On This Week Tonight, watch John Oliver eviscerate the stunningly corrupt practices of Big Pharma. This IS journalism. In the piece, he directs people to Open Payments, which is "a federal program that annually collects and makes information public about financial relationships between the health care industry, physicians, and teaching hospitals.
"The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) collects information from manufacturers of drugs and devices about payments and other transfers of value they make to physicians and teaching hospitals. These payments and other transfers of value can be for many purposes, like research, consulting, travel, and gifts. CMS will be making this data publicly available each reporting year.
In other words, in the words of Mark Evanier, "you can look up your doctor and see how much loot he's taken and from whom."
Showing posts with label Medicare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Medicare. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Friday, December 13, 2013
New Infographic Focuses on Participation in Government Programs
Participation in government benefits programs, both means-tested and non-means-tested, grew during the recent downturn. A new "How Do We Know?" infographic from the Census Bureau, "Changes in Use of Government Programs from 2008 to 2011", uses results from the Survey of Income and Program Participation to show changes over that period in households that receive benefits, as well as participation in specific non-means tested and means-tested programs.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Hospital Compare
Hospital Compare has information about the quality of care at over 4,000 Medicare-certified hospitals across the country. You can use Hospital Compare to find hospitals and compare the quality of their care.
The information on Hospital Compare:
Can help you make decisions about where you get your health care;
Encourages hospitals to improve the quality of care they provide.
Remember, in an emergency, you should go to the nearest hospital. When you can plan ahead, discuss the information you find here with your health care provider to decide which hospital will best meet your health care needs.
Some of the criteria:
Patient Survey Results
HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) is a national survey that asks patients about their experiences during a recent hospital stay. Use the results shown here to compare hospitals based on ten important hospital quality topics.
Timely & Effective Care
These measures show how often hospitals provide care that research shows gets the best results for patients with certain conditions. This information can help you compare which hospitals give recommended care most often as part of the overall care they provide to patients.
Readmissions, Complications and Deaths
Patients who are admitted to the hospital for treatment of medical problems sometimes get other serious injuries, complications, or conditions, and may even die. Some patients may experience problems soon after they are discharged and need to be admitted to the hospital again. These events can often be prevented if hospitals follow best practices for treating patients.
Use of Medical Imaging (tests like Mammograms, MRIs, and CT scans)
These measures give you information about hospitals' use of medical imaging tests for outpatients based on the following:
Protecting patients’ safety, such as keeping patients’ exposure to radiation and other risks as low as possible.
Following up properly when screening tests such as mammograms show a possible problem.
Avoiding the risk, stress, and cost of doing imaging tests that patients may not need.
Spending per hospital patient with Medicare
The "Spending per Hospital Patient with Medicare" measure shows whether Medicare spends more, less or about the same per Medicare patient treated in a specific hospital, compared to how much Medicare spends per patient nationally. This measure includes any Medicare Part A and Part B payments made for services provided to a patient during the 3 days prior to the hospital stay, during the stay, and during the 30 days after discharge from the hospital.
Number of Medicare patients treated
This shows the number of Medicare patients with a certain condition (MS-DRG) that a hospital treated during the current data collection period. These data are based on the number of Medicare patients that were discharged with a certain condition. They do not include patients in Medicare Health Plans.
The information on Hospital Compare:
Can help you make decisions about where you get your health care;
Encourages hospitals to improve the quality of care they provide.
Remember, in an emergency, you should go to the nearest hospital. When you can plan ahead, discuss the information you find here with your health care provider to decide which hospital will best meet your health care needs.
Some of the criteria:
Patient Survey Results
HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) is a national survey that asks patients about their experiences during a recent hospital stay. Use the results shown here to compare hospitals based on ten important hospital quality topics.
Timely & Effective Care
These measures show how often hospitals provide care that research shows gets the best results for patients with certain conditions. This information can help you compare which hospitals give recommended care most often as part of the overall care they provide to patients.
Readmissions, Complications and Deaths
Patients who are admitted to the hospital for treatment of medical problems sometimes get other serious injuries, complications, or conditions, and may even die. Some patients may experience problems soon after they are discharged and need to be admitted to the hospital again. These events can often be prevented if hospitals follow best practices for treating patients.
Use of Medical Imaging (tests like Mammograms, MRIs, and CT scans)
These measures give you information about hospitals' use of medical imaging tests for outpatients based on the following:
Protecting patients’ safety, such as keeping patients’ exposure to radiation and other risks as low as possible.
Following up properly when screening tests such as mammograms show a possible problem.
Avoiding the risk, stress, and cost of doing imaging tests that patients may not need.
Spending per hospital patient with Medicare
The "Spending per Hospital Patient with Medicare" measure shows whether Medicare spends more, less or about the same per Medicare patient treated in a specific hospital, compared to how much Medicare spends per patient nationally. This measure includes any Medicare Part A and Part B payments made for services provided to a patient during the 3 days prior to the hospital stay, during the stay, and during the 30 days after discharge from the hospital.
Number of Medicare patients treated
This shows the number of Medicare patients with a certain condition (MS-DRG) that a hospital treated during the current data collection period. These data are based on the number of Medicare patients that were discharged with a certain condition. They do not include patients in Medicare Health Plans.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Finding Medicare doctors
Medicare can help you locate and compare doctors and other healthcare professionals by specialty, location, and more. You can even look for providers who accept the Medicare-approved amount as payment in full.
Find and compare doctors.
Find and compare doctors.
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