Health Care Cost

Recommendations endorsed by the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation’s Choosing Wisely initiative to discontinue the use of two low-value screening services had a minimal impact in practice, suggesting policy changes to remove coverage of such services may be needed to reduce unnecessary screening, researchers reported in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Initial regimens of antiretroviral therapy for most people living with HIV cost up to $48,000 per year, and prices have risen by an average of 6% each year since 2012, according to research published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Visits to primary care providers dropped by 24.2% from 2008 to 2016, according to research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

CMS announced the launch of the Healthy Adult Opportunity plan, which allows individual states to change their Medicaid spending and benefits for individuals aged younger than 65 years who are eligible for coverage under Medicaid expansion and do not have a disability or need long-term care.

Older adults covered by Medicare with undiagnosed obstructive sleep apnea have significantly higher medical costs each year compared with healthy adults, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.

Although the prevalence of Americans with health insurance coverage grew from 1998 to 2017, the prevalence of people who reported being unable to visit a physician due to cost also increased, according to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The ACP called for an overhaul of the health care system in the United States, including a shift to universal health care, in a series of policy papers published in the Annals of Internal Medicine detailing why the overhaul is needed and what action is needed.

Prescription costs of disease-modifying therapies for multiple sclerosis in the Medicaid program nearly tripled from 2011 to 2017, despite the introduction of a generic medication, according to study findings published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Despite pressure from the Trump administration and Congress to curb rising drug costs, pharmaceutical companies — in what has become a common industry practice — have begun January 2020 by instituting a bevy of price increases.

Average out-of-pocket costs for maternity care increased by $1,500 between 2008 and 2015 among women with employer-based insurance, according to study findings published in Health Affairs.