Taking Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) From Data to Analysis and Action
The following is a guest article by Diana Zuskov, MPH, Associate Vice President of Healthcare Strategy at LexisNexis® Risk Solutions.  SDoH Success Stories to Inspire Adoption and Action in Your Organization Healthcare organizations are spending significant resources – time, money, and human capital – to address social determinants of health (SDoH) and health equity. Effective execution requires going upstream of the programming itself to understand the social determinants of a population. According to Data Bridge Market Research, the U.S. SDoH market is growing with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.9% betw...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - March 24, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Guest Author Tags: Analytics/Big Data C-Suite Leadership Health IT Company Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System Interoperability Clinical Data Data Action Data Analysis Diana Zuskov EHR Electronic Health Records Health Gorilla Health Gorilla’s Source Type: blogs

Federal Spending Up 40 Percent Since 2019
Chris EdwardsFederal spending jumped from $4.45 trillion in 2019 to $6.21 trillion in 2023, according to theCongressional Budget Office. That is a  40 percent increase in four years. The pandemic supercharged the federal budget, and spending and deficits are expected to continue rising unless policymakers pursue major reforms.What is all the new spending since 2019? The answer is surprising, as shown in the two tables below. The main drivers of the recent increases have not been the largest three programs —Social Security, Medicare, and defense—but rather rapid growth in numerous other programs.Table 1  shows CBO spe...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 23, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs

Bursting the Bubble of Over-Inflated U.S. Insulin Prices Still Leaves Behind a Very Broken U.S. Prescription Drug " Market "
This report pulls back the curtain on the drivers of spiking prices. It ' s a perfect example of why we ought to continue pushing for bipartisan legislation and oversight to address this problem. " " This investigation makes clear that consumers are the only ones losing out in America ' s broken drug pricing system, since every part of the pharmaceutical supply chain benefits from higher list prices. Insulin manufacturers lit the fuse on skyrocketing prices by matching each other ’s price increases step for step rather than competing to lower them, while PBM ' s, acting as middlemen for insurers, fanned the flames t...
Source: Scott's Web Log - March 22, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 insulin prices PBM USC Source Type: blogs

10 Budget Reforms Millennials Can Get Behind
Romina BocciaAs federal debt continues to rise, younger generations will bear the brunt of today ’s irresponsible deficit spending. Not all millennials are passive bystanders as Congress seals their fate. The Millennial Debt Foundation (MDF) recently released10 recommendations to address the U.S. debt challenge over the next 30 years.Founded in 2019 with the support ofthe late Senator Tom Coburn, MD, the Foundation convened millennial business leaders and members of Congress to devise a plan to reduce the growth in the federal debt. I am pleased to serve the organization as a senior advisor.The latest Congressional Budge...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 21, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Romina Boccia Source Type: blogs

Why does health care cost so much in the U.S. part the infinity
I ' m on a lot of email lists thanks to my profession. A message I got today is below. I won ' t make you read it before I explain that one reason medical services cost so much in this godforsaken country is that providers have to hire people to with specialized training and pay them salaries to deal with this crap. Keep in mind that they see people with multiple different kinds of insurance and they need to keep track of what insurance the person has, what it will pay for, how much, and how, based on manuals containing hundreds of pages of similar dreck. And if they don ' t get it just right, they won ' t be paid. In civi...
Source: Stayin' Alive - March 20, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

Deficits Caused by Broad ‐​Based Spending Increases
Chris EdwardsToday ’s soaring federal deficits are a looming disaster and were sadly avoidable. If policymakers had held spending to the same level relative to gross domestic product (GDP) as under President Bill Clinton, this year’s budget would be balanced. Instead, presidents and congresses over the past two d ecades have failed to reform elderly entitlement programs, while also jacking up spending on many other activities.Thefederal budget was balanced the last four years of the Clinton administration from 1998 to 2001, but it has not been balanced since. The imbalance has grown over time, and today ’s policymak...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 17, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs

Podcast Episode Recommendation: Our Curious Amalgam Podcast Episode 212
 My followers may be forgiven for their lack of awareness, but on October 23, 2022, the man who lead the PBM known as Express Scripts (owned by commercial healthcare insurance company Cigna since 2018) named George Paz died at relatively young age of 67. Mr. Paz began at Express Scripts in 1998 as CFO. By 2003, he was president and by 2005, CEO. Paz retired as CEO in 2016, although he remained chairman until Express Scripts was acquired by Cigna in December 2018. The local newspaper, theSt. Louis Post-Dispatch published his obituaryHERE). While he was an admired business leader in St. Louis, one of the things his comp...
Source: Scott's Web Log - March 16, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 episode Express Scripts George Paz PBM podcast USC Source Type: blogs

The Insulin-PBM Rebate Kickback Scheme Appears to Coming to an End
Last year, on March 3, 2022, in what I believe was a fantastic accomplishment relatively early in Aaron Kowalski ' s tenure as CEO, the JDRF and Civica, Inc. (via the company ' s CivicaScript operating unit) jointly announced Civica ' s intention to commercialize biosimilars of the three bestselling insulin analogues at an affordable price of $30/vial or $55/box of five insulin pens. The Civica press release can be seen athttps://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220303005321/en/Civica-to-Manufacture-and-Distribute-Affordable-Insulin/ and a concurrent press release from JDRF can be seen athttps://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...
Source: Scott's Web Log - March 14, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: Eli Lilly and Company 2023 Civica CivicaRx CivicaScript drug prices FTC insulin insulin prices JDRF Novo Nordisk Novo Nordisk Pharma Source Type: blogs

