I’m off for a few days; back to work next Wednesday.
Here are a few items of note you may have missed.
Pharma
First up, thanks to Ohio BWC Pharmacy Director John Hanna who sent me this MedPage piece on medicine in India in response to my post on generic drug pricing (scroll down for the info on pharma). A lot of generic manufacturing is done on the sub-continent; one possible reason generic prices increased over the last couple years has been the FDA’s extreme caution in allowing drugs manufactured in India into the US.
Given the horrifically bad track record of medicine and pharma in India, methinks I’d rather pay a few dollars more for my meds than allow defective drugs into our health system.
Workers’ comp
Looks like California’s efforts to reform medical delivery for work comp are paying off. CWCI reported medical costs declined from 2013 to 2014 by 5.7% to 7% (depending on valuation point). This is a significant improvement; report author John Ireland attributes the reduction to:
- the phase-in of the RBRVS fee schedule beginning in January 2014;
- the reinstatement of lien filing fees,
- the reductions in ambulatory surgery center fees, and
- the adoption of the IMR dispute resolution process.
Notably cost containment and medical management expenses increased substantially; this is to be expected as the flood of IMR requests.
WCIRB’s Greg Johnson reported similar results (hat tip to WorkCompCentral’s Greg Jones); the rating bureau saw medical costs per claim decrease 4.7% from 2013 to 2014. The change in fee schedule to one based on Medicare’s RBRVS for physician services looks to be one of the main drivers. What’s very interesting (really!) is the percentage of payments going to specialty docs declined last year, while dollars going to general and occ health providers went up significantly.
This is good news; it is entirely consistent with national trends to better compensate primary care providers.
A closely-related item comes from the esteemed Steven Feinberg M.D., one of the most thoughtful physician observers I know. Dr Feinberg provides a template for health care providers seeking to obtain a favorable ruling on a utilization/IMR request.
The future
Another thought-provoking piece about the impact of automation on insurance: an analyst sees a distinct possibility that the auto insurance industry will not exist in 20 years.
Just imagine the savings which would occur if the best rehab providers would participate in WC. Many currently do not because the WC discount network providers too often scalp 50% off the RBRVS schedule. It has really become a joke and many patients are reportedly dissatisfied with their care. So……SB 863 had good intentions, but when the state of CA fails to regulate the middlemen, quality suffers.