Similar Posts
What's a Fair Price for a Medication?
ByadminGreedy pharma execs have been in the news of late. Here is a story on the topic, from Wired. The reporter misquotes me. I never said Apple could make profits selling iPhones for $10. I said that even if they could profit at that price, they’d be crazy to do so if people would…
Quote of the Day
Byadmin“Blindness cuts us off from things, but deafness cuts us off from people.” – Helen Keller (Click to view comments)
The High Price of Free Lunch
ByadminOnce again: correlation does not equal causation. And it is possible that companies give lunches to physicians who are already inclined to prescribe their products, or who are already high prescribers. But why should we leave any of this up to doubt?!? Physicians should not accept gifts from drug companies.
Cost of Treating Hepatitis C Is Soaring
ByadminHere is a fascinating picture from the Wall Street Journal, showing how much Medicare has been spending on hepatitis C treatments lately. You can see that the cost is rising dramatically: Keep in mind, however, that the new and expensive hepatitis C treatments currently on the market will dramatically reduce costs in the future, because…
Using Behavioral Economics to Design Smarter Physician Incentives
ByadminLast year, I joined Zeke Emanuel and some other great people in publishing an article on how to use the insights of behavioral economics to nudge physicians towards providing high-value care. Here is a link to that article. To give you a teaser, here are some of the principles we drew upon: And here are…
Stingy Insurance + Low Income = Bad Combination
ByadminThe Commonwealth Fund recently circulated information on the widespread difficulty many Americans have paying for their medical care, even when they have insurance. Burdened by high co-pays and high coinsurance rates, these out-of-pocket expenses are putting people on the financial edge. Here is a picture of the results, which show that a third of people…