By Matthew Lawrence Yesterday, Medicare’s Departmental Appeals Board set aside a thirty-year-old National Coverage Determination excluding Medicare coverage for sex change surgery. As a result, Medicare beneficiaries may now seek coverage for sex change surgery, though the ruling does not make such coverage automatic; it only lifts the blanket national exclusion. Regional and case-by-case determinations…
By Matthew Lawrence At the same time that wait times at VA hospitals have been in the news here in the U.S., a recent report has put healthcare queues in the news in Canada. Specifically, a recent report from the Fraser Institute (a research institute that I’ve seen described as “conservative” and “pro-free market“) concluded…
By Matthew Lawrence [Ed. Note: On Friday, May 2 and Saturday, May 3, 2014, the Petrie-Flom Center hosted its 2014 annual conference: “Behavioral Economics, Law, and Health Policy.” This is an installment in our series of live blog posts from the event; video will be available later in the summer on our website.] Our esteemed moderator Gregory Kurfman of the…
By Matthew Lawrence Alexis Shapiro is a 12 year old girl who started gaining weight uncontrollably due to a rare condition caused by damage to her brain during the removal of a brain tumor. Her and her parents’ struggle to get her gastric bypass surgery to curb the weight loss made national news for much…
Evaluating the Revised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) Tuesday, March 11, 2014, 12:00pm Wasserstein Hall 3018, Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Ave. The DSM is the reference used by clinicians, researchers, and insurers to diagnose and classify mental disorders, with the intent to provide specific, objective criteria by which to assess symptoms and…
By Deborah Cho [See Part I here] Last week, I wrote the first of a two-part series on tips that may be helpful for law students and lawyers interested in or working in health/medical law. I continue with Tip #4 here. 4. If you need to learn about a disease, procedure, or drug that you…
Evaluating the Revised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) Tuesday, March 11, 2014, 12:00pm Wasserstein Hall 3018, Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Ave. The DSM is the reference used by clinicians, researchers, and insurers to diagnose and classify mental disorders, with the intent to provide specific, objective criteria by which to assess symptoms…
By Kate Greenwood Cross-Posted at Health Reform Watch On Wednesday night, I went to a panel presentation sponsored by the group NYC Health Business Leaders on the roll out of New York State’s health insurance exchange. Among the speakers was Mario Schlosser, the co-founder and co-CEO of the venture-capital-backed start-up health insurance company Oscar Health, which…
By Matthew Lawrence Yesterday the CMS issued a document, Options Available for Consumers with Cancelled Policies, that describes four options available to people who received notice that their healthcare plans were cancelled. (I blogged about the cancellations here.) The first three options aren’t newsworthy: you can buy a new plan from your insurer, buy a…
By Nathaniel Counts Health insurers are beginning to realize the importance of downstream cost-saving. By paying to keep people healthy now, health insurers avoid major expenditures later when they must cover chronic conditions and hospitalizations. For example, by paying for nutrition counseling and fitness programs for prediabetics, health insurers can reduce the rate of transition…
