The American journal of managed care
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Review
The economic and quality of life burden associated with Parkinson's disease: a focus on symptoms.
Parkinson's disease (PD) imposes a significant economic burden on the healthcare system. As the population continues to age and shifts to include a larger proportion of persons 65 years and older, the economic burden related to PD will continue to escalate. Clinicians should be mindful of striving for efficiency, making prudent choices, and allocating resources appropriately. ⋯ In addition, although research thus far has not clearly demonstrated the ability of an agent to provide disease modification, as new, potentially neuroprotective therapeutic interventions are developed and become available as treatment options, the recognition of early disease will be more important. If earlier treatment with neuroprotective agents leads to slowing of disease progression, the result may be less need for care and decreased costs for patients with PD. This may have a measurable impact by improving QoL measures for both the patient and caregivers.
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Current diagnostic modalities in Parkinson's disease (PD) are limited by the fact that they identify PD by the presence of motor symptoms; by this point, over 60 percent of all dopamine neurons within specific regions of the basal ganglia may have been lost. Nonmotor symptoms manifest in PD long before motor symptoms, and the early presence of nonmotor symptoms offers an opportunity for early diagnosis and early treatment of PD, with consequent benefits to patient quality of life and potential treatment cost savings. Numerous different premotor symptoms have been identified; diminished olfactory function and REM behavioral sleep disorders (RBDs) may be particularly suitable for the purposes of early diagnosis. ⋯ Biological biomarkers--including protein panels and autoantibody testing--have demonstrated excellent diagnostic capacity, and a recently identified 5-gene panel has been shown to have high specificity and sensitivity in distinguishing early PD from healthy controls and advanced PD. Increasingly sophisticated neuroimaging techniques are also proving capable of early PD detection and differentiation from other parkinsonian types. These recent developments in PD diagnosis underscore the necessity of rethinking what PD is and how, and when, it can be diagnosed.
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To offer midterm observations and recommendations based on how Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q) alliances are faring in their journey toward improving healthcare quality at the community level. ⋯ Multi-stakeholder alliances' efforts to improve quality should be viewed as "pieces of the health reform puzzle" rather than stand-alone solutions. As healthcare reform is challenged politically, alliances can practice the bipartisanship that focuses conversation on what is good for the community and how best to achieve community goals amid a potential sea of change in both federal and state policy and funding.
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To conduct the first empirical study of competitive bidding in Medicare. ⋯ As a market-based alternative to cost control through administrative pricing, competitive bidding relies on private insurance plans proposing prices they are willing to accept for insuring a beneficiary. However, competition is imperfect in the Medicare bidding market. As much as half of every dollar in increased plan payment went to higher bids rather than to beneficiaries. While having more insurers in a market lowered bids, the design of any bidding system for Medicare should recognize this shortcoming of competition.