- Center on Health Equity & Access
- Clinical
- Health Care Cost
- Health Care Delivery
- Insurance
- Policy
- Technology
- Value-Based Care
What We're Reading: In-Person Medical Care Returning; Cancer Care Cost Projections Jump; Contact Tracing Innovated
Visits to your doctor’s office will be changed, with the reopening of much of the country; there could be a 30% jump in overall cancer care costs by 2030; current efforts to track the ongoing spread of coronavirus disease 2019 may be improved.
Be Prepared to Adjust How You Visit Your Doctor’s Office
With all of the United States in various phases of reopening, according to CNN, visits to doctors’ offices will look entirely different. Forbes reports on the safest ways to do so, looking at all-new check-in procedures, transportation considerations, and the continuation of telemedicine. Top tips include patients knowing the mask requirements, being prepared to wait in their cars until their appointment time, and always calling ahead, because they may not need to go in at all.
Study Results Project a 30% Increase in Cancer Care Costs
By 2030, study results published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, from the American Association for Cancer Research, project there could be a total cancer spend of $245 billion. This would equate to a 30% jump in just 15 years and includes annual costs of $105,500 per patient who dies in the end-of-life phase; oral prescription drug costs of $24,000 for patients with myeloma; and $239,400 for patients with acute myeloid leukemia. The study authors used data from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results registry to determine cancer care costs by disease site, diagnosis stage, and phase of care.
A New COVID-19 Tracing Effort Aims to Increase Privacy Protection
Former members of a Silicon Valley effort to help contain coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have now joined forces with researchers and data scientists from Harvard and MIT to form the Covid-19 Mobility Data Network, according to Stat News. The new group’s main focus is tracking public health initiatives through the use of mobility patterns at the population level for zip codes, counties, and states. Cofounder Andrew Schroeder notes that using population-level data enables greater privacy because individual-level information is not accessed for analysis.
Urticaria Diagnosis Challenged by Overlapping Pruritic Skin Conditions
April 23rd 2025Urticaria is complicated to diagnose by its symptomatic overlap with other skin conditions and the frequent misclassification in literature of distinct pathologies like vasculitic urticaria and bullous pemphigus.
Read More
New Research Challenges Assumptions About Hospital-Physician Integration, Medicare Patient Mix
April 22nd 2025On this episode of Managed Care Cast, Brady Post, PhD, lead author of a study published in the April 2025 issue of The American Journal of Managed Care®, challenges the claim that hospital-employed physicians serve a more complex patient mix.
Listen
Personalized Care Key as Tirzepatide Use Expands Rapidly
April 15th 2025Using commercial insurance claims data and the US launch of tirzepatide as their dividing point, John Ostrominski, MD, Harvard Medical School, and his team studied trends in the use of both glucose-lowering and weight-lowering medications, comparing outcomes between adults with and without type 2 diabetes.
Listen
ACOs’ Focus on Rooting Out Fraud Aligns With CMS Vision Under Oz
April 23rd 2025Accountable care organizations (ACOs) are increasingly playing the role of data sleuths as they identify and report trends of anomalous billing in hopes of salvaging their shared savings. This mission dovetails with that of CMS, which under the new administration plans to prioritize rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse.
Read More
