April, 2013

Identifying Low-Value Care is One Thing; Eliminating it is Quite Another

Last month, the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Foundation released the second wave of its groundbreaking campaign to identify and reduce low-value care, that is, common tests and procedures that are frequently overused or misused. This campaign, "Choosing Wisely," challenged medical professional societies to come up with the "Five Things Physicians and Patients Should Question." Here are our Top 5 observations about Low-Value Care.

January, 2013

The Burgeoning Literature of Health Care Innovation: A Compilation of The Latest Information Sources

Innovation in health care is certainly not new, but we've never seen the level of interest, activity and buzz that now characterizes the health policy reseach community's engagement with the topic. Meanwhile, policymakers, providers, and insurers are similarly embracing the belief that the solution to the health care system's various woes may lie in that system's near-total reinvention.

December, 2012

A Deeper Diver Into Health Costs Data

Health economists who have long been limited to Medicare data for their extrapolations of the nation's overall health costs are now gaining access to other data sources that provide new insights to the subject. One of those is the recently launched Health Care Cost Institute that offers researchers access to more than 6 billion anonymized private insurance claims data from more than 50 million people.

August, 2012

How Far Can the ACA Reduce Health Care Disparities?

Four recent papers focus on how the Affordable Care Act's coverage expansions as originally passed would affect the differences in uninsurance rates by race and ethnicity. We also look at new Congressional Budget Office data that suggests the ACA's role in reducing those disparities may be diminished by 10-20% as a result of state refusals to expand Medicaid programs.