Author: Avalon Health Economics LLC

Heroin has a new face. According to statistics from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, it’s a white male in his 30s and 40s. Surprisingly, heroin use has grown in recent years, sounding alarms among community leaders, public health officials and law enforcement. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) National...

According to estimates from the World Health Organization, 8.3 million people worldwide died from cancer and other neoplasms in 2008—about 14% of all deaths. In the same year, the overall costs of cancer care in the United States amounted to $228.1 billion– $93.2 billion direct medical costs, $18.8 billion in indirect morbidity costs, and $116.1...

Michael J. Lacey, MSc, has joined Avalon Health Economics as a Senior Consultant focusing on Economic Modelling & Value Strategy. He also works as an independent health economics consultant. He has over 15 years industry experience leading new product market access, health economics and pricing strategy development within medical technology firms. He was Senior Director...

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) program is an incentive-based repayment plan linked to the quality of care hospitals provide to Medicare patients. With VBP, hospitals are held accountable for both the quality and cost of their services, and must reach specified performance measures to be rewarded. CMS continues to...

In recent years there has been renewed attention devoted to coordination of medical care services across the continuum of care, particularly in the area of prevention, monitoring, diagnostics, and disease management. This is not entirely new to the U.S. In the early 1990s, as managed care began to widen its reach and increase market share,...

Joining us recently is Megan Modic, who will provide research assistance on a variety of projects. Ms. Modic is currently earning her Bachelor’s degree in Honors Economics and Environmental Science at Drew University, in Madison, NJ, where she is President of The Fund, a student run investment portfolio.

According to the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association (NHCAA) and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, the estimated annual costs of health care fraud in the U.S. are more than $70 billion, or about 3% of total national health care expenditures. This is an amount large enough to wipe out the savings from many...

Avalon CEO John Schneider spoke at the 6th Annual Latin American & Canada Clinical Laboratory Symposium, Cartagena, Columbia, October 16th and 17th. The title of his talk was “Economics of Cancer Biomarkers: Cost Effectiveness of HE4 in Clinical Decision Making Dr. Schneider’s presentation focused on a conceptual framework for exploring the economic aspects of cancer...

Avalon Health Economics CEO John Schneider presented at the Truck Safety and Litigation Seminar hosted by Marcello & Kivisto LLC law firm in April 2013. In his presentation Dr. Schneider spoke about motor carrier liability cases involving large medical losses, and how Avalon Health Economics uses a common health economics methodology to calculate the “reasonable...

Avalon Health Economics is happy to announce the addition of two new consultants to our panel. Jeff Kamil, MD, joins us in the area of U.S. market access and reimbursement. Jeff worked with John Schneider, Avalon’s CEO, several years ago when John was Director of Research at the California Association of Health Plans. Dr. Kamil...