Why MOST Medical Doctors Blindly Recommend Vaccinations
Conclusion
Doctors live in a world where vaccinations are a key part of their medical training curriculum, with the emphasis on how to achieve high vaccination rates. Vaccine safety and effectiveness in eliminating diseases is emphasized, with no balanced teaching of vaccine dangers and questionable vaccine effectiveness.
Physicians face negative consequences if they question vaccination rates and don’t push vaccines on their patients. All professional physician organizations support strong vaccine policies, which adds additional pressure for physicians to vaccinate their patients.
Pharmaceutical companies, which make va...
Source: vactruth.com - March 22, 2016 Category: Allergy & Immunology Authors: Michelle Goldstein Tags: Logical Michelle Goldstein Top Stories American Academy of Pediatrics Assessment big pharma Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Feedback Incentive and eXchange (AFIX) TIME (Teaching Immunization for Medical Education) vaccine schedule Source Type: blogs
Why Do Most Medical Doctors Blindly Recommend Vaccinations?
Conclusion
Doctors live in a world where vaccinations are a key part of their medical training curriculum, with the emphasis on how to achieve high vaccination rates. Vaccine safety and effectiveness in eliminating diseases is emphasized, with no balanced teaching of vaccine dangers and questionable vaccine effectiveness.
Physicians face negative consequences if they question vaccination rates and don’t push vaccines on their patients. All professional physician organizations support strong vaccine policies, which adds additional pressure for physicians to vaccinate their patients.
Pharmaceutical companies, which make va...
Source: vactruth.com - March 22, 2016 Category: Allergy & Immunology Authors: Michelle Goldstein Tags: Logical Michelle Goldstein Top Stories American Academy of Pediatrics Assessment big pharma Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Feedback Incentive and eXchange (AFIX) TIME (Teaching Immunization for Medical Education) vaccine schedule Source Type: blogs
Value Milestone: Public Reporting By Physician Organizations Of Costs Alongside Quality
On the winding road from volume to value in health care payment, today marks a milestone with the public reporting of total cost of care, alongside clinical quality and patient experience, at the physician organization level in California.
The culmination of a partnership between the nonprofit Integrated Healthcare Association (IHA) and the state Office of the Patient Advocate (OPA), the Medical Group Report Card is the largest statewide multi-payer public report card to provide side-by-side assessments of physician organization performance on all three key aspects of value: clinical quality, patient experience, and costs...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - March 9, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Jill Yegian, Dolores Yanagihara and Lindsay Erickson Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Health Professionals Medicaid and CHIP Medicare Payment Policy Quality Alternative Payment Models California MACRA measures physician perspective value-based payment Source Type: blogs
Since when is medicine about productivity?
45 years ago I entered medical school to join the medical profession. My father, a psychologist, always expressed great admiration for the medical profession. He strived to convince psychologists that they should hold their profession to the same standards as medicine.
If he were still alive, I can only imagine his commentary about the following common topics – productivity, RVUs, performance scorecards and our inane documentation rules. Productivity has several definitions. Economists define it:
the rate at which goods and services having exchangevalue are brought forth or produced :
When did our professi...
Source: DB's Medical Rants - February 14, 2016 Category: Internal Medicine Authors: rcentor Tags: Medical Rants Source Type: blogs
Should Medicare negotiate drug prices? Probably not
A popular idea, but not a good one
It’s nice that the vast majority of Democrats (93%) and Republicans (74%) have found something to agree upon. Too bad it’s the overrated idea of having Medicare negotiate drug prices.
Prescription drug costs are rising again after years of flat or modest growth. New, expensive products are hitting the market while drug makers have also found ways to boost the prices of older products, even generics. There’s been a lot of ink (and electrons) spilled by people complaining about “the $1000 pill” and other outrages, like bad boy drug exec and price gouger Martin...
Source: Health Business Blog - February 11, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: dewe67 Tags: Pharma Policy and politics Uncategorized drug prices election medicare Source Type: blogs
For Cam Newton, Adding Super Tax Insult to Super Bowl Injury
When I give speeches in favor of tax reform, I argue for policies such as the flat tax on the basis of both ethics and economics.
The ethical argument is about the desire for a fair system that neither punishes people for being productive nor rewards them for being politically powerful. As is etched above the entrance to the Supreme Court, the law should treat everyone equally.
The economic argument is about lowering tax rates, eliminating double taxation, and getting rid of distorting tax preferences.
Today, let’s focus on the importance of low tax rates and Cam Newton of the Carolina Panthers is going to be our poster ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 8, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Daniel J. Mitchell Source Type: blogs
The Rich (Hospital Managers) Get Richer - Carolinas Healthcare Raises Executive Compensation Once Again
This article lead with the failure of Carolinas Medical Center to report an infection apparently caused by the use of an endoscope that later was implicated in multiple infections at multiple hospitals. The article noted thatFederal law requires hospitals to report deaths from a medical device to the FDA within 10 days. If the device seriously injures a patient, the hospital must notify the manufacturer within 10 days. Both notices require hospitals to fill out what the FDA calls Form 3500A."Notice: 360 to Lose Jobs at Health Care Facility" (WSOC-TV, January 26, 2016)The article noted layoffs at Carolinas Medical Cen...
