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.
Life Science & Biotech
Articles
Lilly Endowment to give $10M to start biosciences institute
The institute aims to attract 100 new scientists to Indiana to conduct research and development work aimed at launching new therapies for metabolic diseases.
Me-too diabetes drugs look good enough for Lilly
Eli Lilly and Co. is more than 15 years late to the game in the world of diabetes drugs. And it isn’t bringing much that doctors and patients haven’t already seen. Still, that might be good enough to make a few billion a year.
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.
IT revolution coming to local health care
Local providers will increasingly look for help from IT firms like Indigo Biosystems Inc. and VoCare Inc. as part of a coming wave of health IT innovation that is likely to mirror the IT revolution that began 30 years ago.
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.
Lilly halts trial of experimental Alzheimers drug
The trial ended after participants showed abnormal liver biochemistry, the Indianapolis-based drugmaker said Thursday in a statement.
Most of Indiana’s largest public companies enjoyed strong 2012
Angie’s List turned a profit for the first time in nearly two 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.
Bio-Response expanding in Hendricks County
Wastewater equipment maker is moving to a Danville business park to build a $1.1 million facility.
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, but with employers, who control a far bigger slice of the health benefits pie and have been highly reluctant to limit their workers' choice of hospitals and doctors.
New institute aims to attract 100 research scientists to Indiana
The $360 million initiative will be formally launched on Thursday by Gov. Mike Pence, executives of five major life sciences companies and officials of the state’s research universities.
Swedish shows stark contrast with Braly
One month into Joe Swedish's tenure as CEO of WellPoint Inc., he and the communications staff set up an interview with me. That was quite different from my experience with Angela Braly, who declined all of my interview requests in her 63 months as CEO.
A dose of reality about the business of health care
Welcome to The Dose, a blog about the business of health care. As your host, J.K. Wall, I'll be writing about the most interesting new developments I see at hospitals, doctors, insurers, employers, patients, drugmakers, device companies and medical researchers around Indianapolis and around the country.
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.