Month: March 2015

Recon takes an analytical look behind select developments in healthcare

A sizeable step forward but miles still to go: CMS’ Next Generation ACO model

Tory Wolff March 28, 2015

CMS has issued a “Request for Applications” describing its Next Generation (NG) ACO. The model makes progress on three issues that have generated plenty of analytical handwringing from MedPAC and the broader ACO community. It also signals a strategy to set ACOs up to compete more directly with Medicare Advantage (MA). (1) Enhancing predictability The Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) and Pioneer ACO models had different approaches to solving the same business parameters. With NG, CMS has generally picked the ones which enhance simplicity and predictability (see table). For example,

Biopharma innovation: Will there be sufficient incentives in the future?

Jason Brauner March 20, 2015

Ezekiel Emanuel wrote an op-ed in the New York Times last month, which highlighted the low number of new antibiotics that have been brought to market in the past two decades. Antibiotics are a unique market compared to therapeutics for other diseases. Infectious disease clinicians prefer to use innovative new products as a last line of defense against highly resistant infections, relying on tried-and-true antibiotics as their primary options. Paradoxically, the “reward” for being a highly innovative, effective new antibiotic is to be sparsely used. Emanuel points out this conundrum while

NEJM Highlights February 2015: the most boring month in my NEJM reading memory

Marc Herant March 2, 2015

Our selection from a month with relatively few exciting articles – perhaps this long Boston winter has us all down. Precious metals and health plan buying: The implementation of the ACA has placed new decision making on individuals purchasing health insurance on the exchanges. In this report, the authors argue based on experiments that for many individuals, reversing the gold-silver-bronze nomenclature (gold becomes bronze and vice versa) reverses the preference independently of the underlying characteristics of the plans. For the public health advocate this highlights the need for educating shoppers, and

Month: March 2015

Recon takes an analytical look behind select developments in healthcare

A sizeable step forward but miles still to go: CMS’ Next Generation ACO model

Biopharma innovation: Will there be sufficient incentives in the future?

NEJM Highlights February 2015: the most boring month in my NEJM reading memory

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