health policy

> Winsted Pediatrics has settled overbilling charges with the feds after billing Medicare for flu vaccine it received free from the government. Winsted Pediatrics has an interesting explanation for the charges--outdated billing software. Article

> In an effort to combat fraud, Pfizer has been using RFID tags to track Viagra shipments. …

This week sees three important new healthcare policy developments. For starters, the federal government is about to add a little more money to the pie used to promote EMRs. Also, the new Medicare Part D drug benefit is up and running--with some glitches--but that's to be expected. Finally, last year's budget vote cuts Medicaid and gives states the freedom to fairly radically change …

It will escape no one's attention that 2006 is an election year. Many hopeful Democrats are looking at the rough 2005 "enjoyed" by the Bush administration and have decided that 2006 is shaping up to be the reverse of 1994 all over again. While it's hard to imagine the news for Republicans staying as bad as it's been, there are at least three areas where healthcare will play into politics this year. The most obvious is the roll out of Medicare Part D's drug coverage, about which there has …

Although the prescription drug initiatives in California got most of the heavy media play this week, voters in Washington state also cast their votes in a heated health policy debate. Doctors and local trial lawyer groups spent $18 million on rival malpractice initiatives in an effort to gain the upper hand. Neither measure passed. I-330, the pro-doctor initiative, lost by 10 points. I-336, the lawyer-friendly measure, lost by 18. The defeat of both measures will probably mean state …

Authorities in China have reclassified three cases of pneumonia reported last month as the H5N1 virus. One of the patients involved died and the other two are in stable condition. In response, the Chinese government announced new measures aimed at controlling the disease, including a total ban on live poultry sales. Also on Monday, World Health Organization Director-General Lee Jong-wook called a pandemic "inevitable" and said the impact of a global outbreak of the disease would be …

Over the past few years several different surveys have claimed different rates of health IT adoption. The Department of Health and Human Services is attempting to get to the bottom of the issue by commissioning a series of surveys designed to accurately measure how doctors and hospitals are using different types of technology. George Washington University and the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Institute for Health Policy will conduct the research. The partnership's first report, …

A study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that pay-for-performance may not performing quite as well in real life as some health policy wonks had predicted. The two-year study by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health compared the use of pay-for-performance at physician practices affiliated with PacifiCare in California with practices in the Pacific Northwest which do not use incentive programs. Clinical quality scores for …

It has been an exciting week in healthcare. First, there was Lester Crawford's mysterious resignation from his position as FDA chairman. Then came the little story about Mr. Frist and his stake in HCA. As if those two weren't enough, we were then treated to a major health policy story, as bipartisan support grew for a temporary expansion of Medicaid for victims of Hurricane Katrina, a …

This was the week that even President Bush noticed that healthcare costs have been a drag on the economy. At the moment what passes for health policy in the US is a combination of a half-hearted expansion of Medicaid programs in the states, a complex and confusing drug benefit for seniors, and the steady decline in employer-based health insurance, the source for coverage for most …

A case in the UK involving a woman who has decided to take her son to India for surgery rather than endure a long wait with the National Health Service is drawing media attention. Elliot Knot, who suffered a serious back injury in January while ice skating, was told by NHS doctors that he would have to wait another nine months for his operation. After learning that surgery at a private hospital would be prohibitively expensive, his mother decided to fly him to India. The incident comes in …