PwC Health Research Institute – The Health Care Blog

Ceci Connolly: Will Technology Replace Doctors?

Sep 26, 2014• 35

Ceci Connolly

It’s a provocative question, but it’s also the wrong one.

The question ought to be: When will healthcare fully embrace technology and all it has to offer?

It’s widely known that the $2.8 trillion US health system has significant waste and errors – between 25% and 30% of our health dollars go to services that do not improve health. Technology has the ability to put a big dent in that through standardization, real-time insights, convenient gadgets and complex data analysis the human brain simply cannot perform.

Consider some of the early innovators. There’s the heart monitor in the phone. The wristbands that count steps. And then there’s Oto, the cellphone attachment that snaps an image of the inner ear sparing frazzled parents one more trip to the doctor’s office for yet another infection.

Early Exchange Outlook 2015

Aug 5, 2014• 25

By CECI CONNOLLY and CAITLIN SWEANY

States in more than half the nation have reported individual market premium rate requests for 2015, making this an opportune time to assess how the second year of the ACA’s new marketplaces is shaping up.

With rate filings in for 27 states plus the District of Columbia, the early word on 2015 appears to be expansion. At least 15 of the 28 jurisdictions in 2015 will offer new individual plans this year. Thirty-seven of the 176 health plan filings are new, according to analysis by PwC’s Health Research Institute (HRI).

Major national insurers such as UnitedHealth Group, as well as newbie Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans (Co-Ops), plan to add both products and states when exchange open enrollment begins in the fall. In Virginia, five new plan bids have been submitted to the state; Washington, Arkansas and Tennessee show three new plans each.

UnitedHealth’s CEO Stephen J. Helmsley estimates that UnitedHealth will sell on public exchanges in about two dozen states. In short, the ACA’s subsidized exchange markets represent growth opportunities for the health sector.

At the same time at least three non-profit health Co-Ops will move into additional markets. As of late April, Co-Ops operating in 23 states had 400,000 members, according to the National Alliance of State Health Co-Ops. Not every Co-Op drew big numbers, especially those in states such as Maryland, where the online marketplace never really got off the ground. And it’s far too early to say how many new entrants will be left standing as plans are forced to pay back $2 billion in federal loans over the next several years.

The Coming Debate Over Specialty Drugs

Jul 2, 2014• 17

By Ceci Connolly

The debate over the price of specialty drugs is intensifying and could well be the next major healthcare issue to dominate the national, even international, agenda. In a nutshell, how will society pay for breakthrough scientific innovation?

Specialty drugs, complex therapies used to treat severe illnesses such as cancer, multiple sclerosis and Hepatitis C, are coming in with price tags that have purchasers sounding alarm bells. At $1,000 per pill, the newest Hep C medication runs about $86,000 for a course of treatment. Two major insurers have publicly cited the price of this single new drug as contributing to next year’s rise in premiums.

In fact, analysis by our team at PwC’s Health Research Institute shows that this one new therapy will impact overall U.S. health costs by .5% this year and .2% next year. Considering the nation’s total healthcare budget is $2.8 trillion, that is a remarkable budgetary impact for one product.

But the story doesn’t end there. Drug costs represent just 15% of total health spending, compared to nearly one-third spent on inpatient care. Short-term budget spikes could become long-term savers from both a cost and health standpoint. For the most severe patients, the price of Hep C medication – that is nearly 90% effective – is three to six times less than treating a lifetime of cirrhosis ($270,000) or providing a liver transplant ($580,000.) Patients essentially “cured” of Hepatitis C can go on to have productive, long lives.