chronically ill news from FierceHealthcare

The Minnesota Medical Association (MMA) has come out with a new report taking an increasingly popular position--that health plans should standardize quality measures before they continue rolling out... Read more...

A new report by a state researcher concludes that medical care in Louisiana is being shaped to a large degree by market forces, such as the number of hospital beds available in a region. The... Read more...

> The FDA has issued a warning regarding anemia drug use, suggesting that in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, some of these drugs led to tumor growth and decreased survival rates. Read more...

A new pilot program underway at a string of federally-funded community health centers hopes to improve patient care and lower costs by involving pharmacists in the care of chronically-ill patients.... Read more...

It appears Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell (D) will sign a bill today expanding the permitted scope of practice for the state's nurse practitioners. The move is part of a package of changes being... Read more...

A new study suggests that when chronically-ill uninsured adults age into Medicare eligibility, they're sicker than adults who had commercial insurance when they entered Medicare. The study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found formerly uninsured adults were hospitalized more often and had greater medical expenses through at least age 72.

The study, conducted by Dr. John Z. Ayanian of Harvard Medical School, looked at 9,760 adults who were 51- to …

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New research suggests that, at least in patients with chronic diseases, raising drug co-pays tends to cut drug use--but also raise the rate of patient hospitalizations and ED visits. The research, conducted by Dana Goldman, director of RAND Health's Bing Center on Health Economics, found that for every 10 percent increase in consumer cost-sharing, pharmacy spending drops 2 to 6 percent. However, in patients with conditions like congestive heart failure, high cholesterol, diabetes and …

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A California company is quickly becoming one of the leaders in a new--and some say, critically important--care delivery niche. Care Level Management, of Woodland Hills, CA, cares for chronically ill patients in their homes rather than making them come to a physician's office. The idea is to head off potentially serious and expensive complications which would otherwise put them in the hospital. Care Level's primary client is CMS, which is paying Care Level a monthly case stipend and fee …

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The California Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) is bringing the hammer down on Blue Cross of California (BCC). The DMHC has fined BCC $1 million after finding that it systematically and illegally canceled policies held by chronically ill and pregnant policyholders. Under state law, California health plans may only cancel individual policies if a policyholder intentionally lied on an application to cover up a pre-existing medical condition. But BCC violated this standard …

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The Disease Management Association of America has issued guidelines for measuring outcomes in disease management programs, a move aimed at helping employers determine whether such programs actually reduce the cost of caring for chronic conditions. The guidelines offer several study design tips, including use of a "pre-post" design incorporating concurrent comparison or control groups, as well as using medical and pharmacy claims cost data to calculate the financial impact of DM programs. …

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