The Ultimate Medicare Decision Making Formula

The Ultimate Medicare Decision Making Formula PDF

Author: Dan Brooks

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2013-07-26

Total Pages: 76

ISBN-13: 9781484943755

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The Ultimate Medicare Decision-Making formula is designed to simplify and educate readers about the seemingly complicated and confusing aspects of Medicare. It will also enable them to make swift and accurate decisions in regards to their health and prescription drug choices. Developed through thousands of hours working with new Medicare beneficiaries, this proprietary decision making process will allow you as the reader to select the right Medicare health plan for your individual health care needs, lifestyle, and budget. You'll find everything you need to know from when, where and how to apply for benefits, to the optimization of your plan from year to year. In addition to the book itself, readers will also have the ability to access audio-video tools as well as personal assistance via the internet. Finally, the consumer tips following each relevant chapter will help readers avoid common pitfalls associated with the enrollment, and plan selection of Medicare. Although designed primarily for the new Medicare enrollee, this material is relevant to anyone receiving benefits from Medicare.

Making Medicines Affordable

Making Medicines Affordable PDF

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2018-03-01

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 0309468086

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Thanks to remarkable advances in modern health care attributable to science, engineering, and medicine, it is now possible to cure or manage illnesses that were long deemed untreatable. At the same time, however, the United States is facing the vexing challenge of a seemingly uncontrolled rise in the cost of health care. Total medical expenditures are rapidly approaching 20 percent of the gross domestic product and are crowding out other priorities of national importance. The use of increasingly expensive prescription drugs is a significant part of this problem, making the cost of biopharmaceuticals a serious national concern with broad political implications. Especially with the highly visible and very large price increases for prescription drugs that have occurred in recent years, finding a way to make prescription medicinesâ€"and health care at largeâ€"more affordable for everyone has become a socioeconomic imperative. Affordability is a complex function of factors, including not just the prices of the drugs themselves, but also the details of an individual's insurance coverage and the number of medical conditions that an individual or family confronts. Therefore, any solution to the affordability issue will require considering all of these factors together. The current high and increasing costs of prescription drugsâ€"coupled with the broader trends in overall health care costsâ€"is unsustainable to society as a whole. Making Medicines Affordable examines patient access to affordable and effective therapies, with emphasis on drug pricing, inflation in the cost of drugs, and insurance design. This report explores structural and policy factors influencing drug pricing, drug access programs, the emerging role of comparative effectiveness assessments in payment policies, changing finances of medical practice with regard to drug costs and reimbursement, and measures to prevent drug shortages and foster continued innovation in drug development. It makes recommendations for policy actions that could address drug price trends, improve patient access to affordable and effective treatments, and encourage innovations that address significant needs in health care.

Redesigning the Medicare Contract

Redesigning the Medicare Contract PDF

Author: Edward F. Lawlor

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2003-12-06

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 9780226470344

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Recent debates on Medicare reform focus on prescription drug coverage, expanding managed-care choices, or technical issues of payment policy. Despite all the heat generated by these issues, Edward F. Lawlor's new book, Redesigning the Medicare Contract, demonstrates that fundamental questions of purpose and policy design for Medicare have been largely ignored. Challenging conventional ideas, Lawlor suggests that we look at Medicare as a contract between the federal government, the program's beneficiaries, and health care providers. Medicare reform, then, would involve rewriting this contract so that it more successfully serves the interests of both beneficiaries and taxpayers. To do this, Lawlor argues that we must improve the agency of the program—the informational, organizational, and incentive elements that assure Medicare program carries out beneficiary and taxpayer interests in providing the most appropriate, high-quality care possible. The book includes a chapter devoted solely to concepts and applications that give definition to this brand of agency theory. Lawlor's innovative agency approach is matched with lucid explanation of the more comprehensive groundwork in the history and politics of the Medicare program. Lawlor's important and timely book reframes the Medicare debate in a productive manner and effectively analyzes alternatives for reform. Lawlor argues that effective policy design for Medicare requires greater appreciation of the vulnerability of beneficiaries, the complexity of the program itself, its wide geographical variations in services and financing, and the realistic possibilities for government and private sector roles. Tackling difficult problems like end-of-life and high-tech care—and offering sensible solutions—Redesigning the Medicare Contract will interest political scientists, economists, policy analysts, and health care professionals alike.

Best Care at Lower Cost

Best Care at Lower Cost PDF

Author: Institute of Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2013-05-10

Total Pages: 437

ISBN-13: 0309282810

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America's health care system has become too complex and costly to continue business as usual. Best Care at Lower Cost explains that inefficiencies, an overwhelming amount of data, and other economic and quality barriers hinder progress in improving health and threaten the nation's economic stability and global competitiveness. According to this report, the knowledge and tools exist to put the health system on the right course to achieve continuous improvement and better quality care at a lower cost. The costs of the system's current inefficiency underscore the urgent need for a systemwide transformation. About 30 percent of health spending in 2009-roughly $750 billion-was wasted on unnecessary services, excessive administrative costs, fraud, and other problems. Moreover, inefficiencies cause needless suffering. By one estimate, roughly 75,000 deaths might have been averted in 2005 if every state had delivered care at the quality level of the best performing state. This report states that the way health care providers currently train, practice, and learn new information cannot keep pace with the flood of research discoveries and technological advances. About 75 million Americans have more than one chronic condition, requiring coordination among multiple specialists and therapies, which can increase the potential for miscommunication, misdiagnosis, potentially conflicting interventions, and dangerous drug interactions. Best Care at Lower Cost emphasizes that a better use of data is a critical element of a continuously improving health system, such as mobile technologies and electronic health records that offer significant potential to capture and share health data better. In order for this to occur, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, IT developers, and standard-setting organizations should ensure that these systems are robust and interoperable. Clinicians and care organizations should fully adopt these technologies, and patients should be encouraged to use tools, such as personal health information portals, to actively engage in their care. This book is a call to action that will guide health care providers; administrators; caregivers; policy makers; health professionals; federal, state, and local government agencies; private and public health organizations; and educational institutions.

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