Health Care Animation

National Study Shows Majority Of Self-Harming Adolescents Don't Receive A Mental Health Assessment During Emergency Room Visit
A national study of Medicaid data shows most young people who present to emergency departments with deliberate self-harm are discharged to the community, without receiving an emergency mental health assessment. Even more, a roughly comparable proportion of these patients receive no outpatient mental health care in the following month...

Going To Physician Visits With Older Loved Ones Could Improve Care
Family companions who routinely accompany older adults to physician office visits could be helpful to health care quality improvement efforts, according to a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health...

Medicare Plans Recruit Healthy Seniors By Offering Gym Benefits
Because healthy enrollees cost them less, Medicare Advantage plans would profit from selecting seniors based on their health, but Medicare strictly forbids practices such as denying coverage based on existing conditions. Another way to build a more profitable membership is to design insurance benefits that attract the healthiest patients...

ED Eye Care In Florida - A Payment Review
A major part of Florida's emergency department eye care is reimbursed through Medicaid or paid for directly by the patients. According to a study published in the Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals, these findings may be beneficial in strategic planning as the debate over how best to implement the nation's new health care reform law progresses...

Dilated Eye Exams For Medicare Beneficiaries Cost Effective, USA
A study published Online First in the Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals, suggests that it "would be highly cost-effective" to replace visual acuity screenings for new Medicare enrollees with coverage of a dilated eye exam for healthy patients who enter the government insurance program for the elderly...

Kaiser Permanente Study Finds Continuous Health Coverage Essential For Patients Managing Diabetes
When patients with diabetes experience interruptions in health - insurance coverage, they are less likely to receive the screening tests and vaccines they need to protect their health. A new study finds that this is true even when patients receive free or reduced-cost medical care at federally funded safety net clinics...

Study Of Medicare Patients With PAD Helps Consumers Navigate Medical Provider And Treatment Choice
Although minimally invasive (endovascular) treatments for patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD) result in shorter hospital stays and the potential to save Medicare millions of dollars each year, a new study reveals that the quality of care and cost depend on who's providing the treatment...

"It's The Economy" - Say Medicare Beneficiaries
According to a survey, 45% of 337 retirees on Medicare consider the economy the most vital issue the United States faces in 2012, followed by health care (15%), national debt (21%), and jobs (19%). 43% of survey respondents anticipate that the economy will remain "about the same" next year...

High-Risk Pregnancies - Telemedicine Can Save $186 Million In Medicaid Expenditure
A new legislative proposal by The American Telemedicine Association (ATA) aims to expand the use of telemedicine for Medicaid enrollees with high-risk pregnancies and neonatal care needs. If the plan should be adopted, it would mean an improvement in providing care for people who are at-risk, whilst creating substantial long-term savings for the government as well as taxpayers...

Medicare And Private Insurance Spending Similar Throughout Texas
Variations in health care spending by Medicare and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas (BCBSTX) are similar throughout the state despite previous research, which found significant spending differences between the private and commercial sector in McAllen, Texas...

The Academy Of Nutrition And Dietetics Advocates For Expanded Nutritional Coverage Under Medicare
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has prepared a request to submit to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to expand coverage of medical nutrition therapy (MNT) for specific diseases, including hypertension, obesity, and cancer, as part of the CMS National Coverage Determination (NCD) Process...

Overall Hospital Admission Rates In US Linked With High Rates Of Readmission
High hospital readmission rates in different regions of the U.S. may have more to do with the overall high use of hospital services in those regions than with the severity of patients' particular conditions or problems in the quality of care during and after hospital discharges, according to a new study from researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH)...

Not All NJ Youngsters Are Equal When It Comes To Use Of Dental Services
When it comes to receiving dental care, New Jersey has its share of underserved children, according to a Rutgers study. In 2009, more than one-fifth of the state's children between 3 and 18 received no dental care within the previous year...

First-Of-Its-Kind Study Finds Public Health Insurance Coverage For Infants Is More Comprehensive And Costs Less Than Private Plans
In the fierce national debate over a new federal law that requires all Americans to have health insurance, it's widely assumed that private health insurance can do a better job than the public insurance funded by the U.S. government. But a first-of-its-kind analysis of newly available government data found just the opposite when it comes to infants covered by insurance...

Many Women Not Receiving Recommended Breast Cancer Adjuvant Treatment
A first-of-its kind study led by Xiao-Cheng Wu, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Public Health at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, reports that a significant number of women are not receiving guideline-recommended treatment for breast cancer and what factors contribute. The research is published online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology...