The Health Care Blog

PHARMA: How big a deal is cross-border Internet pharmacy?

Regular THCB readers will know that I've been forecasting that the Republican administration will have the FDA back down from its stance banning re-importation of drugs from Canada (and elsewhere) mostly because over 80% of the public think that they...

TECHNOLOGY/QUALITY: Physician use of point of care clinical information

So the proof is in--informed medical decision making at the point of care for physicians works and they like it. A very large sample of physicians (over 5,000 surveyed, out of 55,000 clinicians who could access the system) were given...

PHARMA: Spitzer looks into Norvir pricing controversy

THCB readers will recall that last year Abbott radically increased the price of its HIV drug Norvir mostly in order to make competitors drugs taken with it more expensive than a combo pill it was launching. Well apparently NY state...

PHARMA & TECHNOLOGY: JSK on scenario planning, Mittman on forecasting

If you go down a couple of pages in this edition of Pharma Marketing News you'll find an interesting article written about a speech Jane Sarasohn Kahn gave to a pharma conference about scenario planning. Once you've taken a look...

PHARMA: Pharma stocks--Apparently it's all Kerry's fault

Investment magazine Barron's claims that the pharma sector's stocks have slid because of fears that Kerry will win the election and presumably institute price controls. Quite how he'll do that with a Republican house and Senate is a good question,...

POLICY: Redefining the underserved--1 in 8 Americans have no access to basic care

I've just returned from a hospital meeting at which some take-all-comers, mission-driven hospitals are seeing bad debt ratios of up to 12% of patients, and at the same time the National Association of Community Health Centers reports that 36 million...

HEALTH PLANS: It's a good year for the Rowe(ses)

2003 certainly was kind to Aetna which managed to complete its turnaround started in 2001. Back in the mid-1990s Jack Rowe was running Mount Sinai hospital in New York, and making less than $1 million a year. In my earshot...

HOSPITALS: Another Tenet settlement, but more coming

Tenet stock fell a little today (fresh from rallying after I'd sold it!) on news that it agreed to a $30.75M settlement for its conduct in Florida seven years ago and some nursing homes shenanigans nationwide. Tenet had put aside...

INDUSTRY: PPM evolution--US Oncology to be bought

Buy-out fund Welsh, Carson has bought the biggest for-profit physician group US Oncology. This suggests to me that the market is unlikely to be rewarding oncologists while the whole issue around reduced fees for oncology drugs gets sorted out. THCB...

BLOGGING: Ross The Bloviator is back

For some reason Ross decided a few weeks back that dealing with his new baby, paid workload, and real life took priority over blogging! Luckily he's now got his priorities straight again and is back with a ton of new...

PHARMA: The Motley Fool on drug costs, here and there

The Motley Fool, which is a site for individual investors, has noticed that over the long haul drug costs are likely to be compressed over time. If current trends continue, it's not hard to imagine some form of caps. Of...

HOSPITALS: Scully shorts Medcath? Well not exactly but....

There's a report in the weekend Washington Post that among his other "achievements" (like the muzzling of the actuarial projections about the cost of Medicare drug coverage) Tom Scully made some remarks that sunk the stock of specialty heart hospital...

INTERNATIONAL: . . . . and you thought doctors were difficult in the US

Word from the UK is that a leading neurosurgeon either took a refill of a bowl of soup or just some more croutons from the hospital cafe (depending on whether you believe him or the canteen staff) and he's been...

POLICY: HSAs here and there, in theory and in practice. (with UPDATED link later afternoon Monday)

The HSA debate is an interesting one. Most of my comments have tended to focus on whether they can in fact be put into practice both on the consumer side, and on the physician side. This comes down to two...

INDUSTRY/POLICY: Humphrey Taylor on the big debates in healthcare's future

Take time this weekend to read and savor this lecture from Harris Poll Chairman, Humphrey Taylor. A witty and excellent presentation on where the system is, where it's going and what we're likely to be talking about in the coming...

