An accountable care organization (ACO) is type of managed care organization in which physicians, hospitals and other providers takes responsibility for the health and wellness of a population of patients, including responsibility for high quality, appropriateness, and efficiency of the care provided.
In the June 15, 2017 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Andrew Ryan and colleagues from the University of Michigan published an evaluation of the Medicare Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program (HVBP). To summarize, if you offer a 1% incentive, and then dilute it by offering it only for the 40% of hospital patients
This morning, I read about the recently announced next generation version of the CMS Comprehensive Primary Care model, which will require multi-payer participation and will involve up to 5K practices in 20 regions. Sounds interesting. I need to study it in more detail. But based on my initial assessment: I agree with the idea of
First take on new CMS Comprehensive Primary Care Plus model Read More »
At a recent meeting of the American College of Physicians covered in MedPage Today, Neil Kirschner, PhD reported on the growth of ACOs. Dr. Kirschner is the ACP’s senior associate of regulatory and insurer affairs. He reported that in March, 2012, there were only 136 ACOs that had ACO-style gain-sharing contracts with Medicare, a commercial payer
We focus on optimizing care processes, analyzing data, implementing technology, and the other technical and scientific aspects of our work to improve health care. But, this video created by the Cleveland Clinic is a touching reminder of the human element, advocating for empathy in our work. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDDWvj_q-o8&feature=youtu.be
Beautiful video from Cleveland Clinic advocating empathy Read More »
Recently, Jesdeep Bassi and Francis Lau of the University of Victoria (British Columbia) published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) another in a series of review articles that have been written in recent years to summarize the literature regarding the economic outcomes of investments in health information technology (HIT). Such articles answer
New HIT ROI lit review is a methodologic tour de force, but misses the point Read More »
This week, Julie Creswell and Reed Abelson published an interesting piece in the New York Times about how the war between hospital chains puts doctors in a bind. I think the article includes many relevant facts about the consolidation of the health care market. But, I conceptualize the conflict a little differently. Here’s my take…
The race in on between triple-aimers and hospital defenders Read More »
Today, the CMS announced that it added another 89 ACOs to the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP). Including the original 6 Physician Group Practice Transition Demonstration participants, the 32 Pioneer ACO, and the 27 MSSP participants announced in April, that brings the total number to 154, serving more than 2.4 million Medicare beneficiaries. Beginning this
We’re up to 154 Medicare ACOs Read More »
This morning, the United States Supreme Court made its landmark decision to uphold the health care reform law. I am very happy about it for a number of reasons: I won a $1 bet. As I described in a previous post, I bet my brother-in-law, an attorney from Chicago, that the law will be
Trinity Health – Michigan and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM) recently announced that they signed a three and a half year agreement under which BCBSM will provide some funding to support a collaborative effort of Trinity Health and its affiliated physician organizations to make improvements in infrastructure designed to improve clinical integration and support
In a very interesting recent post to the Health Affairs blog, Ken Kaufman challenges the widely repeated assertion that the current low level of health care cost growth can be attributed to the recession. After decades of double digit trend, the rate slowed in recent years down to a mere 3.9% in 2010. The conventional
