In This Week’s Issue:
1.PCORI Launches “Engagement Awards” Program to Advance Patient-Centered Outcomes Research, click here to view the press release and here to view a related post on the PCORI Blog.
2. PCORI to Invest $17 Million to Address Disparities in Asthma Burden and Care, click here to view the press release.
3. New York Times: PIPC Chairman Highlights the Need for Communication Tools on CER, click here to view the letter to the editor.
4. IRS Posts Advice to Insurers on PCORI Research Fee, click here to view the Q&A document, and here to view the additional memorandum.
5. The Philadelphia Inquirer: Difficulty Funding Surgery Studies, click here to view the article.
1.PCORI Launches “Engagement Awards” Program to Advance Patient-Centered Outcomes Research, click here to view the press release and here to view a related post on the PCORI Blog.
2. PCORI to Invest $17 Million to Address Disparities in Asthma Burden and Care, click here to view the press release.
3. New York Times: PIPC Chairman Highlights the Need for Communication Tools on CER, click here to view the letter to the editor.
4. IRS Posts Advice to Insurers on PCORI Research Fee, click here to view the Q&A document, and here to view the additional memorandum.
5. The Philadelphia Inquirer: Difficulty Funding Surgery Studies, click here to view the article.
1. PCORI launches "Engagement Awards" Program to advance Patient-Centered Outcomes Research
According to a press release from the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), “The new PCORI Engagement Awards program will offer targeted funding to dozens of groups of patients, clinicians and other front-line caregivers, and others across the healthcare community who are interested in supporting the expansion of patient- centered outcomes research (PCOR) and implementation of its results. It will do so by supporting projects to enhance knowledge of PCOR and its benefits; training to foster partnerships between patients, other healthcare stakeholders, and scientists that can lead to research projects; and efforts to implement results of the research in clinical practice.” Click here to view the press release.
In a blog post, PCORI’s senior engagement staff, Dr. Anne Beal, Susan Sheridan, and Suzanne Schrandt comment, “The Engagement Awards program will have three distinct categories: Knowledge Awards, Training and Development Awards, and Implementation Awards. The first Engagement Awards, the Pipeline to Proposals Awards, fall under the second category, the Training and Development Awards. The Pipeline to Proposals awards are broken into three tiers, each designed to take another step toward producing community-led, patient-centered outcomes research proposals.” Click here to view the blog post.
2. PCORI to Invest $17 Million to Address Disparities in Asthma Burden and Care
According to a June 18 press release, “PCORI will invest up to $17 million in patient-centered outcomes research projects that evaluate comprehensive and coordinated approaches to reducing poor health and other complications related to uncontrolled asthma in these target populations, as well as improving both patients' and their health care providers' adherence to treatment guidelines.” Click here to view the press release.
3. New York Times: PIPC Chairman Highlights the Need for Communication Tools on CER
In response to a recent op-ed in The New York Times entitled “Healing the Overwhelmed Physician,” PIPC Chairman Tony Coelho writes in a letter to the editor, “We at the Partnership to Improve Patient Care have been working closely with dozens of leading physicians over the last year on comparative effectiveness research. Physicians are very capable of weighing the evidence and individualizing care based on it. It would be a mistake to expand high-cost programs like ‘counter detailing’ that outsource that judgment and impose ‘one size fits all’ recommendations based on the assumption that doctors are not capable of making their own judgments. Our partnership will be working this year to support the use of good communication tools on comparative effectiveness research for physicians and patients.” Click here to view the letter to the editor.
4. IRS Posts Advice to Insurers on PCORI Research Fee
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has published new guidance providing information that could help health insurers understand how they will pay the new, $1-per-enrollee Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) support fee. The fee—created by the Section 6301 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)—is supposed to help PCORI fund research grants. In a set of questions and answers, the IRS notes that affected plans can use any of three methods for counting enrollees, and that, for example, an employee and an employee's child would count as two separate lives for PCORI purposes. In a separate memorandum, IRS Associate Chief Counsel Andrew Keyso said “fees paid by issuers of certain health insurance policies and plan sponsors of certain self-insured health plans to [PCORI] are ordinary and necessary business expenses, and, thus, deductible business expenses.” Click here to view the Q&A document, and here to view the additional memorandum.
