Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/298092987?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Thursday, April 11, 2013
Massive meth bust in Australia worth $200M
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Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Insight: Insurers see promise in pay-for-performance health plans
By Caroline Humer
(Reuters) - Insurers and doctors are testing a way to pay for healthcare that has been more common in the corporate suite than the emergency room - paying for better performance, betting it is the key to controlling runaway costs.
Both private insurance plans and Medicare plans in hundreds of locations around the country are using incentives to try to cut healthcare spending and still keep Americans healthy.
After a few years of pilot programs and studies, companies as large as Intel Corp. are offering these plans to employees this year. They believe the programs' tenets - eliminating unneeded tests and following best practices for prescriptions and care - will work.
UnitedHealth Group Inc, Humana Group, Cigna Corp. and others are compensating medical providers if they meet targets in areas such as cancer screening or managing diabetics' cholesterol levels. While robust data is still scant, a study published last year in the Journal of American Medical Association showed these plans - called Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) - can produce savings of 5 percent to 10 percent, which are typically shared between the provider and insurer.
Much of the Affordable Care Act kicks in next year, which has increased the pressure on insurers and providers to provide more services while cutting healthcare costs, which are now 17 percent of the U.S. economy, up from 13 percent in 2000.
Insurers say they will double the number of members in plans based on incentives for care in the next few years.
PRIVATE AND GOVERNMENT PLANS
Large employers, which provide about half of Americans with healthcare plans, are adding these accountable care organizations and other coordinated care initiatives on top of other benefits that focus on prevention. For instance, they are charging smokers more and monitoring employees' health.
About 13 percent of them will have ACOs or similar quality-based contracts with providers by the end of 2014, and 29 percent expect to in the next five years, according to a recent Towers Watson/National Business Group On Health survey.
The U.S. government has several standardized models for ACOs for Medicare, which provides benefits for 50 million Americans, and has so far approved more than 250 ACOs.
In addition to trying to lower costs for individual and small group customers, insurers are creating the plans to hold onto large company business. Healthcare spending cuts and the Affordable Care Act have hit insurers with new taxes and mandatory services while also limiting profits.
"For many of them, that's how they see themselves surviving this transition. They'll have a major role in helping systems improve their care as one of their business lines in addition to insurance, or just paying claims," said Dr. Elliott Fisher, a health policy expert at Dartmouth University's medical school who worked on the study and with the Brookings Institute designed several ACO pilot programs in the private sector.
The plans are just starting, so it is not clear whether all the different designs set up by companies, hospitals and private insurers will produce the savings seen in the more regimented JAMA study, which was based on preset parameters.
"Everyone is rushing to change to a different model, but the results aren't in yet. So when you say what's the success of ACOs to date, the real honest answer is premature," said Dr. Phil Polakoff, a senior managing director in FTI Consulting's corporate finance group.
"TRENDING IN RIGHT DIRECTION"
One of the new programs is in Kentucky. Norton Healthcare, the state's largest hospital system, and Humana Inc., also based there, started an ACO several years ago for their employees as a pilot that it decided to renew this year. Norton aimed to cut what it spent sending its employees to other caregivers.
While neither company provided data on savings to them, saying it was too early for a full analysis of the claims, Humana said its program was "trending in the right direction."
Intel Corp. started its first ACO in January for employees and their families at its Rio Rancho, New Mexico, semiconductor plant. After savings from wellness and prevention initiatives slowed, it wanted to control spending, particularly for its sickest members, who account for about 20 percent of the company's $500 million annual healthcare spending.
Intel's plan includes full coverage of drugs for chronic conditions such as asthma and hypertension and preventive services. Beyond that, it pays more or less depending on how the plan provider, Presbyterian Healthcare Services, meets targets for providing same-day access to care, low cost and patient satisfaction, among other criteria.
Consumer advocates say the focus on quality and improved care is good for patients, but if ACOs limit access to care they could backfire.
"What we would want to ensure is happening is that people have access to the care they need and that all of the appropriate providers are engaged," said Kim Bailey, research director for Families USA in Washington, D.C.
CUTTING COSTS
The JAMA study was based on eight years of data at 10 institutions that took part in the Medicare Physician Group Practice Demonstration pilot and showed that coordinated care cut medical spending by 5 percent to 10 percent. The biggest savings were in lower hospital readmissions and in acute care among people eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid.
The federal government says its Medicare ACO plans could save up to $940 million over four years. It set 33 measures related to patient safety, preventive health services, at-risk populations and patient experience.
Insurers say they are seeing financial benefits. Aetna Inc, for instance, said hospital admissions have dropped by up to 45 percent in a small Medicare Advantage program - private insurance for seniors - it ran in Maine.
