Book Club: Risky Business—Why Insurance Markets Fail And What to Do About It

I thought I knew a lot about how insurance markets work (and don’t), but I learned more than I expected from Risky Business—Why Insurance Markets Fail And What to Do About It by Liran Einav, Amy Finkelstein, and Ray Fishman. Adverse selection (commonly called cherry picking) is a double-edged problem. I knew about insurers’ schemes…

Read More

CT gets a D- for maternal mental health

Connecticut is failing mothers in protecting their mental health, according to the Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health. We aren’t alone – 28 other states received a D or F on maternal mental health (MMH).  The US overall received a D+ grade. We got an F on providers and programs – including seven metrics such…

Read More

Study finds CT private healthcare payment rates more than double Medicare’s, close to US average

A new study by RAND analyzing provider payments rates for commercial plans finds Connecticut’s 2022 rates averaged two and half times (258%) what Medicare would’ve paid for the same services at the same hospital (Relative Price). There was little variation by overall type of services. However, individual Connecticut hospitals varied considerably in Relative Price. There…

Read More

CTNJ: Key Lawmaker Pledges To Fight Potential Lamont Plan On Managed Care For Medicaid Patients

CT News Junkie reports: Key state lawmaker said Thursday she opposes the idea of reverting back to a controversial managed care plan for nearly one million Medicaid recipients, setting up a potential showdown between Gov. Ned Lamont and a legislature controlled by his party. Read more

Read More

From 2011 to 2022, CT hospital budgets devoted 12% to administration labor and 30% to direct patient care labor

Download the brief Download the data Parsing the latest data from NASHP’s Hospital Cost Tool finds that in 2022, Connecticut’s acute care hospitals averaged almost 32% of their budgets on direct patient care labor and just under 12% on labor costs for administration, which includes management, administration, and payments to their larger health system (called…

Read More

CT middle of the pack for doctors

Connecticut ranks 29th in a new analysis on the Best and Worst States for Doctors by Wallet Hub. Physicians are seventeen of the twenty highest paid US workers. Connecticut tied for 45th worst for the highest malpractice award payouts. We rank 15th in our Medical Environment, which includes the quality and safety of hospital care,…

Read More

Bristol Health Cares explores advocacy in CT healthcare

A recent episode of Bristol Health Cares features a conversation with Kurt Barwis, President and CEO of Bristol Health and Ellen Andrews, of the CT Health Policy Project. Bristol Health Cares is a wide-ranging program with guests ranging from providers, community leaders, to innovators about navigating healthcare and answering questions. The conversation touched on the…

Read More

Webinar offers tools to improve prescribing

Download the slides and watch the webinar recording Connecticut, like other states, are struggling to improve appropriate prescribing while lowering costs. In Friday’s webinar, Greg Low, RPh, PhD, offered Mass General’s experience of what works to improve physician prescribing at their ACO. Greg is the Manager for Pharmacy Operations at Mass General Brigham Health Plan.…

Read More