Latest California Healthline Stories
Prices And Health Care Quality: Many Consumers Don’t See A Link
A study in the journal Health Affairs found a majority of people don’t associate price and quality in health care services. The study provides useful information for health care organizations that are trying to understand how people make choices and developing consumer tools, says the UCSF professor who led the research.
Major Employers Decry Sutter Health’s Tactics In Dispute Over Prices
Sutter Health, with dominant market share in Northern California, is insisting that employers sign arbitration agreements or face sharply higher out-of-network rates.
A researcher and MinuteClinic executive discuss the conclusions in a recent study suggesting that the clinics actually add to outpatient costs.
CT Scans For Minor Injuries On A Rapid Rise In California Emergency Rooms
Researchers say they’re reporting the facts, but not taking a stand on CT “overuse.”
Mortgages For Expensive Health Care? Some Experts Think It Can Work.
An MIT economist and Harvard oncologist propose offering loans to patients to cover the cost of expensive, curative drugs, financed by private sector investment in loan securities.
More Sickle Cell Patients Survive, But Care Is Hard To Find For Adults
For many years, most people with sickle cell died in childhood or adolescence, and the condition remained in the province of pediatrics. During the past two decades, advances in routine care have allowed many people to live into middle age and beyond, but barriers to care remain.
Pharmaceutical Company Has Hiked Price On Aid-In-Dying Drug
Valeant Pharmaceuticals, the company that makes Seconal, the drug most commonly used in prescribed for terminally ill patients who want to end their lives, physician-assisted suicide, has doubled the price to more than $3,000.
Battle Heating Up Over ‘Surprise’ Medical Bills
Legislators hope to stop “surprise” medical bills that have many patients livid and are pitting health plans and consumer advocates against the state’s leading physician group.
California Insurance Marketplace Wants To Kick Out Poor-Performing Hospitals
Providers and insurers are balking at a Covered California proposal to eject hospitals with inordinately high costs and low quality from its networks.
State Rebuffed, Won’t Move Fragile Kids to Managed Care — For Now
Medically fragile children in a special state program will get a reprieve from a proposal to switch them into managed care plans.