The annual Milliman Medical Index measures the total cost of health care for a typical family of four covered by a preferred provider plan, or PPO. According to new data released today, the 2012 MMI cost is $20,728, an increase of $1,335, or 6.9% over 2011. The rate of increase is not as large as previous years, but the total dollar increase was still a record. This is the first year the average cost of health care for the typical American family of four has surpassed $20,000. More here.
15th May 2012
Yikes. A good reminder to substitute sugary drinks with water.
(Source: girlstartingnew)
Reblogged From healthwellnessdisability
Notes: 838
Type 2 diabetes, the kind linked with obesity, progresses much faster and is harder to treat in children than in adults, according to the disappointing results of a new study.
One of four working-age U.S. adults experienced a gap in health insurance coverage during 2011, often because they lost or changed jobs, according to a new Commonwealth Fund study released today.
About seven of 10 survey respondents who went through a period without health insurance lacked coverage for a year or longer. More than half were uninsured for two years or more, according to the 2011 Commonwealth Fund Health Insurance Tracking Survey of U.S. Adults.
Major provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that will go into effect starting in 2014 are expected to help bridge coverage gaps and make insurance more affordable, according to the study’s authors. These include an expansion in eligibility for Medicaid, subsidies for purchasing private plans through new health insurance exchanges, and rules preventing insurers from denying coverage or charging more based on gender or a preexisting condition.
Around a third of US adults use social media as a health resource, according to a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers – whether seeking out medical info, sharing symptoms and experiences or rating drugs, devices, doctors, hospitals and health plans. The consulting giant surveyed 1,060 US adults and found that 42% have viewed health-related consumer reviews (more or less evenly split between reviews of treatments, doctors, hospitals and health insurers) through social networks like Twitter and Facebook. A third have read of friends’ or family members’ health experiences through social media, while 29% have read of other patients’ experience with a disease they have and 24% have viewed health-related videos and images posted by other patients. Not surprisingly, perhaps, those users skew young. Where more than four-fifths of 18-24-year olds said they’d share health information through social media, fewer than half (45%) of those 45-64 said the same. And across the board, users choose community sites over company-sponsored ones, which see hundreds of posts and comments per day where community sites see thousands. “In fact, community sites had 24 times more social media activity on average than any of the health industry companies” over the one-week timeframe studied, said the PwC report.
(Source: futuramb)
From new research released April 16 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In a communications bulletin released April 10, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it has completed its review of recent studies that looked at the risk of blood clots in women taking drospirenone-containing birth control pills.
Drospirenone is a synthetic version of the female hormone, progesterone, also referred to as a progestin. Based on this review, FDA has concluded that drospirenone-containing birth control pills may be associated with a higher risk for blood clots than other progestin-containing pills.
Approved oral contraceptives containing drospirenone include Beyaz, Loryna, Ocella, Safyral, Syeda, Yasmin, Yaz and Zarah.
The following chart shows the risk of developing a blood clot for women who are not pregnant and do not use birth control pills; for women who use birth control pills; for pregnant women; and for women in the postpartum period.