PHARMA: Drug pricing here and there II:The Industry Veteran is not impressed with Levinson's logic

In a recent speech Art Levinson, CEO of Genetech managed to simultaneously state that "the dollars going into health care are going up exponentially....That can't happen forever. The question is when is it going to implode?" " and to demand...

POLICY/PHARMA: JSK on Medicare

My friend and health care sage Jane Sarasohn Kahn took offense at this paragraph from my recent post So absolute proof that the Bush administration's efforts to defend the Medicare bill is nothing but PR. Silly really, as there are...

POLICY/PHARMA: Thompson prepares to cave on drug imports

Understanding that this issue could lose Florida and Pennsylvania for the Bushies in November, it looks like (as I've been saying for a while) the Administration is getting ready to cave on the banning of drug import issue that its...

TECHNOLOGY: Backdoor man

I've been working with a hospital system client who's investigating how to create a number of initiatives to work with its various business partners. Chief among those business partners, of course, are doctors--who remain (believe it or not) the most...

HOSPITALS: Tenet numbers look, er, bad?

On Monday in advance of the Tuesday quarterly earnings announcement, I took my lumps and closed out of my long Tenet position. (While selling it yesterday was a good idea, I'd have been happier if I hadn't bought it $2.5...

POLICY: Saving Private Ryan

So one of the perks of having a blog is that you see how people found you and I was very curious why a couple of people found my blog after searching for Karen Ryan. I'd never heard of her,...

POLICY: The uninsured

The Center for Health System Change continues to pump out great stuff, including this piece from Len Nichols called 10 myths about the uninsured. Go read it because it's very sensible and makes directly the link between the mess we...

PHARMA: West Virginia joins the fray

Just in case you out there haven't been keeping up with the big city papers, the Sunday Gazette-Mail from Charleston, West Virginia reports that West Virginia is the latest state to try to institute Canadian price levels in what it...

EDITORIAL: Ignoring science

It may come as no surprise to my readers to know that I'm not a fan of the current Administration, but it should equally come as no surprise to them that I don't view THCB as a venue for those...

PHARMA: 60 Minutes helps put the boot into Pharma

While I can write a balanced article looking at the issue of drug profits home and abroad, and Derek Lowe can conduct a debate with his readers about it, we'd both probably admit that rather more people watch 60 Minutes...

PHARMA: Drug profiteering claims denied again....but not here this time

Just in case you thought drugs were too expensive in the USA, the Brits are discovering that their pharmacists (note: not the pharma companies but the corner chemist) are making big profits by buying at a discount well under the...

PHARMA/PHYSICIANS: More on oncology drugs

And if you want to read more about the oncology story featured in Matt Quinn's TCHB article yesterday, here's an article from Doug Bandow, one of the "sensible libertarians" over at Cato (as opposed to the loony libertarians at take...

PHARMA: PBM plays tough with A-Z's Crestor

Oops...for some reason this didn't "publish" late last night..... In a report out of The Delaware News Journal comes interesting news about the statin wars. The ACC meeting this week has lead to the release of a host of studies...

PHARMA/PHYSICIANS: The Continuing Saga of Injectable Drugs, from Matt Quinn, with UPDATE

From THCB Sacramento bureau, Matt Quinn continues his comments on the injectable oncology market by discussing an article in Physician Compensation Report titled Oncology Income May Drop 40% by 2005. (The article is in italics, Matt's comments are in normal...

HOSPITALS: When you're wrong you're wrong--Tenet shares fall

As careful reader will have noted, a while back I had a punt on the guess that despite the difficulty in valuing the company Tenet shares have reached their bottom for the year. Well it appears that I was wrong....

QUALITY/PHYSICIANS: I disappoint the Industry Veteran, with UPDATE

My corrrespondent the Industry Veteran was upset to see me teetering on the doctors' side, while trying vainly to take the middle road, in the malpractice debate that I highlighted here last week. Meanwhile the same issue (the web site...

