TGIF

Health Affairs came out with an article on the growing use of retail clinics, a trend that the FEHBlog has been following because it has the potential for bending the healthcare cost curve down:

Retail clinics have rapidly become a fixture of the US health care delivery landscape. We studied visits to retail clinics and found that they increased fourfold from 2007 to 2009, with an estimated 5.97 million retail clinic visits in 2009 alone. Compared with retail clinic patients in 2000–06, patients in 2007–09 were more likely to be age sixty-five or older (14.7 percent versus 7.5 percent). Preventive care—in particular, the influenza vaccine—was a larger component of care for patients at retail clinics in 2007–09, compared to patients in 2000–06 (47.5 percent versus 21.8 percent). Across all retail clinic visits, 44.4 percent in 2007–09 were on the weekend or during weekday hours when physician offices are typically closed. The rapid growth of retail clinics makes it clear that they are meeting a patient need. Convenience and after-hours accessibility are possible drivers of this growth. However, retail clinics make up a small share of overall visits in the outpatient setting, which include 117 million visits to emergency departments and 577 million visits to physician offices annually.

Medpage has an expanded story of the Health Affairs article. Medpage notes medical society opposition to the clinics which ironically enough people often use when doctors offices are closed.

CMS clarified its position on the temporary enforcement safe harbor for certain employers, group health plans, and group health insurance issuers with respect to the ACA's contraception coverage mandate. The FEHBlog finds this interesting because the FEHBA's contraception mandate, which is found in the annual appropriations bills, includes exclusions for faith based health plans. It does not appear that this safe harbor is directed at such plans. Rather it is directed at religious employers, which the U.S. government is not. However, both the House and Senate appropriations committees have cleared include this exemption for faith based plans operating in the FEHBP.

Yesterday, Standard and Poors released its Healthcare Economic Indices for June 2012. Healthcare costs covered by commercial health plans increased by 8/09% over the year ending June 2012, down from an 8.40% increase reported for May 2012. Medicare claim costs rose by 2.27% down from a 2.50% increase in May.

“The past two months have generally been marked by a deceleration in the annual rate of change in health care costs. In June 2012, all nine of our Healthcare Indices’ annual growth rates decelerated from their May 2012 rates,” says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices. “In May, six of the nine indices we publish also saw a deceleration in their annual growth rates from April. In June, the Composite Index posted an annual rate of +5.78%, the Commercial Index +8.09% and the Medicare Index +2.27%. These rates were all down from their respective April and May 2012 levels.