UnitedHealth aims to more than double by 2017 its pay-for-performance medicine, to $50 billion, from $20 billion now.
"Measuring the impact on patients of the commercials ACOs is something we are all interested in doing," Fisher said. "The plans themselves are pretty confident they are doing both - improving care and lowering costs."
(Editing by Ed Tobin, Jilian Mincer and Douglas Royalty; Reporting By Caroline Humer)
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NY gambling nun admits taking $128K from churches
ALBION, N.Y. (AP) ? A Roman Catholic nun with a gambling addiction has pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $130,000 from two rural western New York parishes.
The Daily News of Batavia reports (http://bit.ly/10ODYyX ) that 68-year-old Sister Mary Anne Rapp pleaded guilty Monday in Orleans County Court to grand larceny. She admits she stole the money from St. Mary's Church in Holley and St. Mark's Church in Kendall from March 2006 to April 2011.
Rapp faces up to six months in jail when she's sentenced July 1. She'll also be required to pay restitution that would be worked out at a later date.
Rapp was arrested in November after discrepancies were found during an audit.
Investigators said she stole the money to feed a gambling addiction and spent the money at western New York casinos.
___
Information from: The Daily News, http://www.batavianews.com
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ny-gambling-nun-admits-taking-128k-churches-151613312.html
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Tuesday, April 9, 2013
New mouse viruses could aid hepatitis research
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Public release date: 9-Apr-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Jim Sliwa
jsliwa@asmusa.org
202-942-9297
American Society for Microbiology
Newly discovered mouse viruses could pave the way for future progress in hepatitis research, enabling scientists to study human disease and vaccines in the ultimate lab animal. In a study to be published in mBio, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, scientists describe their search for viruses related to the human hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human pegiviruses (HPgV) in frozen stocks of wild mice. The discovery of several new species of hepaciviruses and pegiviruses that are closely related to human viruses suggests they might be used to study these diseases and potential vaccines in mice, without the need for human volunteers.
About 2% of the population is infected with the hepatitis C virus and 5% is infected with human pegiviruses, but it's been difficult to study new drugs or develop vaccines against these infections because the human strains do not infect animals that can be studied in the lab. Lead author Amit Kapoor of Columbia University says it surprised him to find similar viruses in mice.
"People have been waiting for decades to find something like this. It was shocking for me to see that the viruses are there and there are so many of them," says Kapoor.
Kapoor and his colleagues screened an archive of more than 400 frozen rodents, mostly deer mice, for viruses related to the human hepatitis C virus and human pegiviruses. The search turned up a number of candidates, and they selected two for complete genome sequencing: a rodent hepacivirus (RHV) found in deer mice and a rodent pegivirus (RPgV) found in a white-throated woodrat. Sequencing confirmed that the viruses are very closely related to human strains but they represent several novel species in the Hepacivirus and Pegivirus genera within the family Flaviviridae.
These rodent viruses have genes, proteins, and translational elements that closely mirror those found in human hepaciviruses and pegiviruses, suggesting they have great potential for use in the lab. Animal models of hepatitis would help scientists explore the ways these viruses causes disease and aid in the design of treatments and vaccines. Human pegiviruses, on the other hand, have unknown effects, so studying how they work in rodents could well point the way to what they might do in the human body and why so many people are infected.
Kapoor's lab is now focused on exploring the biology of these viruses. "We are trying to infect deer mice, to study biological properties of these hepatitis C-like viruses," says Kapoor. "And if we find one of these viruses is hepatotrophic [having an attraction to the liver] and causes disease similar to hepatitis C, that would be a big step forward in understanding hepatitis C-induced pathology in humans."
###
mBio is an open access online journal published by the American Society for Microbiology to make microbiology research broadly accessible. The focus of the journal is on rapid publication of cutting-edge research spanning the entire spectrum of microbiology and related fields. It can be found online at http://mbio.asm.org.
The American Society for Microbiology is the largest single life science society, composed of over 39,000 scientists and health professionals. ASM's mission is to advance the microbiological sciences as a vehicle for understanding life processes and to apply and communicate this knowledge for the improvement of health and environmental and economic well-being worldwide.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 9-Apr-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Jim Sliwa
jsliwa@asmusa.org
202-942-9297
American Society for Microbiology
Newly discovered mouse viruses could pave the way for future progress in hepatitis research, enabling scientists to study human disease and vaccines in the ultimate lab animal. In a study to be published in mBio, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, scientists describe their search for viruses related to the human hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human pegiviruses (HPgV) in frozen stocks of wild mice. The discovery of several new species of hepaciviruses and pegiviruses that are closely related to human viruses suggests they might be used to study these diseases and potential vaccines in mice, without the need for human volunteers.
