Tennessee, Other States More Aggressive with Medicare Reimbursement

Reimbursement for increasingly expensive healthcare treatments and long term care is an issue and states are finding more drastic solutions.  Even if property is willed, a state can still go after it to seek reimbursement of costs, or so the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled last week that the state's Medicaid program can go after the willed property of deceased patients who received long-term or nursing home care, as reported in Fierce Healthcare

The Volunteer State's High Court reversed the ruling of a lower court that the TennCare program could not seek the home of Ardell Hamilton Trigg, who had willed the home to relatives, the article noted.  The court's vote was unanimous on the matter.  Trigg had received care from the TennCare program between 2002 and 2006, when she died, according to the AP.  and incurred 22,000 in costs.

Long Term Care is a key source of bills for Medicaid.  Despite public perception to the contrary, Medicare does not pay for long term care and a provision in the recent Healthcare Reform Legislation for a funding mechanism was ruled out due to cost. Our report on this topic addresses how the industry is affected by these reimbursement challenges.http://www.kaloramainformation.com/Term-Care-Nursing-6849604/ 

New Vaccines Are On the Way

According to our latest vaccine report there may be 24 billion dollars of vaccines sold that do not exist on the market today.    What’s Next in Vaccines? Published by Kalorama Information, this report details over thirty conditions, including malaria, diabetes, Alzheimers and allergies for which there may be vaccines by 2020.  The healthcare market research publishers made its finding based on interviews and a review of products in Phase  II and III.

 Around the world, vaccine developers are investigating a large number of areas that previously would have not been considered treatable via inoculation.   These range from conditions that cause discomfort but are not considered life threatening, such as allergies and Ross River fever, to diseases that significantly increase mortality such as addiction and diabetes.

Using various novel technologies and mechanisms of action, emerging vaccines are being designed to address both infectious and non-infectious disease. They may be prophylactic, intended to prevent a disease before it starts, or therapeutic, designed to address a disease once it has become established; both types, by definition, seek to create an immune system response that will mitigate against the targeted disease.  A model assuming that vaccine candidates currently in Phase III will be commercialized in 2012, candidates in Phase II will enter the market in 2014, those in Phase I will launch in 2016 and vaccines still in pre-clinical testing will enter the market at some point, and that all are going to see some drop off, as not all candidates are approved, yields best case total sales of $24,792 million in 2020.

What’s Next in Vaccines? (Malaria, Diabetes, Alzheimer's, Allergies and 30 Other Targets in the 2012-2021 Vaccine Pipeline) provides forecasted revenues for products in development out to 2021. The report does not does not cover indication expansions of existing vaccine products, nor does it cover vaccines for which products currently exist and are widely available, but may need improvement. Development of vaccines that incorporate new production methods (such as the migration of chicken eggs to mammal, yeast or other cells) is also excluded. Cancer vaccines are excluded as Kalorama has an entire report on this topic.  More information could be obtained at http://www.kaloramainformation.com/Vaccines-Malaria-Diabetes-6985776/