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“2014 Medicare bill shows greatest reimbursement for eye drugs “

STATES CHRONICLE – With CMS’s now annual event of releasing Medicare news, plan changes, and payment costs, we didn’t have to wait long for the new Medicare policy and 2014 bill results to come in.

The roundup is a Medicare bill totaling $91 billion and the agency modifying their data gathering plan, discouraging doctors from administering the most promising treatments for chronic health problems and excluding wages adjustments.

The $91 billion bill representing payments per individual physician, diagnostic laboratories, and ambulance services is distributed mostly amongst internists, ophthalmologists and the palliative and hospice sector.

Florida doctors, having the largest pool of senior citizens, collected the most Medicare Plan B payments in the nation: 27 physicians out of 100.

Internists collected $9.2 billion, but mainly because they outnumber doctors with other specialties.

Radiologists serving the largest number of Medicare beneficiaries pulled in $3.7 billion. Oncology radiologists got $352,000 per provider, excluding drug payments.

Second place Medicare collectors were ophthalmologists, receiving $6.3 billion. Ophthalmic drugs are among the most expensive drug treatments administered.

Compared to 2013’s expenses, another $1.9 billion has been added to the reimbursements covered by Medicare in 2014. That’s an 8.6% increase from one year to the other.

Speaking of increases, 28% increase in 2014 went to the hospice and palliative sector and the drug expenditures gathered a big 30% increase – a $5.6 million more from 2013.

We’re actually glad to see nurse practitioners payments went up to 19% more – they have always been putting up with both patient and doctor heat.

So, the 2014’s total bill saw just a 1% increase compared to 2013.

The interpretation of Niall Brennan’s – Chief Data officer of CMS press release, stating that the agency plans for greater transparency in the health industry to promote a “vibrant” economy, seems somehow, as always, a distractor or cover up.

Shouldn’t the government encourage the prevention of chronic disease than the curing and treatment of it through the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service? Is CMS really influencing the policy makers through the release of these “trends”? Aren’t they, the policy makers and CMS working for the same “boss”?

What do you think about this 2014 Medicare bill and CMS’s new plans? Will they improve the services our most fragile require? Why would transparency even be a matter to bring up? What do you think?

Image courtesy of: Taxrebate

Life expectancy is a good indicator that includes influences of lifestyle choices in nutrition and of social access to medical care. It also reflects inequalities in quality of life and most of all it is a good indicator to assess the health status of various social groups.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health published a study in the Journal Medical Care, which concluded that life expectancy decreases for older adults with multiple chronic conditions.

The study was conducted using a national sample of beneficiaries of Medicare starting from 2008, almost 1.4 milion older people over 67.

As an example to understand how multiple conditions affects a lifespan, a woman with no chronic condition at the age of 75 will live another 17.3 years, in comparison with a woman with five chronic conditions will have shorter life span, with only 12 years added to her life. The study also confirmed previous findings that white people lived longer than black people and that women have a higher life expectancy than men. Another recent research shows how stroke rates are higher among black people as well.

Life Expectancy Decreases Because Systems Are Not Equipped for Multiple Conditions

As senior author Prof. Gerard F. Anderson argues, medication is usually provided for one or another condition, but when they add up and the body becomes overburden, it’s getting difficult to assess which type of medication will be more efficient, mainly because the medical system is scheduled to treat diseases as individual entities affecting bodies, and not for the sum effect of more than one condition.

The findings might provide insight for Medicare decision-makers, to rethink the care plan for older people with the inclusion of provisions for those who have multiple chronic conditions. As professors that conducted the study argue, older people in America have on average more than one medical condition, like heart disease, heart problems or diabetes. They argue that, in conclusion, this being the normality of health conditions over the age of 67, Medicare should take this into account.

According to Science Blog, life expectancy decreases in U.S. , more than in any other country on globe, mainly because obesity is becoming omnipresent and because of other multiple conditions on the rise on older population. This is also believed to be a limit of how medical advances can increase life expectancy, while human bodies are faster in attaining multiple illnesses. Therefore, health multiple conditions can negatively affect a human body at a faster rate than that of the beneficial results technology can bring.

2014’s Medicare Bill and New CMS Plans

Life Expectancy Decreases When Elders Have Multiple Conditions

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