WCOE: The Burden of Caregiving, Financial Incentives, Unnecessary Services for Medicare Beneficiaries, and Medicaid Reform

In “Seeing the ‘Invisible Patient,’”Jane Gross addresses the burden of caregiving and how often caregivers’ health, both physical and mental, is overlooked. Ms. Gross refers to an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that provides recommendations for lessening the burden and provides a list of questions that doctors and other health care professions should be asking, such as, “How are you feeling?” and “If anything should happen to you, have you made arrangements for someone to take care of [name patient here]?” NCCS has long recognized the unique needs of caregivers and as part of our Cancer Survival Toolbox® we created a module titled, Caring for the Caregiver in an effort to provide resources and support. Caregivers are also survivors because they too are surviving the challenges, responsibilities, and life-changing effects of cancer and its treatment.

In a provocative op-ed in The New York Times, Pamela Hartzband and Jerome Groopman, implore their physician colleagues to not let incentives in the reimbursement system override the best interest of their patients. The op-ed, “How Medical Care is Being Corrupted,” calls in to question the many perverse financial incentives in the health care system. The authors also discuss transparency efforts, like the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, which was a topic of conversation at NCCS’ recent Cancer Policy Roundtable. These physicians are not the only ones shedding light on this issue. Leana Wen also addressed the need for transparency in her TEDMED talk on transparency.

Peter Ubel discusses wasteful Medicare spending in “Found: Billions of Wasteful Medicare Dollars.” In his article, Dr. Ubel references a JAMA study that explores how often Medicare beneficiaries received unnecessary services, including cancer screenings past the age when screenings may be beneficial.

Finally, this week NCCS participated in the American Society for Clinical Oncology’s (ASCO) presscast announcing its policy statement on Medicaid reform. Several online health news outlets covered the event, including Insurance News Net and Medscape Medical News, and highlighted the statement’s nine policy recommendations. NCCS CEO Shelley Fuld Nasso participated in the event and provided remarks from the patient advocacy perspective reminding the group that while expanding Medicaid is necessary, we should also be focused on improving the quality of care it delivers to patients.

What caught your eye this week?

Please leave your thoughts in the comments.