HEALTH PLANS: Look who's getting into the business

You know that health plan margins are too high when you see who the latest entrant into the business is. Yup, Walmart, the 800lb gorilla of brutal discounting is now offering health insurance for small businesses via it's Sam's Club....

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This is a test of the emergency formating system.

POLICY: Enthoven's lament, with UPDATE

The new Health Affairs is out and it's fascinating. This journal is over 20 years old and getting better and better. I'll try to run something from it every day this week. Sadly if you want the full articles you...

QUALITY: Online rankings rankle hospitals

If you live in Boston you can go to your health plan's web site and use their technology to both choose and rate your hospitals. But don't let your doctors know about this as they are mad as hell!

TECHNOLOGY: Stents now movin on up, with UPDATE

Loads from the American College of Cardiology meeting including a detailed study on stent use in the carotid arteries from Guidant (here's the more digestible press release) and also "proof" from J&J that drug eluting stents really, really prevent restenosis...

PHARMA: HHS' Thompson reads THCB

OK, maybe not, but in talking to a congressional committee who's members do, or at least do read opinion polls like these, HHS secretary Thompson hints that the Republicans might cave on the drug re-importation issue to save the most...

INDUSTRY: Scrushy goes on TV with Roy Moore to proclaim innocence

It's so hard to resist, and I've been good for so long, but I had to re-open the Healthsouth file. The story so far. 15 execs admit years and years of fraud. CEO Richard Scrushy claims he knew nothing about...

QUALITY/PHYSICIANS: When war is declared it's hard to find a middle way

In Friday's NY Times there's an article called In Texas, Hire a Lawyer, Forget About a Doctor?. The article features a database online called DoctorsKnow which allows doctors (for a fee of course!) to find out which of their patients...

TECHNOLOGY: Drug-eluting stents take off--With late afternoon UPDATE

As this study from Solucient shows the take off in the use of drug-eluting stents has been very fast, even before Boston Scientific's Taxus stent hits the market. USA today has a good general article about them too. This puts...

TECHNOLOGY: Data on physician to patient eVisits

The online patient-physician communication thing seems to be getting off the ground. Relay Health has another deal with another Blues, this time Anthem in Colorado. It's been a longish road for them (and I haven't heard much of McKesson's Medformation...

POLICY: Harris Interactive's take on 2004

Well this is a little late, but here goes anyway. At the very start of the year I interviewed Katherine Binns, who runs Harris Interactive's Strategic Health Perspectives (SHP) program. SHP is a survey based research program that interviews virtually...

QUALITY: Matt Quinn on why we "need" malpractice litigation

From the THCB Sacramento bureau, Matt Quinn chimes in on the "value" of malpractice litigation. Matt has been annoying the doctors over at DB's Medical Rants (in these long, varied and interesting comments) by defending trial lawyers--which is a little...

PHARMA: Drug re-importation bill reintroduced

From California Healthline, 2 Dems and 2 "liberal" Republicans (can you really call McCain that?) introduced a bill to allow drug importation. In reference to my post yesterday about the possibility of PhRMA and the Republicans backing down on the...

POLICY: S. Cal grocery strike is over, but the health issue rumbles on

The southern California grocery workers strike is over with the Union having "won" on the issue of no premium-sharing for now, and lost on the "two-tier" wages issue. The LA Times says "The union claimed a victory in healthcare coverage:...

POLICY/PHARMA: Medicare polls galore

Medicare drug coverage is still a big issue and those seniors who know about it still don't like it as the latest Kaiser Family Foundation poll shows. There's much more in this chart pack including the fact that only 15%...

PHARMA: Drug Prices here and there

There's no question that in the US big pharma and its employees colleagues at USTR are on the attack over "low drug prices" in other countries, with the assumption that the US consumer is subsidizing R&D here and therefore allowing...