generic or patent brand name, is prohibitive for many patients. Compliance with their healthcare suffers regardless of the overall “quality” of the delivery of their care. For many patients, the discrete intervention of simply taking his or her medication carries a far greater impact on the economics of healthcare than the act suggests. Heck, as far as Pharma is concerned, it’s all that matters.
What if compliance could be enhanced, benefiting all involved in the healthcare interaction? Patients would take all of their medicines as directed. Doctors would be happy. Insurers would be happy, as future costs of care would decrease with healthier, happier patients, and Pharma would continue to be reimbursed — right on schedule.
In a perfect world? Well, that perfect world may be closer and more tangible than one may think. Researchers have studied the use of license purchasing by consumers which gives them to ability to use drugs in certain classes for a determined period of time, usually annually. They propose that consumers pay an annual “license” fee that would entitle them to a year’s worth of medicine for each prescription they take on an ongoing basis, with a very small or no co-payment for each monthly supply. And they want health plans and Pharma companies to participate. | LINK
Hospitalists, whose move into the general healthcare sphere was initially met with derision in the mid 1990’s by many ambulatory care doctors, may not be producing overwhelmingly superior healthcare outcomes as compared to office-based physicians who see their own patients in the hospital according to a recent observational trial.
Cost cutting measures, another parameter by which hospital-based physicians are measured in this study, were not seen as enormous, but were significant nonetheless. While not compromised in any way, those patients with acute exacerbations of certain chronic diseases studied had inpatient care days shortened only slightly.
Initially created as a method by which healthcare was supposed to become more streamlined in a managed care environment, the role of the hospitalist physician has morphed into a full-fledged specialty with board certification in the offing. It is safe to say that the specialty fits nicely into the overall healthcare economic milieu of the acute care hospital. It has taken at least ten years, but the hospitalist is now seen as an integral part of the provider base in many healthcare organizations, embraced by internists and family physicians for the most part.
Of course, this is only one small trial whose results are hardly generalizable, but it represents a point from which insurance companies, patients, and providers themselves can compare future healthcare delivery trends as individual medical provider roles become more defined, yet complementary in the quest for quality. | LINK
Is this what Hillary Clinton has in mind? If so, it’s going to get a lot harder to rally around her idea of universal health (insurance) care when the main benefactor is the spirit of competition rather than the spirit of disaffected underinsured voters.
There are so many problems in our health care delivery system and its financing structure that even families who have health insurance are having problems getting care as well as paying for it, according to a recent study by an Oregon Health & Science University family physician. […]
The study was designed to the identify barriers low-income parents face when accessing health care for their children and how insurance status affects their reporting of these barriers. DeVoe found three major barriers: lack of insurance coverage, poor access to services and unaffordable costs. Even families with health insurance had trouble affording the co-pays as well as needed medications.
Study abstract here.
The rebuilding of New Orleans after Katrina remains a process fraught with physical and emotional tolls. Besides tangible infrastructure, other arenas are proving grounds for enhancement and enrichment. One of these is in the delivery of primary care medicine to the post-Katrina population.
Thought leaders in the recovery effort are now looking at the so-called “medical home” model. Designed to enhance, streamline, and maximize primary care for many disadvantaged populations, this mode of delivery looks to be the saving grace for thousands of families lacking healthcare because of Katrina.
Identified as a way to cut healthcare costs (by decreasing emergency room utilization, for example) and provide sound continuity of care, medical homes are meant to be arenas of centralized healthcare promotion for many under- and uninsured. Health and Human Services funding to the tune of over $195 million is earmarked for the healthcare overhaul in the Gulf Coast region. Time will tell if it’s money well spent. | LINK
