Lilly drug for Alzheimer’s gets limited Medicare coverage
Lilly officials said they will push ahead with the first-of-a-kind imaging chemical, despite the mostly negative ruling by Medicare officials.
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Obama administration delays health law business mandate
In a major concession to business groups, the Obama administration Tuesday unexpectedly announced a one-year delay, until after the 2014 elections, in a central requirement of the new health care law.
Call the midwife: Doctors, hospitals, patients all guilty of driving up childbirth costs
I can see the business model of the physicians and hospitals at work as they recommend tests of questionable necessity. Yet when it’s my own wife and son, it’s easy to think of a terrible outcome to avert with just one more test.
Physician pay: What goes up must come down
Compensation in the most common physician specialties has been growing much faster than inflation for the past five years. Now, financially squeezed hospitals are set to reverse that trend.
Feds mull covering Alzheimer’s test that uses Lilly’s Amyvid
The $3,000 test for the first time accurately identifies the signature brain plaques of the debilitating disease.
Answer on Indiana Medicaid plan could take some time
The head of the state Family and Social Services Administration said Tuesday that the federal government is expected to approve an extension of the Healthy Indiana Plan, but a request to use the plan for an Indiana Medicaid expansion could take much longer.
Obamacare rebates total $22.6M in Indiana
Indiana consumers are set to receive rebates that are 59 percent larger this year as Obamacare continues to force health insurers to refund premiums that exceed actual medical claims by more than 20 percent.
WellPoint’s respite from criticism will be short-lived
With recent attention focused on hospital prices, WellPoint and its peers have been enjoying a nice break from their long-running status as Public Enemy No. 1 in the nation’s health care debate. They shouldn’t expect it to last.
Indiana tangles with shortage of rural doctors
The federal health care overhaul is expected to exacerbate problems regarding access to care in rural Indiana communities where is there is already a shortage of doctors and other health care providers.
Lilly’s Zyprexa injection probed by FDA after deaths
Eli Lilly and Co.’s injectable form of the antipsychotic Zyprexa is being investigated by U.S. regulators after two patients died three to four days after receiving the drug.
Medicare report a fresh threat to local hospital finances
A new recommendation from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, if enacted, would likely end one of the ways Indianapolis-area hospitals have generated healthy revenue from their recent spree of physician acquisitions.
Hospitals, insurers should end hide-and-seek with prices
To get control of health care spending, prominent health policy wonks are calling for new rules requiring hospitals and insurers to raise the ‘veil of secrecy’ they have thrown over their prices for decades.
232,000 Hoosiers hang in balance in Pence-Obama wrangling over Medicaid
New analysis shows Obamacare would cut state’s uninsured rolls 49 percent, compared with just 18 percent if Gov. Mike Pence opts out of a Medicaid expansion.
Hospitals proving themselves wrong about prices
Whenever a new report claims hospitals are charging too much, a stock set of defenses comes out. But hospitals are cutting prices and expenses as we speak, undermining those arguments.
Are employers ready to limit workers’ choice of doctor?
The real test of so-called narrow network health plans will come not with Obamacare’s exchanges, which cater to individuals, but with employers, who control a far bigger slice of the health benefits pie and have highly reluctant to limit their workers' choice of hospitals and doctors.
Think again: Why Obama’s disclosure of hospital charges won’t help you
In the first post on my new blog, The Dose, I explain why the recently released Medicare charge data are meaningless for everyone but uninsured patients.
Forecast: Cash to reign in health care
With premiums for health insurance likely to head north next year as President Obama’s health care reform law fully takes effect, both individuals and employers will pay for more health care out of their own funds and buy less insurance.
Lilly study: 1 in 5 Alzheimer’s patients misdiagnosed
The study results, which will be released Monday afternoon, are part of Indianapolis-based Lilly’s campaign to get Medicare to pay for use of its brain imaging agent Amyvid.
Study rebuts hospitals’ argument on Medicare, rising costs
Rather than raising prices on private health insurers to make up for inadequate payments from the government, hospitals across the country have been raising prices just because they can, according to a new study.
Lawmakers pass Medicaid ball back to Pence
After a four-month debate, the Legislature ended pretty much where it started on a potential expansion of Medicaid: Lawmakers are letting Gov. Mike Pence go one-on-one with President Obama to see what kind of deal he can strike.