Insight, analysis & opinion from Joe Paduda
I’m up to my eyeballs in the 13th (!!) Annual Survey of Prescription Drug Management in Workers’ Compensation; the response from payers willing to devote time to the project has been gratifying indeed. Previous Survey reports are available here; note … Continue reading Work comp pharmacy – early results of 2016 Survey
Read More...“The economy seems to pulse — surges a little bit, pauses, surges a little bit, pauses,” said Kevin Logan, chief U.S. economist at HSBC. “And in the end it’s nothing.” That’s the money quote from a very readable piece in … Continue reading What’s with the gloom and doom?
Read More...The rest of the world is beginning to catch up to the progress workers’ comp has made fighting the opioid scourge. Kudos to PBMs, payers, regulators, researchers and some physicians for recognizing the incredibly negative effects of opioids years ago, … Continue reading Opioids and Workers’ Comp – a quick update
Read More...Two recent articles in Health Affairs highlight a growing issue for employers and taxpayers; some hospitals are increasingly looking to work comp as a profit maker. Depending on the state, facility costs can account for anywhere from around 32 – … Continue reading Workers’ comp – for hospitals, it’s where the money is
Read More...That’s a bit of a misstatement; ACA alone is not responsible for increasing the number of insureds by some 20 million, but there’s no question it was the primary causal factor. Be that as it may, let’s examine who the newly-covered … Continue reading ACA’s 20 million increase in insureds – implications for workers’ comp
Read More...The last session at WCRI focused on my least favorite topics – doc dispensed drugs and opioids. note findings are preliminary and subject to change. From Dongchun Wang, doc dispensing. My takeaways. Price-focused controls don’t work to control physician dispensing. … Continue reading Physician dispensing, opiods and efforts to control same
Read More...Examworks released their Q4 and 2015 earnings report last week, while Clinical Solutions boss Ken Loffredo and several of his colleagues left the company rather abruptly, with Ken departing ten months before his contract was up. First, key takeaways from the … Continue reading The latest on EXAM – rosy future, staff departures, attempts to diversify
Read More...Too much work and travel last week – actually missed posting three days in a row – my apologies! Here’s what happened. In the never-ending saga of California work comp, a recent appeals court ruling found a UR doctor potentially … Continue reading Monday catch up
Read More...Yesterday we focused on enrollment, and more specifically the change in the number and percentage of eligible Americans covered by health insurance. In sum, about 9 million more non-elderly folks were insured earlier this year than were at the end of 2013; … Continue reading How’s the ACA doing? Part Two
Read More...I’d give it a B-. Let’s start with enrollment… All in, there’s about 6.5 – 7 million new non-elderly insureds via public and private exchanges to date. The total increase in non-elderly insureds from 2013 to 2014 was just under 9 … Continue reading So how’s the ACA doing? Part One
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