Miriam’s thoughtful piece reminded me of a long-standing question I have.
What are the mechanisms/ systems underlying pricing in different health sub-sectors and in different countries?
As Miriam’s piece makes clear, the prices observed for physician services in the US aren’t market prices, nor are they administered prices. Is there even a word or phrase that characterizes the mechanism at work? Has anyone attempted to distinguish the different variations?
If you have seen any thoughtful comparative analytical work on this, I would greatly appreciate suggested references.
Thanks,
April Harding
World Bank, Washington DC
From: Anglo-American Health Policy Network [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Miriam Laugesen
Sent: Friday, October 10, 2014 9:39 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Essay on US Medicare fees and the AMA
I just wanted to share a short essay I wrote that was just published by the National Institute of Health Care Management.
UK readers, you might not know that Medicare pays physicians partly based on the time it takes to provide services. The times are recommended by the American Medical Association.
McCall et al. published the first paper on the mismatch between AMA "estimated" times for services compared to real-world operating room logs. But not everyone realizes just how far the times still deviate---even in 2014.
And this was **after** Medicare and the AMA reviewed the times used in the Medicare payments, perhaps in response to criticisms.
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has a public meeting today that will be discussing new approaches to dealing with some of these issues.
Kind regards,
Miriam Laugesen
Twitter: @miriamlaugesen
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