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PODCAST

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David Introcaso

David Introcaso, Ph.D.

Podcast interviews with health policy experts on timely subjects. The Healthcare Policy Podcast website features audio interviews with healthcare policy experts on timely topics. An online public forum routinely presenting expert healthcare policy analysis and comment is lacking. While other healthcare policy website programming exists, these typically present vested interest viewpoints or do not combine informed policy analysis with political insight or acumen. Since healthcare policy issues

government & organizations national

All Episodes

21:38

CareConnect, New York's First Commercial...

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David... ·

2015/02/11

Listen NowOver the past few years the lines between health care payers and health care providers have been blurring. Some say these health care industry silos, insurance companies and acute and post-acute providers, will eventually merge. For cost purposes, health care plans are ever-increasingly interested in improving their relationship with patients in order to provide more efficient and effective care. Health care providers want to better control their revenue streams and be more competitive

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25:09

The Rise of Medical Tourism: An Interview with...

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David... ·

2015/01/14

Listen NowMedical tourism has been defined moreover as people traveling from less developed to more developed countries to receive medical treatment. Today, well over one million Americans travel both within the US and worldwide to receive a wide variety of medical interventions. Medical tourism originating in the US is growing dramatically, it is today considered one of the fastest growing segments in our health care industry. The primary reason for its popularity is of course cost or cost

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20:12

Housing IS Healthcare: A Conversation with Rebecca...

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David... ·

2014/11/23

Listen NowBeyond the problem of an estimated 600,000 Americans being homeless each night (and 1.5 million in any given year), homelessness or unstable housing is strongly correlated with high rates of chronic illness, unmet healthcare needs and mortality. Inadequate housing impedes access to health care and an ability to stay healthy such as caring for injuries or disease and taking medications. For the chronically homeless mortality is four to nine times higher than for the general population.

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20:58

Navigating Healthcare via "The Health Care Handbook:"...

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David... ·

2014/11/13

Listen NowDespite signifcant press coverage over the past four and a half years many provisions of the Affordable Care Act remain largely unknown to the American public. Polling data shows slightly less than half of Americans know the ACA is still law, over half said they've heard nothing about the state marketplaces and over a third do not know there's a penalty for not having health insurance. More generally, researchers have found Americans have a low health insurance literacy rate. Less than

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20:51

Factoring in Bio-Psycho-Social Factors to Improve...

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David... ·

2014/11/04

Listen NowWhile it appears obvious a person's health status is directly related to their life circumstances the health care industry has been slow to recognize an individual's bio-psycho-social factors or characteristics in planning and delivering an individual's care. This critcism is typically phrased as clinicians being over attentive to the "patient" and under attentive to the "person". For various reasons having in part to do with utilization/cost, reimbursement and population health concerns

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21:49

How Relational Coordination Improves Health Care...

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David... ·

2014/10/28

Listen NowHalf of the US adult population suffers one or more chronic illnesses and two-thirds of the Medicare population suffers three or more. Largely for this reason, i.e., the prevalenece of chronic conditions, health care delivery, by necessity, is becoming ever increasingly more team based. Providing care particularly for the chronically ill therefore places a premium on enhanced relational coordination between and among clinicians of all types (and as well those providing social support

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23:00

Improving Mental/Behavioral Health Services: A...

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David... ·

2014/10/13

Listen NowDespite recent efforts to improve care delivery for mental health and substance use conditions, for example, passage in 2008 of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, mental health and substance use conditions remain both woefully under-diagnosed and treated. For example, one recent study of emergency department patients showed psychiatric illnesses were under-diagnosed in 75 percent of patients. Compounding under diagnosis is the fact that these conditions are highly

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21:32

What are "Narrow Networks and "Reference Pricing" and...

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David... ·

2014/09/13

Listen NowHealth care insurance plans and policy makers are constantly working toward improving cost management. Recently two techniques to do so have reemerged in this effort: narrow networks and reference pricing, techniques that have enjoyed success in the past. Likely the largest (de facto) user of narrow networks is the integrated health plan Kaiser and CalPERS (the California Public Employees's Retirement System) has saved millions in its use of reference pricing. What are these practices,

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21:14

Medicare Fraud in Home Health: A Conversation with...

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David... ·

2014/08/07

Listen NowMedicare billing fraud is pervasive. It's estimated at $50 to $60 billion annually or approximately 10% of all of Medicare spending. While billing fraud is committed in numerous ways from never performed procedures to fake patient care, it's possibly no more prevalent than in home health care, an industry of 12,000 providers whom bill Medicare $18 billion annually. For example, a 2010 DHHS Office of the Inspector General report found one in every four home health agencies had unusually

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22:03

"Get Screened" or Surviving Prostate Cancer (the 2nd...

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David... ·

2014/07/27

Listen NowA few years ago the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality sponsored billboard ads that stating simply "this year thousands of men will die from stubbornness." The message was intended to encourage moreover middle age men to seek preventive health screening since they are 25 percent less likely than women to visit a doctor in any one year and 30 percent more likely to be hospitalized for a preventable condition. While prostate cancer is largely survivable, aside from

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20:23

Policy Options to Mitigate Gilead's $1,000 Hepaitis C...

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David... ·

2014/07/08

Listen NowLate last year Gilead Sciences received FDA approval for its Hepatitis C drug Solvaldi. Hepatitis C (Hep C) affects three to four million Americans and can have serious health consequences. Gilead priced the drug at $1,000 a pill or between $84,000 and $168,000 for the full, curative treatment (effective in approximately 90% of patients). However as priced if every Hep C patient received Solvaldi the cost would equal the combined annual spending amount for all drugs sold in the

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21:52

A Republican Alternative to the Affordable Care Act:...

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David... ·

2014/06/24

Listen NowAs is well known Congressional Republicans have vehemently opposed the Affordable Care Act (the ACA or Obamacare). House Republicans, for example, have voted an estimated 50 times to replace the law. Despite their criticisms over the past four years only recently has the party presented anything that approaches a substantive alternative to the ACA. Earlier this year an alternative proposal was presented by Republican Sentors Burr, Coburn and Hatch titled the Patient Choice,

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22:10

How Can We Improve Primary Care: A Conversation with...

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David... ·

2014/06/11

Listen NowPrimary care is considered the bedrock of healthcare delivery. Primary care services promotes wellness, prevents disease onset, progression, exacerbation and premature death and moderates the need for higher-cost specialty services. However, as the recent news about wait times at VA health care facilities demonstrated, the US suffers a shortage of primary care providers. The current shortage, estimated at approximately 8,000 primary care physicians, is anticipated to grow to 50,000 or

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19:17

Vermont's Move to Single Payer, Universal Health...

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David... ·

2014/05/22

Listen NowIn May 2011 Vermont passed legislation signed by Governor Peter Shumlin creating a single-payer, publicly financed, universal health care system termed Green Mountain Care. The law recognized health care as a public good much like electricity. The program, not expected to go into effect until at least 2017, will be defined by an independent board, the Green Mountain Care Board, created to oversee all aspects of the program including rate setting, hospital budget authorization and the

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21:46

Enrollment Results Under the Affordable Care Act: A...

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David... ·

2014/05/12

Listen Now The ACA's open enrollment period ended this past March 31st. Over eight million Americans signed up for health care insurance. Of these 2.2 million, or 28 percent, were young adults or between the ages of 18 and 34. In 26 states and the District of Columbia approximately 15 million adults with income below 138 percent of the poverty level became eligible for Medicaid coverage. (19 states are not participating in the ACA's Medicaid expansion program and five states remain undecided)

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24:16

The FDA's Proposal to Regulate E-Cigarettes: A...

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David... ·

2014/05/06

Listen NowThis past April 24th the FDA announced a proposed rule to regulate e-cigarettes. The FDA is, in part, proposing to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to minors, require manufacturers to disclose e-cigarette ingredients and prohibit manufacturers to claim e-cigarettes are less harmful than tobacco cigarettes without submitting scientific proof. The proposed rule did not forbid TV advertising and does not ban flavorings such as cotton candy and Gummi Bear. Are these regulations adequate, or

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18:03

ACA and Innovation: Mary's Center's Efforts to...

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David... ·

2014/04/28

Listen NowThe 2010 Affordable Care Act created the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation at CMS with $10 billion in funding to test innovation and service delivery models to improve health care delivery and outcomes and reduce costs. To date the CMS Innovation Center has funded one round of innovation awards throughout the US (a second round of awards are expected to be announced this summer). In DC, Mary's Center was awarded in 2012 a three-year $15 million grant to create the "Capital

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18:41

The Work Community Health Centers Have Been Doing...

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David... ·

2014/04/09

Listen NowSince the 1960s Community Health Centers (CHCs) have been providing health care services to moreover minority populations, the poor and the uninsured. Today there are approximately 1,200 health centers providing health care to over 20 million Americans in all fifty states. They our the nation's true safety net. The Affordable Care Act created the CHC Fund that provided $11 billion over five years for the expansion of health centers and services throughout the country. During this 20

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23:11

All "RUC'ed" Up or The Problems With How Physician...

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David... ·

2014/04/04

Listen NowSince 1992 use of the RBRVS (Resource Based Relative Value Scale) has been the prevailing method by which physician procedure prices are determined. The method or formula for determining prices is managed by the AMA's RUC (or the Relative Value Update Committee). In recent years the RUC has come under increasing criticism largely because their work perversely incents the use or overuse of higher priced medical procedures. The RUC has been a topic of Congressional hearings over the past

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22:00

What Is "Dead Peasant's" Insurance: A Conversation...

The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David... ·

2014/03/10

Listen Now Corporate Owned Life Insurance are life insurance policies corporations buy on their employees whereby the corporation is the named beneficiary. This practice, at least initially, was adopted as a way of insuring a company against the loss of a limited number of key executives. These policies also became attractive because both premium returns and benefits paid were not taxed. Over time large companies, like Walmart, purchased these policies on millions of employees increasingly for

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328 results

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