Back to blogging after a week on vacation (Big Sur, yes it was wonderful!).
See this morning's WorkCompCentral top story, "Adding Paperwork for Brand Names Latest Tool to Control Drug Costs". Apparently the conclusion by some state administrators is that physicians are the root of the problem of out of control pharmaceutical costs because either they profit too much from in-office dispensing, are tied to some profit share motivation system or just don't understand what the hell they are doing...
The article cited above by our writer Greg Jones highlights what the major states are doing - either penalizing physicians, highly regulating physicians, or just making them do more paperwork. The states, California, Washington, Oregon, Texas and Florida, all have implemented different systems or laws to deal with rising pharmaceutical costs that are disproportionate to overall medical costs in work comp.
What will be interesting is to see which state solution ends up being most effective. I assume that NCCI, CWCI and other agencies or industry groups will be reporting comparisons in the coming years. This kind of information sharing can only lead to better outcomes and new ideas for dealing with cost controls.
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