Posts by Ellen Andrews
SustiNet final report off to General Assembly
The SustiNet task force has sent their recommendations to the legislature. Recomendations include payment and delivery system reforms, including patient centered medical homes, and taking advantage of a federal reform opportunity to extend Medicaid eligibility to twice the poverty level for adults – saving money for CT consumers and for the state. The plan includes…
Read MoreJanuary CT Health Policy web quiz – long term care
Test your knowledge of long term care costs in Connecticut. (Hint: they are very high). Take the January CT Health Policy Webquiz.
Read MoreGeek alert: New report on geographic variation in Medicare spending
Huge variations in health care spending per person between different regions of the US have generated a lot of interest in the last year or two. The variations cannot be explained by the incidence of disease, demographics, or even prices. You won’t be surprised to hear that CT is a very expensive state. There is…
Read MoreSerious quality of care questions in defibrillator implants
A new study on over 100,000 patients found that over one in five who received heart defibrillator implants shouldn’t have, based on best practice guidelines. The implants require surgery, with a risk of complications, and cost about $25,000 each. Not only was the surgery risky and expensive, but the 22% of patients who should not…
Read MoreOnline calculator outlines bottom line business case for quality
I’ve been playing with NCQA’s Quality Dividend Calculator – a cool toy that estimates how much improving health care quality can mean to a company’s bottom line. Visitors input some basic information about a company (I made mine up) such as number of employees, ages/gender, total revenues, overhead percentages, area of the US, industry, how…
Read MoreNew report confirms that uninsured are NOT the reason for ER overcrowding, Medicaid is
Six out of seven ER visits to CT hospitals did not require hospital admission between 2006 and 2009, according to a new report by the Office of Health Care Access. Almost half were for non-urgent problems. Uninsured patients accounted for only one in eight ER non-admit visits, virtually the same as their proportion in the…
Read MoreCourant editorial critical of CT physician oversight
Authorities in CT are too lax in approving physicians to practice here, according to the Hartford Courant’s editorial page. The editorial was based on an article by the CT Health I-Team. The authors highlight numerous cases of disciplined doctors who’ve lost their license in neighboring states who are later approved to practice in CT. Hospital…
Read MoreWaterbury uninsured have a place to get care
Yesterday’s CT Mirror highlights Waterbury Project Access, a free health clinic program providing care to uninsured patients in the area. Because of the program Dennis Hayes, a truck driver with no coverage and $50,000 in medical bills from a heart attack, doesn’t have to ration his medications or doctor visits – keeping him working and…
Read MoreFactoid: Even wealthier Americans more likely to face barriers to health care than lower income consumers in most countries
It’s no surprise that low income Americans are almost twice as likely to encounter at least one barrier to accessing health care than the wealthy. But an analysis of an international comparison study finds that higher income Americans are more likely than even low income residents of seven out of ten industrialized countries to face…
Read MoreReading for the holiday break
The Wall Street Journal Blog has health care book recommendations for the end of the year promising ideas on how to fix a flawed system. Let us know what you think of them. Send us your suggestions for the Book Club. From the reading obsessed at CT Health Notes.
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