About 2% of the population is infected with the hepatitis C virus and 5% is infected with human pegiviruses, but it's been difficult to study new drugs or develop vaccines against these infections because the human strains do not infect animals that can be studied in the lab. Lead author Amit Kapoor of Columbia University says it surprised him to find similar viruses in mice.
"People have been waiting for decades to find something like this. It was shocking for me to see that the viruses are there and there are so many of them," says Kapoor.
Kapoor and his colleagues screened an archive of more than 400 frozen rodents, mostly deer mice, for viruses related to the human hepatitis C virus and human pegiviruses. The search turned up a number of candidates, and they selected two for complete genome sequencing: a rodent hepacivirus (RHV) found in deer mice and a rodent pegivirus (RPgV) found in a white-throated woodrat. Sequencing confirmed that the viruses are very closely related to human strains but they represent several novel species in the Hepacivirus and Pegivirus genera within the family Flaviviridae.
These rodent viruses have genes, proteins, and translational elements that closely mirror those found in human hepaciviruses and pegiviruses, suggesting they have great potential for use in the lab. Animal models of hepatitis would help scientists explore the ways these viruses causes disease and aid in the design of treatments and vaccines. Human pegiviruses, on the other hand, have unknown effects, so studying how they work in rodents could well point the way to what they might do in the human body and why so many people are infected.
Kapoor's lab is now focused on exploring the biology of these viruses. "We are trying to infect deer mice, to study biological properties of these hepatitis C-like viruses," says Kapoor. "And if we find one of these viruses is hepatotrophic [having an attraction to the liver] and causes disease similar to hepatitis C, that would be a big step forward in understanding hepatitis C-induced pathology in humans."
###
mBio is an open access online journal published by the American Society for Microbiology to make microbiology research broadly accessible. The focus of the journal is on rapid publication of cutting-edge research spanning the entire spectrum of microbiology and related fields. It can be found online at http://mbio.asm.org.
The American Society for Microbiology is the largest single life science society, composed of over 39,000 scientists and health professionals. ASM's mission is to advance the microbiological sciences as a vehicle for understanding life processes and to apply and communicate this knowledge for the improvement of health and environmental and economic well-being worldwide.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/asfm-nmv040513.php
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AppGratis pulled for violating App Store guidelines
AppGratis, the popular app discovery platform for finding new apps, has been pulled from the App Store for violating the App Store guideline that says apps that promote others for purchase or promotion in a simliar manner to the actual App Store will be rejected. Basically, AppGratis duplicates a lot of the functionality of the App Store, gets paid to do it, and Apple is saying no.
According to AllThingsD, AppGratis mysteriously disappeared from the App Store and word is that it was because it violated App Store guidelines pertaining to the promotion of apps for financial benefit. Particular, clause 2.25:
Apps that display Apps other than your own for purchase or promotion in a manner similar to or confusing with the App Store will be rejected.
AppGratis is definitely not the only app available in the App Store that provides recommendations for apps on a paid basis. Apple's other clause in question is 5.6 which states that apps can not send out push notifications to users in the form of advertisements. I could name a few that currently do this. According to AllThingsD, Apple is taking a look at others that may violate these terms as well. AppGratis just received a large round of funding so this is no doubt a huge issue for them going forward.
Do you use app recommendation apps to find suggestions or does the native App Store suit your needs just fine?
Source: AllThingsD
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/hxHnTX6ZQUo/story01.htm
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Monday, April 8, 2013
Red Epic Dragon sensor updates start tomorrow for $8,500
Red has announced that Dragon sensor updates will start tomorrow for Epic-M and Epic-X owners and, interestingly, is letting owners (and the public) see the operation for themselves at its NAB booth. The new sensor will bring 6K resolution, 120 fps at 5K and 15+ stops of dynamic range in a slightly larger format, according to Red. Early adopters will be able to pre-order now for $8,500, while Epic owners who wait until Thursday or later will be able to grab the update for $9,500. Filmmakers hoping for a new Epic-M with the Dragon instead of the Mysterium-X sensor will be able to pre-order tomorrow for $29,000 or so. Meanwhile, there's good news for those with the more budget-minded Scarlet -- they'll be able to upgrade to the Epic directly or get a 6k Dragon sensor and ASICs, with pricing details coming tomorrow and pre-orders launching on Thursday. Red may have a tough row to hoe with recent NAB news from the likes of BlackMagic Design and Vision Systems, but how many companies will actually let you watch your camera get operated on? Check the source for more.
Filed under: Cameras
Source: Red
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/08/red-epic-dragon-sensor-updates-start-tomorrow-for-8-500/
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