MHA Press Room

Cost increases for drug programs seen slowing

While employers' healthcare costs are continuing to rise at steady double-digit rates, cost increases for prescription-drug programs are slowing, according to a new report by benefits consulting firm Buck Consultants. The report analyzed survey responses from 80 large health insurers and benefits administrators in the third and fourth quarters of 2005. Data from the fourth-quarter showed projected 2006 rate increases of 11.8% for HMOs and 12.7% for PPOs, up slightly from third-quarter projections of 11.3% and 12.4%, respectively. But projected rate increases for prescription-drug programs slowed between the periods, to 11.1% from 12.8%. "The survey shows a gradual decrease in drug trends that began about four years ago," Michael Jacobs, Buck Consultants' national pharmacy practice leader, said in a news release. "Drug trends, which have traditionally been higher than medical trends, are now almost the same."

[ via Modern Healthcare ]

atest MHPRC Policy Fact Sheet

Attached below is the most recent Mississippi Health Policy Research Center’s Policy Fact Sheet, Medicaid HMOs: Lessons for the Medicaid Medical Home?, authored by Humphrey Costello, Jeralynn S. Cossman, and Herbert I. Burson.

Download Medhomelessons1.pdf

Use of Free Clinics Increases

As the number of uninsured rises, so does the number of free clinics around the country, reports the Associated Press. According to the National Association of Free Clinics, these clinics are "rapidly growing to accommodate a flood" of uninsured patients. There are now 2,000 around the country, generating about $3 billion in health care services each year. According to the Institute of Medicine, the uninsured cost the nation between $65 billion and $130 billion every year. Most patients who use free clinics make too much to qualify for Medicaid, yet too little to afford coverage. This is in keeping with a finding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation showing that 80 percent of the nation's uninsured either work or are in working families. Of the working uninsured, 56 percent work full time year round. However, free clinics still only serve about 3.5 million people—"a fraction of the nation's uninsured." According to Elizabeth B. Forer, director of the Venice Family Clinic in Los Angeles, "They're Band-Aid solutions until we have a more nationalized way of addressing the issue."

[ via Cover the Uninsured Week ]

Costs of Treating Trauma Disorders Nearly Double Since 1996

The information in this article is from HCUPnet, an online query system that provides access to health statistics and information on hospital stays from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). This project includes the largest set of publicly available databases on all patients in the United States, regardless of type of insurance or whether the patients had insurance.

Mississippi Medicaid Medical Home program

While the Mississippi Medicaid Medical Home program (MMMH) is novel to the state, the broad concept of getting better and less expensive medical care through improved doctor-patient relationships is familiar. The new policy brief on the topic from the Mississippi Health Policy Research Center is attached below.

Download MedicalHomesconcept.pdf

Health Care in Mississippi After Hurricane Katrina

The Clarion-Ledger published an article by Lora Hines on Feb. 19 that had some interesting post-Katrina health care statistics...

• The Coast has lost 20 percent of its residents since Hurricane Katrina
• The unemployment rate is 21% for Hancock County, 22.1% in Harrison County and 15.2% in Jackson County
• Physicians affected by the hurricane are saying it will cost them approximately $100,000 to reopen their offices
• Less than three-quarters of Bay St. Louis' pre-Katrina population of 8,200 has returned.
• The only doctors in both D'Iberville and Pass Christian have left their cities.

• Emergency management officials estimate 64 percent of Hancock County's homes were damaged or destroyed in the storm. Forty percent of the tax base, including that generated by Casino Magic in Bay St. Louis, is gone.

• Hancock Medical Center in Bay St. Louis is struggling to survive as it waits for $24 million in reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay for equipment it bought to reopen. So far, it has gotten $1 million, administrator Hal Leftwich said. The hospital has about $3 million left, which Leftwich said will last about six weeks. The hospital earned as much as $12 million a month before the storm, Leftwich said. It lost about $7 million while it was closed Aug. 31 to Oct. 5. The hospital's 400 full-time positions have been reduced to 180.

