Cost of care

Promising Primary Care Program Cuts Unnecessary ER Visits

A randomized study finds that easing undocumented immigrants’ access to primary care cuts their use of the emergency room.

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Can the U.S. Put an End to Surprise Ambulance Bills?

Congress banned most surprise medical bills back in 2020, with one major exception: ambulance rides. Can lawmakers find a fix?

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How a Cancer-Screening Blood Test Could Backfire

A new JAMA Internal Medicine article reviews the evidence for a widely hyped cancer-screening blood test — and finds it lacking.

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Could Health Insurance Bureaucracy Be a Good Thing?

A recent working paper adds fuel to the debate over when and how health insurers should be able to ration people’s use of care.

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Ozempic Hype Forces Employer Calls on Obesity Coverage

Employers are facing a big dilemma: How do they pay for the new highly effective and popular obesity medications without breaking the bank?

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How Patents Help Keep Obesity Drug Prices Sky-High

A recent JAMA study sheds light on how the manufacturers of a class of popular weight-loss drugs have avoided competition from more affordable generics.

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How Smartwatches Could Lead Doctors to Overtreat Patients

A new study suggests doctors struggle to know when and how to act on heart rhythm data generated by patients’ smartwatches.

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Experts Share Four Key Studies you Might have Missed this Summer

Experts from the Tradeoffs Advisory Board share some of their favorite new health policy studies.

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What to Expect When Medicare and Pharma Finally Negotiate Drug Prices

We explain how Medicare’s historic price negotiations with drugmakers will work, and the impact they could have.

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Can Medicare Afford to Foot the Bill for New Alzheimer’s Drugs?

Recent analyses in JAMA and by the Kaiser Family Foundation raise questions about whether Medicare and its beneficiaries can afford a new wave of Alzheimer’s treatments.

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