Answer to health care crisis can save lives, money

  • Author: Health Informer
  • Filed under: Health News
  • Date: Jun 30,2009

New White Paper Reveals Power of Statins in Fighting Cardiovascular Disease

The adverse health and financial impact of cardiovascular disease – the number one killer of men and women in America – can be significantly reduced through the well monitored use of statins according to a major white paper release by the non-profit Senior Center for Health and Security (SCHS).

The white paper, Saving America’s Seniors With Statins: Solving a Health Care Crisis, explores the ramifications of heart disease and stroke in America, and the critical role that cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins can play in addressing it. Along with physician supervised diet and exercise programs, the correct statin for each individual patient can significantly lower the risk of heart disease, help prevent heart attack and stroke, and reduce health care expenditures.

“Meeting your cholesterol goal is a top priority for good heart health,” said SCHS Policy Director Al Cors. “There are many different statin options available and it’s important to talk with your doctor to determine which statin is the right statin to help you reach that goal.”

Studies demonstrate that the six most widely used statins can save lives and lower health care costs, but the white paper notes that statins are not identical to each other prompting SCHS to urge patients, insurers and health care professionals to consider the different pharmacological properties of different statins in concert with differing patient risk factors including age, sex, race, heredity and other unique case considerations.

The SCHS paper notes several clinical studies of different statins in the report. A November 2008 study showed that men and women using one particular statin suffered half as many strokes, heart attacks and deaths from cardiovascular causes as those taking a placebo. A different study on a different statin that same month demonstrated an important correlation between improved kidney function and use of that statin. A third study showed that men who took a third variety of statin for five years experienced fewer deaths and heart attacks 10 years later even though most had stopped taking the drug.

Statin use can also result in lower health care costs, according to the white paper. For 2009, the cost of treating stroke and heart disease in the U.S., combined with lost industrial productivity due to disability and death, is estimated at $475 billion. These costs will increase as the population ages and SCHS notes that statin use can play a significant role in controlling these rising costs.

Cors stressed the need for comprehensive communication between patients, doctors and insurance providers, calling it critical to determining the best statin regimen for cardiovascular health. “Costs for brand name medicines and insurance formularies are always changing and the only way to know is through good communications,” Cors concluded. “Many patients don’t know they have affordable access to the most effective medications.”

The full report is available online at http://www.seniorsforcures.org/6-22-09_statins.html


Focus on Asia expected to kickstart more collaborations and encourage increased government support

Rising healthcare standards together with the growing demand for more affordable treatment will keep the Asian market for medical tourism buoyant, according to experts speaking at the Healthcare Travel Exhibition & Congress today at Fairmont Hotel, Singapore. Worldwide gross medical tourism revenue is projected to grow from US$56 billion to reach US$100 billion by 2012, with Asia as a major driver of this growth.

“Buoyed by the success stories of earlier waves of medical tourists, consumers, insurance companies as well businesses fully recognise the reliability and affordability of going overseas for medical procedures. Patients who choose to undergo treatments in Asia can pay just 10% of the cost of comparable treatment conducted in developed countries like the United States or United Kingdom. This differential cost, coupled with today’s sophisticated travel industry, provides an excellent catalyst to the growth of medical tourism,” said Mr. Andrew Keable, Divisional Director, Informa Life Sciences.

Asia is well-placed to grow in medical tourism as healthcare standards and technology adoption continue to improve. Hospitals in Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, India and Singapore have made it a point to implement state-of-the- art medical technologies to improve patient care.

Healthcare Travel Exhibition & Congress 2009 is Asia’s premier event focusing on two of the world’s largest industries: healthcare and tourism. The event brings together professionals, government officials and decision makers from the healthcare and travel industries, giving them the opportunity to network and share best practices, insights and knowledge to further develop Asia’s thriving healthcare travel market.

Leading edge technology is on display at the exhibition portion of the event, where close to 30 exhibitors including leading medical suppliers, healthcare travel facilitators, medical spas and hospitals are showcasing their innovations and services. Governments too have begun to recognise the economic potential and are responding by actively participating in the promotion of their respective countries as attractive healthcare destinations.

The conference themes at the Congress portion of the event include:

  • 29th – 30th June: The global healthcare travel outlook, new challenges and opportunities in healthcare travel, payment and accreditation standards
  • 29th – 30th June: Healthcare insurance trends in Asia, best practices, and emerging partnerships
  • 29th June: Travel Business Day co-organised with Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), covering medical tourist requirements, business cases, misconceptions and the healthcare travel ecosystem
  • 1 July: Minimizing legal liabilities in global healthcare travel
  • 1 July: Health insurance risk management for new markets

“We have an impressive line-up of industry leaders and luminaries who will be sharing key topics specifically designed for the medical tourism industry. The exclusive congress segment ensures the unique position of Healthcare Travel Exhibition & Congress as Asia’s leading medical tourism event”, said Ms. Rebecca Wolfe, Divisional Director, Informa Life Sciences.

