Bruce Ames was a scientist best known to the world as the inventor of the “Ames Test,” a relatively inexpensive and quick way of determining whether a chemical can cause cancer in mice and rats. His test was used (and still is used to some degree) to take chemicals off the market and inform various product regulations.
Harris Rosen, RIP
Harris Rosen was the first business owner in the US who did what every other owner would like to do but hasn’t: provide his employees with high quality care at half the cost.
Under the circumstances, you’d expect Rosen’s health care costs to be sky high. Instead, on a per capita basis they’re about 40 percent less than the national average—despite the fact that Rosen Hotel employees are generally older and in poorer health than the general population, have a higher percentage of at-risk pregnancies and include an above-average number of diabetics.More.
Wednesday Links
- A theory of why there are food deserts. (speculative)
- Tyler Cowen’s skepticism about assisted dying in the UK.
- Why Bernie Sanders is wrong: 60% of Americans do not live “paycheck-to-paycheck.”
- Every ethnic group believes that America is “the greatest country on earth,” including 75% of Hispanic and 58% of blacks. The only group that doesn’t believe that are white liberal elites (31%).
- The downside of weight loss drugs: to keep your weight off, you have to stay on the drugs forever.
New Findings on Risk Adjustment
Study: About two-thirds of the 41 percent increase between 2011 and 2019 in the share of hospital discharges coded as the highest severity was associated with upcoding.
Among patients discharged to a skilled nursing facility (SNF) during 2018–19, MA enrollees had risk scores that averaged 4.1 percent higher, with about 60 percent of that increment associated with chart reviews.
About one-quarter of the risk-score gap between MA and traditional Medicare from 2017 to 19 is due to the failure to consistently capture chronic conditions in fee-for-service claims.
Source: Health Affairs