Source: Health Care Renewal - February 8, 2016 Category: Health Management Tags: Carolinas HealthCare Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority executive compensation government public hospitals Source Type: blogs
A Payment Reform Conundrum: Reconciling Conflicting Policy Goals
In early 2015, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Sylvia Burwell, announced goals for shifting Medicare payment from fee-for-service (FFS) to alternative payment models (APMs). Qualifying APMs include, among others, accountable care organizations (ACOs), medical homes, and episode-based bundled payments.
Congress, by large bipartisan majorities, endorsed payment reform in the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA), which establishes incentives for physicians to join new payment models. Many private purchasers, insurers, and providers are likewise committed to payment r...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - January 27, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Glenn Hackbarth Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Hospitals Insurance and Coverage Medicare Organization and Delivery Payment Policy Population Health Quality ACOs Alternative Payment Models MACRA Medicare Advantage Source Type: blogs
Health Care Managers as Ever More Effective Value Extractors - Following Up on Novant Health and Cape Cod Healthcare
The ever increasing compensation of top managers of health care organizations provides incentives to continue business as usual. We have frequently discussed executive compensation for top health care leaders that seems wildly disproportionate to their contribution to their organizations' health care mission.Furthermore, not only does executive compensation seem to have anti-gravity properties, rising even at institutions facing financial challenges, or while other employees face salary cuts and job loss, but it continues even after the lack of justification for it has been called out. Herein we discuss two examples ...
Source: Health Care Renewal - January 21, 2016 Category: Health Management Tags: Cape Cod Healthcare executive compensation generic management generic managers Novant Health Source Type: blogs
Integrating Specialty Care Into Accountable Care Organizations: Perspectives From The Field
Integrating specialty care can be key for high performance and financial success for ACOs, as the most complicated and costly patient care usually is managed by specialists. A large portion of the cost in our health care system is driven by specialists. Specialists are responsible for most medical and surgical procedures, involving both inpatient and outpatient care. Even for office visits, spending for specialists is higher than for primary care physicians. For example, while 45.7 percent of visits to office-based physicians in 2009 were to primary care physicians in general practice, family practice, internal medicine, o...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - January 19, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Leslie Korenda and Sarah Thomas Tags: Costs and Spending Health Professionals Innovations in Care Delivery Organization and Delivery Accountable Care Organizations ACOs healthcare leaders Primary Care specialty care Source Type: blogs
Synchronizing Medicare Advantage And ACOs To Support The Secretary’s Quality And Value Payment Goals
In January 2015, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell announced the Department will tie an increasing percentage of Medicare reimbursement to quality or value. While unanticipated, the announcement was not surprising, since paying for value over volume has been long overdue.
Between 2014 and 2018, the Department’s goal is to increase from 20 to 50 percent quality and value-based reimbursements made through Alternative Payment Models (APMs) such as Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) and bundled payment arrangements. Including other initiatives such as the hospital value-based and hospita...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - December 28, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: David Introcaso Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Hospitals Medicare Organization and Delivery Payment Policy Population Health ACOs Alternative Payment Models Catalyst for Payment Reform fee-for-service MACRA Medicare Advantage value based care Source Type: blogs
How Managerialsm/ Generic Management Damaged the American Red Cross
The American Red Cross is a storied non-profit organization. It provides disaster relief, provides a major part of the US blood supply, and has important public health teaching functions, such as teaching cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (look here). Nonetheless, its operations have become increasingly controversial. ProPublica has been investigating them for years. The latest ProPublica report, entitled "The Corporate Takeover of the Red Cross," showed how this renowned organization has suffered under generic management/ managerialism, providing another case study showing how bad generic management a...
Source: Health Care Renewal - December 16, 2015 Category: Health Management Tags: executive compensation generic management generic managers managerialism ' coup d etat marketing Red Cross Source Type: blogs
CMS Finds Exchange Plans Don’t Measure Up To CHIP And Other ACA Developments
Implementing Health Reform. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) required the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) by April 1, 2015 to review the benefits and cost-sharing in qualified health plans (QHPs) and certify that those plans offer benefits and cost-sharing that are at least comparable to those offered by the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). In the event that a state experienced a shortfall in federal CHIP funding, CMS was to establish procedures for enrolling children in a QHP certified by HHS as comparable. On November 25, 2015, CMS finally released its certification.
CMS compared the second-lo...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - December 1, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost Tags: Costs and Spending Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Medicaid and CHIP benefits packages cost sharing qualified health plans States Source Type: blogs
HHS OIG Enforcement Actions on the Horizon Utilizing Open Payments, Advises Companies on Compliance
Pharmaceutical and device companies can expect federal agencies to begin pursuing enforcement actions against companies that fail to comply with Open Payment reporting requirements within the next year, according to Mary Riordan, senior counsel at the Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General. The Affordable Care Act provides for penalties for manufacturers who fail to timely, accurately or completely report the information and for those who knowingly fail to timely, accurately or completely fail to report financial arrangements.
Moreover, Riordan, the keynote speaker at this year's Annual Pharmaceutical Comp...
Source: Policy and Medicine - November 11, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
