Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/1361647
How Much Does It Cost? BY K ATE ANASTAS MORE PATIENTS SIGNING UP FOR HIGH-DEDUCTIBLE HE ALTHCARE PL ANS CALLS FOR INCRE A SED COST TR ANSPARENCY AND A COMMON COST L ANGUAGE. ACCORDING TO DATA presented in the 2019 Kaiser Family Foundation Employer Health Benefits Survey, 30% of workers are currently enrolled in a high-deductible healthcare plan. The percentage has steadily increased each year, as only 4% of patients were enrolled in a high-deductible plan in 2006. Because of the greater financial responsibility placed on patients to pay for a larger share of their medical care, federal laws request that healthcare institutions have more transparency of their costs of services. The Association of American Medical Colleges (A AMC) provides resources for hospitals to have more common terminology when discussing payments. DECIPHERING THE LINGO Patients often experience sticker shock when medical bills arrive, which is only compounded by a lack of transparency on pricing or conflicting information about the cost of a service. This is why the A AMC advocates for providers, insurers and policymakers to use the same terms when discussing pricing. The A AMC encourages hospitals to use the list of standard definitions created by the Healthcare Financial Management Association's Price Transparency Task Force. The list includes key definitions for terms, such as care purchaser, uncompensated care and mission-based payment. The list helps all parties involved follow a consistent framework of cost information and patients make more informed healthcare decisions. To download a PDF of the full list of price transparency d e f i n it i o n s , v i s it a a m c .o r g /s y s t e m /f i l e s /c/2 /4 5 4 1 5 4 - resourcecompilation .pdf. n 059990063_FN2.indd 1 9/3/20 8:07 AM GAME THEORY COULD BE THE KE Y TO IDENTIF YING DANGEROUS ANTIMICROBIAL-RESISTANT BACTERIA. A Strategy to Identify Drug-Resistant Bacteria BY K ATY MENA-BERKLEY E V E R Y Y E A R A N T I M I C R O B I A L- RE SISTANT (AMR) bacteria and fungi are responsible for more than 2.8 million infections and an estimated 35,000 deaths in the United States, according to the CDC. However, researchers with Washington State University (WSU) are working to shift the narrative with new technology. T he resea rch t ea m i ncludes Ph D computer science graduate Abu Sayed Chowdhury, Shira Broschat in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Douglas Call in the Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health. Together, they have created new software designed to recognize drug-resistant genes in bacteria. A CONCEPT FOR CLINICAL SOLUTIONS Bacteria become resistant to medications such as antibiotics when they begin to evolve and develop genes encrypted with mechanisms to make the bacteria immune to drugs. Strains of drug-resistant staph- or strep-causing bacteria that lead to diseases such as pneumonia and tuberculosis are notoriously hard to treat and sometimes may not respond to treatment at all. To target those types of bacteria, which are expected to become more ubiquitous in the decades to come, the WSU researchers crafted a machine-learning algorithm. This algorithm incorporates the concept of game theory to identify AMR genes in the environment. Using this strategy, the research team was able to closely study genetic material, structure and composition of protein sequences and develop software to iden- tify AMR genes that may have otherwise gone undetected. n 2 2