Healthcare Travel Exhibition & Congress is sponsored by Singapore Medicine, CKMP-Council for Korea Medicine Overseas Promotion and National Healthcare Group. The event is also supported by International Enterprise Singapore, International Medical Travel Association (IMTA), Life Insurance Association, Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), Spa and Wellness Association Singapore, Thai Spa Association, and Spa Association Singapore.

Source: Informa Life Sciences


More gene mutations linked to autism risk

  • Author: Health Informer
  • Filed under: Health News
  • Date: Jun 28,2009

Combination of Inherited and New Genetic Mutations Acting Together

More pieces in the complex autism inheritance puzzle are emerging in the latest study from a research team including geneticists from The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and several collaborating institutions. This study identified 27 different genetic regions where rare copy number variations – missing or extra copies of DNA segments – were found in the genes of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), but not in the healthy controls. The complex combination of multiple genetic duplications and deletions is thought to interfere with gene function, which can disrupt the production of proteins necessary for normal neurological development.

“We focused on changes in the exons of DNA–protein-coding areas in which deletions or duplications are more likely to directly disrupt biological functions,” said study leader Hakon Hakonarson, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Center for Applied Genomics at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and associate professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. “We identified additional autism susceptibility genes, many of which, as we previously found, belong to the neuronal cell adhesion molecule family involved in the development of brain circuitry in early childhood.” He added that the team discovered many “private” gene mutations, those found only in one or a few individuals or families — an indication of genetic complexity, in which many different gene changes may contribute to an autism spectrum disorder.

“We are finding that both inherited and new, or de novo, genetic mutations are scattered throughout the genome and we suspect that different combinations of these variations contribute to autism susceptibility,” said co-author Maja Bucan, Ph.D., professor of Genetics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Chair of the Steering committee for Autism Speaks’ Autism Genetic Resource Exchange (AGRE). “We are grateful to families of children with autism spectrum disorders for their willingness to participate in genetic studies because family-based studies have many advantages. We have learned a lot both from genetic analyses of children with autism as well as analyses of their patents and their unaffected siblings.”

The researchers compared genetic samples of 3,832 individuals from 912 families with multiple children with ASDs from the AGRE cohort against genetic samples of 1,070 disease-free children from The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. This study also uncovered two novel genes in which variations were found, BZRAP1 and MDGA2 – thought to be important in synaptic function and neurological development, respectively. Interestingly, key variants of these genes were transmitted in some, but not all, of the affected individuals in families.

The findings were published in the June 26 edition of the journal PloS Genetics.

By further refining the genetic landscape of ASDs, the current study expands the findings of two large autism gene studies published in April, led by Hakonarson and co-authored by Gerard Schellenberg, Ph.D., professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Bucan and others. One study was the first to report common gene variants in ASDs. The other identified copy number variants that raise the risk of having an ASD. Both studies found gene changes on two biological pathways with crucial roles in early central nervous system development. Hakonarson and Bucan said the latest findings reinforce the view that multiple gene variants, both common and rare, may be interacting to cause the heterogeneous group of disorders included under autism spectrum disorders.

Source: The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia


A new report from The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, Department of Health Policy challenges the notion that fraud is a problem only in public health insurance markets and finds that fraud is a system-wide problem affecting private and public health insurance alike.

The report finds that some of the most striking examples of fraud come from fraud committed directly by the private insurance industry itself. In 2007, when the U.S. spent nearly $2.3 trillion on health care and public and private insurers processed more than 4 billion health insurance claims, fraud was estimated to reach as much as 10 percent of annual health care spending. At this rate, the losses in 2007 alone -over $220 billion – would have been enough to cover the uninsured. The National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association (NHCAA) has estimated conservatively that 3 percent of all health care spending–or $68 billion–is lost to health care fraud.

The report finds that no segment of the health care industry or geographical area is immune from fraud. It is estimated that 80 percent of healthcare fraud is committed by medical providers, 10 percent by consumers, and the balance by others, such as insurers themselves and their employees. Fraudulent billing, kickbacks, up-coding services and bundling are common examples of fraud. Avoidance of sick and high need members, along with the systematic misrepresentation of the cost of care to group plan sponsors, represent major examples of fraud in the private insurance industry.

The report also notes the distinction between fraud and improper payments. Fraud is a misrepresentation of the truth or concealment of material facts. Improper payments, on the other hand, tend to involve technical questions associated with verification of claims or related matters. The report also describes recent efforts to improve fraud detection and recovery across the public and private insurers, including Medicare and Medicaid.

“The evidence presented in this analysis should put to rest the notion that the problem of fraud is limited to public programs. Because fraud can arise in any sector of the health industry, comprehensive efforts to both detect and deter fraud system-wide are essential to national health reform,” said Sara Rosenbaum, Professor and Chair, Department of Health Policy.

“Health Insurance Fraud: An Overview” is available at http://www.gwumc.edu/sphhs/departments/healthpolicy/dhp_publications/pub_uploads/dhpPublication_EFDAD1BC-5056-9D20-3D3D36632A4F2163.pdf%20ht


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