The Insulin-PBM Rebate Kickback Scheme Appears to Be Coming to an End
Last year, on March 3, 2022, in what I believe was a fantastic accomplishment relatively early in Aaron Kowalski ' s tenure as CEO, the JDRF and Civica, Inc. (via the company ' s CivicaScript operating unit) jointly announced Civica ' s intention to commercialize biosimilars of the three bestselling insulin analogues at an affordable price of $30/vial or $55/box of five insulin pens. The Civica press release can be seen athttps://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220303005321/en/Civica-to-Manufacture-and-Distribute-Affordable-Insulin/ and a concurrent press release from JDRF can be seen athttps://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...
Source: Scott's Web Log - March 14, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: Eli Lilly and Company 2023 Civica CivicaRx CivicaScript drug prices FTC insulin insulin prices JDRF Novo Nordisk Novo Nordisk Pharma Source Type: blogs

Bonus Features – March 12, 2023 – 87% of docs used telemedicine in 2021, 65% of healthcare orgs collect more trivial data once they adopt the cloud, and more
This article will be a weekly roundup of interesting stories, product announcements, new hires, partnerships, research studies, awards, sales, and more. Because there’s so much happening out there in healthcare IT we aren’t able to cover in our full articles, we still want to make sure you’re informed of all the latest news, announcements, and stories happening to help you better do your job. News Three Democratic Senators have introduced legislation to expand protections for Americans’ personal health data privacy. Sponsored by Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota), Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), and Mazie Hirono (Hawaii),...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - March 12, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Brian Eastwood Tags: C-Suite Leadership Healthcare IT Accenture ACCESS Family Care Amy Klobuchar Anne Walker ATA Atropos Health Avi Mukherjee Blancco Technology Group Bright.md Cardinal Health CLEAR Converged Outreach COTA CRIP Crossroads Treat Source Type: blogs

Why we don't get what we pay for
Before I take up the subject of this post, a note about commenting. I wish I could publish more comments but most of them are ridiculous or off topic. For example, I wrote a post about Kanye West. He was the subject of the post. It was about him. And I get a comment to the effect of Why won ' t I talk about Black antisemitism? WTF? I post about the high cost of health care in the U.S. and I get a comment about total federal revenues and the federal budget deficit. BTW, obviously federal revenues will generally increase over time because the economy and the population grow. Also you have to adjust for inflation. But that ' ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - March 10, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

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States can maximize Medicaid funding to pay for services to improve the mental health and well-being of youth and families.        (Source: The Commonwealth Fund: Blog)
Source: The Commonwealth Fund: Blog - March 8, 2023 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Laura Conrad Source Type: blogs

Aledade Adds More Than 450 New Practices for 2023, Making It the Largest Network of Independent Primary Care in the Country
Company Also Announces Its Second Acquisition – Value-Based Care Analytics Company Curia Aledade, the nation’s largest network of independent primary care, today announced that it added more than 450 primary care practices, including nearly 60 health centers, to its nationwide network for 2023, the most of any value-based care practice network. The company continues to be the largest network of independent primary care in the country, with more than two million patients covered by more than 150 value-based contracts across Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Medicaid and commercial payers. Aledade works with more than 1,...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - March 7, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Healthcare IT News Tags: Ambulatory Health IT Company Healthcare IT AI Aledade Artificial Intelligence CACP Comprehensive Advance Care Planning Curia Dr. Farzad Mostashari Foundry.ai Health IT Acquisitions Healthcare M&A Jim Manzi Medicaid Medicare Source Type: blogs

Using Telehealth to Serve Disparate Populations
The following is a guest article by Josh Wilda, CIO at University of Michigan Health-West. Armando Ruiz is like many who walk through the doors of Exalta Health: an elderly man greeted in his native Spanish by a bilingual marquee outside the small purple clinic on Grand Rapids’ main thoroughfare. He’s also one of many Exalta patients who took advantage of a partnership with a local hospital to receive needed specialty care through a unique hybrid remote/in-person model. The partnership between Exalta and University of Michigan Health-West serves a variety of business objectives for both providers. As ...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - March 6, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Guest Author Tags: Ambulatory Clinical Communication and Patient Experience Health IT Company Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System Telemedicine and Remote Monitoring Armando Ruiz Exalta Exalta Health Grand Rapids Hybrid Care Josh Wilda Laura Kass Source Type: blogs

Featured Health IT Job: Healthcare Data Analyst
We like to regularly feature a healthcare IT job that might be of interest to readers. Today, we’re featuring the Healthcare Data Analyst position that was recently posted on Healthcare IT Central. This position was posted by New York eHealth Collaborative and is in New York. Here’s a description of the position: New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) is a not-for-profit organization working in partnership with the New York State Department of Health to improve healthcare by collaboratively leading, connecting, and integrating health information exchange across the State. Founded in 2006 by healthcare leaders,...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - March 1, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Health IT Jobs Tags: Career and Jobs Healthcare IT Data Analyst Health IT Jobs Healthcare Data Analyst Healthcare IT Jobs Job Seekers New York eHealth Collaborative New York Health IT Jobs NYeC Source Type: blogs