Just Got Word

For individuals or companies attempting to bring new drugs onto the market, the last few years have been extremely challenging; much like real estate, the market practically came to a standstill in 2009.   David Fitzsimons of tPF recently learned this and more at a conference hosted by OneMedForum in New York City at the Roosevelt Hotel on June 24.  In fact, he had also attended a ThinkEquity conference in NYC several weeks back where he sat and listened as one drug start-up after another got up and presented to other presenters.   David doesn't hold out great hope that there will be future conferences like this because if the presenters took some notes, they realized they spent a lot of money to present to other presenters and a handful of analysts.  Unless they are completely jaded at this point, they are probably licking their wounds over a lousy ROI on the respective conferences. But whether the speakers were happy with their ROI or not, we were happy...

The Affordable Care Act is loaded with references to "Value-based Purchasing," which means, colloquially, that you got a good deal on what you bought.  The Act urges providers to become clinically integrated and share risk for outcomes in accountable care organizations (Section 3022), episode-based payments (Section 3023), and medical homes (Section 3502).  It also discourages providers that are unwilling to share results publicly (Section 3002) or take responsibility for avoidable readmissions (Section 3025). The name of the Act uses the word "affordable."  The Act itself is wrought with "value" verbiage.  OK, we're starting to get the idea of the purpose of the Act.  But in order to make health care affordable, and something clearly of value, then we'll have to go well beyond choosing just the right words to weave into an unwieldy tome.  So if we were to look closely into "Value-based Purchasing," in terms of what it really means,...

No, not the ones from outer space, the ones who cross the Rio Grande and tie up our hospital emergency rooms throughout the United States.  My question is, why is the illegal immigration issue being kept separate from the health care crisis/debate?  Am I the only one that sees a link between the two?  Is it possible that by keeping these issues compartmentalized that it will be ultimately impossible to solve either problem? The cynic in me explains it away -- on a national level, Republicans won't mess with illegal Central Americans who swarm across the border every day because they need them to watch their kids and/or cut the hedges off-the-books.  Democrats see them as a useful voting bloc sometime down the road.  Kind of the ace up your sleeve that you just might need one day; like having your older brother/the local gov control the final vote counts in a "national election" so you can become President.  Everything in life should go as well as that, un...

The latest iteration of the forward thinking health care spinmeisters in the Obama White House is Partnership for Patients: Better Care, Lower Costs.   This will allegedly improve the quality, safety, and affordability of health care for all Americans  -- all in one fell swoop.  If you have any doubts about the integrity of this initative, then you are a reasonable person.  If you think this makes any sense, then consider the following statistics generated by the same people who designed this ambitious public-private partnership model. Keep patients from getting injured or sicker. By the end of 2013, preventable hospital-acquired conditions would decrease by 40% compared to 2010. Achieving this goal would mean approximately 1.8 million fewer injuries to patients with more than 60,000 lives saved over three years.   Where do they come up with these numbers?  Off the tops of their heads?  60,000 lives saved?  Wha...