Surging Out-Of-Pocket Drug Costs Prompt Calls To Allow Medicare To Negotiate
The cost of medicine per Medicare beneficiary rose 8.4 percent annually between 2013 and 2015.
Los Angeles Times:
Drug Costs Skyrocket For Many Older Americans, Despite Medicare Coverage
To avoid liver damage, Roberta Solar, a 71-year-old cancer patient, has to take a medicine called ursodiol, perhaps for the rest of her life. Next year her annual out-of-pocket costs for the drug will jump from $93 to $1,878 – a rise of almost 2,000%, according to information that she and her husband recently received from the insurer that covers their medicines under Medicare. The drug is just one of dozens of medications whose skyrocketing prices are increasingly hitting older Americans on fixed incomes. And that has renewed calls that the law be changed to allow Medicare, the government system that covers older Americans, to use its size and power to negotiate better drug prices. (Petersen, 11/23)
In other Medicare news —
KPBS Public Media:
News In Numbers: Medicare Measures Psych Hospitals’ Quality
In psychiatric hospitals, the use of seclusion and restraint are strategies of last resort, only to be used with those deemed a danger to themselves or others and when other efforts fail. But use of such tactics varies dramatically. One hospital in New Hampshire reports 106 hours of restraint per 1,000 hours of patient care, while 417 facilities, including some in San Diego County, report zero hours. To encourage improvement, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services now publishes those rates so anyone can see how 1,640 of the nation’s inpatient psychiatric facilities — 89 them in California — stack up on key measures of care for the severely mentally ill. The rates are reported for 2014. (Clark, 11/28)