Physicians in your community

In an article by Karen Kahler Holliday for the Mississippi Business Journal (Jan. 30, 2006), Michael O'Dell, MD, director of the North Mississippi Medical Center Family Medicine Residency Center in Tupelo gives an interesting statistic about physicians in our communities. He says that research shows that on average a new family physician in a community brings roughly $1.4 million in new dollars to that community through related new services such as pharmacy, durable medical supplies, new employees at the clinic and so forth. He says there are also ripple effects to area merchants who generally experience new customers related to a person and his or her family coming to the community for medical care.

Survey Assesses Knowledge and Awareness About Health Initiatives

A new nationally representative poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation examines what the public took away from President Bush's State of the Union address, finding that the health messages in the speech have yet to register with most Americans.

Forty-one percent of people say they watched or listened to the speech,and the President's emphasis on health care costs in the health portions of the speech came through to almost half of them. But almost half of those who heard the address incorrectly thought that the President talked about the implementation of the new Medicare prescription drug benefit.

Despite extensive news coverage before and after the speech about the President's proposals for expanding the use of Health Savings Accounts(HSAs),the poll suggests a steep learning curve for the public on these new insurance arrangements. Seven out of 10 people (71%) say they have not heard of the term "health savings account" or do not know what the term means. When presented with three possible definitions,38% correctly identified a description of the accounts as allowing people to set aside tax-free dollars to pay for routine health costs not covered by high-deductible insurance plans.

The President's discussion of the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic went largely unnoticed by a substantial majority of the public.  When asked if the President emphasized the HIV epidemic in the United States, 88% of people said he did not or they didn’t know if he had. Even among those who report watching or listening to the State of the Union address, 77% did not realize he had talked about this topic. About nine out of 10 people did not know that the President proposed reforming and reauthorizing the Ryan White CARE Act (which provides funding for HIV/AIDS care and prevention), ending waiting lists for HIV drugs or increasing HIV testing through African American faith based organizations in his speech.

More than half (52%) of all Americans said they learned the most about what the President said about health care from pundits or news reports,suggesting that what people have heard or read about the speech may shape their views even more than the speech itself.

The poll was conducted February 2-7,2006 as part of the Foundation's bi-monthly Health Poll Report survey, with a nationally representative sample of 1,203 adults age 18 and older.  The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.  Toplines and chartpack

are now available online.

Health statistics on the web

Two annual publications from the federal government have recently been updated, and they are rich resources of statistics compiled from numerous government agencies and trade/professional associations. Health, United States, 2005 from the National Center for Health Statistics, provides trend data on ambulatory care, inpatient care, determinants and measures of health, health personnel, health facilities, national and state health expenditures, and healthcare coverage and major federal programs. Each year the report features an accompanying chartbook with a special focus. This year's chartbook focuses on the health of adults aged 55-64. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2006 from the U.S. Census Bureau includes not only health statistics but also data on population, education, law enforcement, social insurance and human services, labor force, energy, foreign commerce, transportation, prices, industrial outlook and more.

Thanks to the AHA Resource Center for providing this information.

Study: Growth in out-of-pocket health spending exceeds income growth

Out-of-pocket spending on medical care increased 35% from 1996-2002, surpassing a 20% increase in average family income, according to a study released Feb. 1 by the Commonwealth Fund. By 2002, nearly one in four U.S. families faced out-of-pocket medical costs equal to 10% or more of their income, or 5%-10% of their income if earning less than $36,200, the study found. Out-of-pocket costs included health insurance deductibles, co-payments, premiums and other medical costs. Excluding premiums, 15% of families faced out-of-pocket medical costs equal to 5%-10% or more of their income in 2001-02, up from 12% of families in 1996-97. “While changing incentives for consumers may play some part in the solution to growing health care costs, it is also vital to assure that the most vulnerable families are adequately protected against the risk of unsustainable medical bills,” the authors conclude.

[ via AHA News ]