5. The Philadelphia Inquirer: Difficulty Funding Surgery Studies
In a June 16 article, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports “The Affordable Care Act made comparative-effectiveness research a long-term federal priority by establishing the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. The goal of that research is to make it more likely that medical treatments are based on evidence. ‘Most of what we do is based on anecdotes, theories,’ said Elad I. Levy, a professor of neurosurgery and radiology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. ‘Evidence-based medicine is a holy grail.’” Click here to read the article.
According to a press release from the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), “The new PCORI Engagement Awards program will offer targeted funding to dozens of groups of patients, clinicians and other front-line caregivers, and others across the healthcare community who are interested in supporting the expansion of patient- centered outcomes research (PCOR) and implementation of its results. It will do so by supporting projects to enhance knowledge of PCOR and its benefits; training to foster partnerships between patients, other healthcare stakeholders, and scientists that can lead to research projects; and efforts to implement results of the research in clinical practice.” Click here to view the press release.
In a blog post, PCORI’s senior engagement staff, Dr. Anne Beal, Susan Sheridan, and Suzanne Schrandt comment, “The Engagement Awards program will have three distinct categories: Knowledge Awards, Training and Development Awards, and Implementation Awards. The first Engagement Awards, the Pipeline to Proposals Awards, fall under the second category, the Training and Development Awards. The Pipeline to Proposals awards are broken into three tiers, each designed to take another step toward producing community-led, patient-centered outcomes research proposals.” Click here to view the blog post.
2. PCORI to Invest $17 Million to Address Disparities in Asthma Burden and Care
According to a June 18 press release, “PCORI will invest up to $17 million in patient-centered outcomes research projects that evaluate comprehensive and coordinated approaches to reducing poor health and other complications related to uncontrolled asthma in these target populations, as well as improving both patients' and their health care providers' adherence to treatment guidelines.” Click here to view the press release.
3. New York Times: PIPC Chairman Highlights the Need for Communication Tools on CER
In response to a recent op-ed in The New York Times entitled “Healing the Overwhelmed Physician,” PIPC Chairman Tony Coelho writes in a letter to the editor, “We at the Partnership to Improve Patient Care have been working closely with dozens of leading physicians over the last year on comparative effectiveness research. Physicians are very capable of weighing the evidence and individualizing care based on it. It would be a mistake to expand high-cost programs like ‘counter detailing’ that outsource that judgment and impose ‘one size fits all’ recommendations based on the assumption that doctors are not capable of making their own judgments. Our partnership will be working this year to support the use of good communication tools on comparative effectiveness research for physicians and patients.” Click here to view the letter to the editor.
4. IRS Posts Advice to Insurers on PCORI Research Fee
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has published new guidance providing information that could help health insurers understand how they will pay the new, $1-per-enrollee Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) support fee. The fee—created by the Section 6301 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)—is supposed to help PCORI fund research grants. In a set of questions and answers, the IRS notes that affected plans can use any of three methods for counting enrollees, and that, for example, an employee and an employee's child would count as two separate lives for PCORI purposes. In a separate memorandum, IRS Associate Chief Counsel Andrew Keyso said “fees paid by issuers of certain health insurance policies and plan sponsors of certain self-insured health plans to [PCORI] are ordinary and necessary business expenses, and, thus, deductible business expenses.” Click here to view the Q&A document, and here to view the additional memorandum.
5. The Philadelphia Inquirer: Difficulty Funding Surgery Studies
In a June 16 article, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports “The Affordable Care Act made comparative-effectiveness research a long-term federal priority by establishing the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. The goal of that research is to make it more likely that medical treatments are based on evidence. ‘Most of what we do is based on anecdotes, theories,’ said Elad I. Levy, a professor of neurosurgery and radiology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. ‘Evidence-based medicine is a holy grail.’” Click here to read the article.