Insight, analysis & opinion from Joe Paduda

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Mar
3

Pre-WCRI catch up…

With WCRI’s annual confab coming up Thursday am, meetings in Boston tomorrow, and lots going on already this week, here’s a quick summary of goings on from all over the health care world.

Kudos to Liberty Mutual’s (and fellow Syracuse University grad) Tammy Camillone; Tammy was just promoted to run Liberty’s bill review operation.  With the pending transition from Coventry’s 4.0 to Strataware, this is a big job – but one well within Tammy’s capabilities.

Healthplan membership climbed by 5.6 million members from Q3 2013 to Q3 2014. That’s not surprising; what is surprising is the big gains in ASO (administrative services only, or self-insured health plans for larger employers) business for Kaiser and Anthem.  While most growth was in the individual lines, the jump in employer plans indicates things are looking good for health plans across a broad spectrum of products. 

A study just published in JAMA indicates the risk of overdose from prescribed opioids may be significantly greater if the opioids are long-acting (e.g. OxyContin) vs short-acting.

To our knowledge, the findings of the present study provide the first evidence that the risk of unintentional overdose injury is related to the prescribed opioid’s duration of action. If replicated in other cohorts, our findings suggest that clinicians weighing the benefits and risks of initiating different opioid regimens should consider not only the daily dose prescribed but also the duration of opioid action, favoring short-acting agents whenever possible, especially during the first 2 weeks of therapy.

Thanks to Steven Feinberg MD for the tipoff.

Finally, there are good people in the world, and there are people who are not.

Goings-on in Maryland work comp highlights this all too well.  The physician dispensing advocates, their pawns at the Maryland medical societies, and their hired hitmen are all on the wrong side of right.

In pursuit of the almighty dollar, these slimeballs are quite willing to say anything, do anything, lie about anyone, distort any facts and compromise whatever morals they may once have had just so they can keep feeding at the trough.

A trough filled with dollars hard-earned by taxpayers and employers.


Joe Paduda is the principal of Health Strategy Associates

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A national consulting firm specializing in managed care for workers’ compensation, group health and auto, and health care cost containment. We serve insurers, employers and health care providers.

 

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