Articles

Will ACOs really get off the ground?

The hype over accountable care organizations—something every major hospital in Indianapolis is moving to become—is increasingly being laced with skepticism as the economics behind the idea get more scrutiny.

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Gloomy outlook for medical device makers

The next four years could be rough for makers of medical devices and orthopedic implants, including Bloomington-based Cook Medical Inc. and Warsaw-based Zimmer Holding Inc. and Biomet Inc.—and not because of the 2010 health reform law.

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Roche hopes to prosper from austerity

Executives at Roche Diagnostics expect the wave of austerity measures being taken by western governments—including the United States—to as much as double its sales of fluid- and DNA-based tests in the next three years.

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Study spoils common wisdom on health spending

The Thomson Reuters study that showed Anderson as the highest-spending health care market in the nation also concluded that treatment and spending vary widely from one locale to another with no clear reason based on demographics or health outcomes.

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Q&A

Angela Smith, an attorney for hospitals and physicians at Indianapolis-based Hall Render Killian Heath & Lyman P.C., spoke about Medicare’s value-based purchasing program, a federal initiative that will attempt to shift health care payments from the fee-for-service model to one based on health outcomes. On July 1, hospitals began being scored on their performance in 13 categories, including processes, patient outcomes and patient satisfaction surveys. How hospitals score could boost or diminish all their Medicare payments by as much as 1 percent, beginning in October 2012.

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Five individual insurers leaving Indiana

Hartford-based Aetna Inc. and Philadelphia-based Cigna Corp., the nation’s third- and fifth-largest health insurers respectively, have announced their departure from Indiana’s individual health insurance market.

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CBO: No great savings from health reform

Don’t expect the health reform law to tame health care costs. That’s the conclusion of the director of the Congressional Budget Office, who also suggested some of the simplest ways to moderate costs would be to roll back some of its key provisions.

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Exchange could snag 1.1M Hoosiers

An estimated 1.1 million Hoosiers will obtain health insurance through a yet-to-be-created online exchange, according to the latest estimates from the task force guiding Indiana’s response to the 2010 health reform law.

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Study: Medicaid better than nothing

Health care reform will add roughly 500,000 Hoosiers to the Medicaid program and, in spite of great criticism of that expansion, a new study suggests Medicaid coverage does help consumers get more care, have fewer unpaid bills and feel better.

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Employers face messy decision to drop health insurance

Companies that drop insurance coverage could, without spending any more money than they are now, give workers an 11-percent raise or else help them save as much as $2,000 per year buying health coverage in one of the exchanges, IBJ calculations show.

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WellPoint goes online to educate about ER use

Health insurer WellPoint Inc. has enlisted Google Maps for new websites that help patients think twice before they visit an emergency room for care that a less-expensive retail health clinic could handle.

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Troubled economy fueling hospital deals

Battered by stagnant population growth and blue-collar job loss, Howard Regional Health is merging with Indiana University Health—a deal that reflects the challenges faced by hospitals in Indiana’s outlying cities.

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Community Health adopts low-cost mantra

Community Health Network has embarked on a strategy to become a low-cost, high-output machine in order to survive the coming harsh economic environment that an aging population and expanded health care coverage promises for hospitals.

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Growth in drug spending to slow as generics rise

The annual growth rate in spending on drugs may be cut in half over the next five years as people opt for less expensive generic medicines over brand-name treatments, a health-care research group said Wednesday, highlighting the challenge pharmaceutical firms like Eli Lilly and Co. are facing.

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